House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries blasted Republicans Monday for being “pro-data center without any restraints,” making his strongest rebuke yet of the tech industry’s massive infrastructure buildout as it becomes a key issue in midterm campaigns.
“Donald Trump and Republicans are divorced from reality,” Jeffries said at a Capitol Hill news conference. “They think that the affordability crisis is a hoax. Donald Trump and Republicans have made clear they love inflation. Donald Trump and Republicans have told the American people directly, ‘We don’t think about your personal financial situation.’”
“So the Republicans — it should come as no surprise — are pro-data center without any restraints,” he continued.
Jeffries specifically attacked Republicans for policies embedded in their sweeping 2025 tax cuts-focused domestic policy bill, putting the weight of the Democratic leadership behind a new front in the AI infrastructure wars and signaling more clearly than ever that they intend to tie the GOP to data center growth.
“House Republicans voted to preempt state and local authorities from regulating data centers at all,” Jeffries said. “And every single House Republican but one or two voted to unleash data centers on the American people in an unfettered fashion. That’s facts, right there.”
His broadened criticism of Republicans’ approach to artificial intelligence and the infrastructure needed to power it comes amid a groundswell of voter frustration in key battleground districts about the impact of data centers on their communities.
President Donald Trump entered the fray Monday, posting on Truth Social that communities that reject data centers will end up “backwards and poor.”
Jeffries told POLITICO earlier this year that protecting consumers from rising electricity costs associated with the data center boom would be a priority on Democrats’ should they win the majority, but his latest remarks sketched out a much more sweeping rhetorical offensive. He specifically blasted vulnerable Republican Reps. Mike Lawler of New York and David Valadao of California for voting to “give tax credits to people building massive data centers in communities across the country, particularly in rural America, without restriction.”
“They can try to run away from their votes right now,” Jeffries said. “We will not let them hide.”
Also at the news conference, Jeffries defended taking a meeting with Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner which sparked significant Democratic blowback earlier this month. He likened his conversation with Kushner to the bipartisan work Democrats undertook to pass housing affordability legislation earlier this year.
“He asked for a meeting. I took it. Nothing more. Nothing less,” he said, saying the discussion “largely focused on, from my perspective, the affordability crisis” and how to solve it.
“And by the way,” he continued, “that’s what Democrats have been committed to doing as we’ve indicated from the very beginning of this Congress.”