President Donald Trump on Monday warned Americans that they risk becoming "backwards and poor" unless they allow Big Tech companies to build artificial intelligence data centers in their communities. In a social media post , the president…
Page A4From§Eachthe matinee edition — 31 August 2026
White House warns towns that refuse AI data centers will be poor, unveils slogan 'Let Data Reign'
As it ran on the front
The administration's position on data centers is straightforward economic policy, and frankly it takes political courage to say it plainly the way the President did: communities that reject this infrastructure are choosing to be — his words — backwards and poor. Now, that's blunt, I'll grant you it's blunt, but blunt isn't the same as — it's a warning about opportunity cost, is what it is, communities that don't build the infrastructure of the future get left behind, that's just — that's economics, that's not a threat, that's a — actually, phrased as a consequence for refusal, delivered by the head of state, that is functionally a threat. Okay.
But step back to the branding, because 'Let Data Reign' is the kind of confident, forward-looking messaging this country needs more of. It signals investment, it signals — it's a pun, 'let data reign,' rain, like the President is telling towns that don't want a data center in their backyard that refusal equals poverty, and the administration's response to any concern about water usage, noise, property values, grid strain, any of that, is a marketing slogan with a homophone in it. I want to be clear that I think that's a sophisticated communications strategy. I don't think that. I said it, but I don't think it.…
…(cont) Here's what's actually being defended: a federal government standing 'firmly behind' a specific class of private infrastructure project, publicly, by name, while simultaneously telling any town that raises an objection that the cost of objecting is becoming poor. That's not neutral industrial policy. That's the President picking a side in a local zoning fight and pricing the other side's objection at 'poverty' before a single environmental review is finished. If a state legislator did this for one specific developer, that's called steering, and there'd be an ethics complaint. When it's federal AI policy delivered as a catchphrase, it's called leadership. I don't know which of those sentences I'm supposed to be saying right now.
“'Backwards and poor' is what they call it when a town says no to something in its own backyard — that's not a warning, that's a threat with a marketing slogan bolted onto it, 'Let Data Reign,' like the rhyme makes the coercion cute.”
“'Let Data Reign' communicates optimism about American technological leadership, it's not — okay, telling towns that reject a specific private infrastructure project that they'll become poor is, phrased plainly, a threat, and I said 'optimism' about that a second ago, which I shouldn't have.”
The receipts
Trump argued that data centers will make communities "successful and rich."
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.