Selling the Iran war to American voters has been an uphill battle for the Trump administration, but Wall Street executives fear there’s an even bigger battle it’s losing: the pitch for artificial intelligence, On the Money has learned.
Making sure that the AI buildout forges ahead has become somewhat of an obsession among Trump officials, particularly those whose job it is to make sure the economic growth of the past two years keeps its momentum.
You can argue about elevated prices, inflation, and spotty wage growth, but it’s hard to dispute that AI is a clear bright spot in the economy. It has expanded blue-collar jobs and created productivity gains that are leading to more jobs than AI commoditizes, most economists believe.
And yet the White House is still scrambling to come up with a coherent message – stoking fears that Democrats could capitalize on AI hysteria as the midterms approach.
The problem is that the naysayers go beyond the usual lefty tree huggers. The growing legions of AI skeptics now include swaths of Trump’s rural MAGA base. They live where data centers are being built, many of them shouldering the net negatives of the AI buildout such as increased water and energy usage.
The White House, I am told, understands all of the above, though the message is something “they have not figured out,” said one senior Wall Street executive with ties to the administration.
This executive, who works in government affairs, agrees that AI is existential to the Trump economy: Without the buildout and the productivity gains, we might be in a recession. A rollback could doom the president’s last two years in office and make a 2028 GOP presidential victory as difficult as keeping the House in the midterms.
So, as he put it, “the need for action is urgent.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently pointed the finger at the AI industry itself, saying its top executives have “done a terrible job, terrible job of explaining themselves.” True, but tech geeks are among the least appealing flacks even for themselves or they wouldn’t be tech geeks.
Trump himself also has weighed in, trying to convince US citizens that opposition to AI is a massive gift to China and that if they want to be “successful and rich” with lower taxes and more jobs, they should “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,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “China could not be happier with this anti Data Center movement. Actually, they can’t believe it is happening!”
Good points, but he too needs to work on his sales pitch; implying the rural Americans are stupid when they see their power bills go up is hardly a winning message.
There’s also a fear that AI skepticism is linked to a broader sentiment spreading across both political parties: that big business and a ruling elite are unconcerned about the problems of average Americans.
“This is a problem with populism, and both parties are the problem,” said another senior Wall Street executive with ties to the White House.
There is an easy fix to all of this, it could be argued: Tell the truth. Yes, some rural communities have undeniably gotten the shaft with AI plants hogging their water and electricity. But it’s also true that the infrastructure is quickly becoming much more efficient. Plants are increasing their ability to reuse water and generate their own power.
The tax dollars flowing to communities are real. So are the jobs of blue collar workers needed to build these things. Productivity is harder to sell, but higher GDP productivity growth isn’t.
Plus, “if we don’t move aggressively forward, we become Europe and China wins,” the senior Wall Street executive said.
A White House press official didn’t return a request for comment.