|

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) has dismissed popular concerns among the American public over Big Tech’s hastened buildout of data centers across the U.S. as nothing more than propaganda pushed by the Chinese government.

In an interview on AI with Fox Business on Monday, Johnson was asked how he plans to fight back against Democrats seizing on opposition to data centers to attack Republicans in the midterm elections.

“I’ve had several tech executives and lawmakers, to be clear, say that the information against data centers, that push back against data centers, that is coming from China,” said Fox host Cheryl Casone.

“Yes,” replied Johnson. “Don’t buy it. It is a Chinese psyop.”

“I really believe that. It’s not a conspiracy theory,” he went on. He then contradicted himself, claiming that “the community concerns are important” and that companies seeking to build a data center must “ensure the local community they’ll be good corporate partners.”

Johnson’s comments ignore the massive, nonpartisan anti-data center movement that’s erupted in the past months.

A mountain of polls and grassroots campaigns across the country this year have revealed a groundswell of opposition to tech companies’ massive buildout of data centers amid the explosion of AI adoption. Proposals by tech companies to build data centers in communities across the country have been met with protests and organizing campaigns.

Polls repeatedly find that the vast majority of Americans say in surveys that they oppose the construction of a data center in their community, and the very concept of them is extremely unpopular, even among Republican voters.

A New York Times/Siena University poll conducted earlier this month, for instance, found that 61 percent of voters oppose the construction of AI-supporting data centers in the U.S. entirely, including 40 percent who said they “strongly oppose” the idea. Opposing voters cited water and environmental impacts, local resource usage, and distrust of AI as their top concerns.

Still, Republican officials and tech executives have tried to spread the conspiracy theory — which cybersecurity and media experts have cast doubt on — that it is China that is behind the opposition. President Donald Trump told Fox earlier this month that it’s a “China PR thing” that people don’t want data centers in their communities, and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has blamed the opposition on a “propaganda war.”

Officials have cited reports from tech firms that claim to have rooted out and banned bot-run Chinese accounts that spread anti-data center sentiment. But these reports have not found evidence of a widespread campaign. Last month, X said that it found 200 Chinese anti-data center accounts — on a platform with more than 500 million monthly active users, according to owner Elon Musk. Meanwhile, OpenAI said in June that it banned a set of Chinese accounts that were highlighting harms of data centers to local communities, but admitted that the campaign didn’t gain much traction.

“This was not a case of an influence operation creating a debate. The debate existed already. This was an influence operation from China trying to interfere in it. We didn’t see any signs that they succeeded,” said Ben Nimmo, OpenAI’s principal investigator for threats, per NPR.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) criticized Johnson’s claim for sweeping aside public opinion.

“No, Mr. Johnson. The 75 percent of Americans who oppose data centers, including a majority of Republicans, have not fallen victim to a ‘Chinese psyop,’” said Sanders on social media on Tuesday. “They are rightly concerned about AI billionaires raising their electricity bills, destroying the environment and threatening humanity.”