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Brian Kilmeade and Mike Rowe discuss the Data Center Controversy from all sides . . .

Brian Kilmeade: Mike Rowe. Mike, great to see you. You are involved in this debate. It's an interesting one. Instead of an elementary one, where do you stand on it? Are you worried about the building of data centers?

Mike Rowe: Look, I don't want to be glib about it the way I often am. There are some things about AI that frankly, worry me to death. But data centers. I've seen this play before. Man, I I've seen it with Y2K. I've seen it with 5G. I've seen it with the pandemic. I've seen it with global cooling. I've seen it with global warming. To me, it feels like the latest thing we're supposed to be scared of. And I just don't get it. There are 5000 data centers in the country right now. We've been living in a data center world for the last 30 years. Every email you've ever opened, every text you've ever sent, Spotify, Netflix, Amazon, your fantasy football league, all of it relies on AI and not AI. But but the data center itself. The crazy thing people. I think people actually believe there is a cloud, you know, filled with all of this information. It's just computers on racks in giant in giant buildings built to hold computers on racks. It's they're talking about building 1300 new ones. It's going to be a $10 trillion infrastructure build out, according to Larry Fink at BlackRock and Scott Bessen and JD Vance, all of whom I've spoken with about this. You're right. You can't put the poop back in the goose. We're here. We're in it. And unless we want to be as dependent on China as we currently are with with ships and rare earths and everything else, we. We just can't afford to be this scared of. It doesn't make sense.

Brian Kilmeade: And we have triple the number of data centers that China has. They don't worry about regulations or what other people think. I think you might have noticed that. But we put up a chart while you were talking. This is what people are worried about when it comes to AI. They'll get back to data centers. Oracle laid off 21,000. Amazon 16,000. Dell 11,000. Meta 8000. Paypal. 4700 plus. When that happens, people get concerned about AI, and that's why the commencement speakers get booed at commencement addresses in May. How do you make sense of that?

Mike Rowe: Look, I'm old enough to remember how many jobs were lost at Circuit City and Barnes and Noble. You could go down the list when Steve Jobs introduced the first iPhone. It was way more disruptive than this. Look, again, I don't mean to minimize fear because fear is scary, whether it's justified or not, but there's just no perspective to it. This is what building things looks like today. It looks like data centers. It used to look like something else. And if you go back a little further again, we've been there and we've done it. It was terrifying to go from an agricultural economy into an industrial one. It was horrifying to go from industrial into technical, into financial services. Well, it's happening again, and it's scary because nobody has a crystal ball and nobody wants to be fired. But in my little slice of the internet. We're seeing job security like we've never seen in the trades that you mentioned before. My foundation has exploded. Not a week goes by that I don't hear from the leader of some consequential industry looking for ways to bring more electricians and plumbers and pipefitters and CNC operators into the mix. The government's got the memo, Brian. They've just launched a new project called Build Freedom, and there are hundreds of thousands of jobs that are being created right now. And for the life of me, I don't know why nobody wants to talk about them.

Brian Kilmeade: Right. Well, we got to get the for example, in New York, they missed out on fracking. They said it's environmentally dangerous. Pennsylvania says, I'll try it. And it revitalized them. And Ohio said, I'll take it, thank you very much. And revitalize them. Oklahoma. So they're willing to miss out on data centers now because they think it's politically correct thing to do. But this would be plumbers and pipefitters. Electricians, right. And they'll be turning to Mike Rowe to do that. Correct.

Mike Rowe: Well, I'm here, you know. I mean, I just got a $10 million donation from the Department of War to reinvigorate those exact jobs within the defense industrial base. This thing is huge. It is the biggest infrastructure build out in the history of the world. And I'm not just making stuff up. I mean, it's Larry Fink at BlackRock. It's Scott Bessent at Treasury, it's J.D. Vance. They see it. It's coming. Look, it's even bigger than that. It's every consequential company I know of, from Lowe's to Home Depot to Fedex to Ford to Carhartt. It's down the list. They've got the memo. They know what's coming. And this. Look, one other thing that's important. I think there is a war going on right now for public opinion. And the negatives you mentioned are real. It's like 75% negative for data centers and AI in this country. In China, it's 85% positive. And when you ask senators like Dave McCormick and some other guys high up on the food chain, what's going on? It's China, it's bots, it's TikTok. The the amount of slop, if you will, that's been created to to influence the way we think about this issue. It's enormous. And it's happening in real time right in front of us.

Brian Kilmeade: Because the only way, Mike, to stop America is to work America through marketing. So this marketing that's going on against data centers and AI works to our enemy's advantage. And you see through it and hopefully it will unwind it and prove it. And Mike, by the way, I now know your price. If I want to get Mike Rowe in a tie, 10 million bucks, it got you in a, in a, in a suit. I can't believe it to to receive a.

Mike Rowe: I don't even know what to.

Brian Kilmeade: Think.

Mike Rowe: I don't even know what to bill you for this appearance. Brian. Honestly.

Brian Kilmeade: I know it's just. Invoice me and I'll handle it through PayPal.

Mike Rowe: Mike Rowe hey Mike Rowe works.org. We've got the money. Seriously, there's millions of dollars waiting for work ethic scholarships and we are serious. We've got interest like we've never seen, and we're going to train a lot of people this year.

Brian Kilmeade: So please, this is legitimate. Get to him right now. He's got a great team to convert your inquiry into a into an occupation. Thanks so much, Mike Rowe. You're the best.