JD Vance Gives Very Different Take On Data Centers When Pressed on Trump’s Latest Praise

Vice President JD Vance worked overtime on Monday to try to clear up President Donald Trump’s strongly worded defense of data centers when pressed on the president’s comments by a reporter.

Vance took questions from reporters before boarding a flight to the key swing state of Michigan, where data centers are a controversial topic.

“On AI, President Trump today said that Americans should get on board with wanting more data centers. How do you think that message goes over ahead of the midterms, where this is becoming kind of a touchpoint in some areas?” a reporter asked Vance.

“Well, what the president said about data centers is: they’re an important part of the AI economy. When people build them, they have to build the power plants along with the data centers. I think probably 99 percent of the backlash to data centers has come in areas where building a data center means higher utility and higher electricity bills for the people on the ground,” Vance replied, adding:

So I think what these companies have to do is take advantage of some of the federal deregulatory efforts that we’ve undertaken. If you build a data center, you should be putting power back into the grid, not taking it out. And if that is happening, I don’t think the data centers are that controversial. It’s when the utility bills get so much higher — that’s when it’s a real problem. All right, guys, we’ll see you on the other side. Take care.

Vance struck a noticeably different tone than Trump did earlier in the day in a post on Truth Social. While Vance acknowledged the anger and some of the energy drawbacks surrounding the warehouses needed to run artificial intelligence, Trump praised them unequivocally and slammed their critics. Trump wrote Monday morning:

The only reason that communities throughout the U.S.A. should not want Data Centers is if they want to end up being backwards and poor. If they want to be successful and rich, with far lower taxes and jobs all over the place, let Data Reign. The good news is that there are plenty of other places that want them. If we kill the Golden Goose, you will only have yourselves to blame. China could not be happier with this anti Data Center movement. Actually, they can’t believe it is happening! President DJT

In mid-August, Axios obtained a memo from National Republican Senatorial Committee warning that Democrats are making data centers the “centerpiece” of their campaign to unseat Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH).

“If he loses and data centers get the blame, politicians across the country will take notice — and they will not go near the next one. This has become a sleeper issue for the entire election cycle,” read the memo.

Watch the clip above via C-SPAN.

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