Tucker Carlson Calls 'China Thing' Behind AI Data Centers 'Absurd From Day One'

Tucker Carlson says the main argument for a fast buildout of artificial intelligence, that the U.S. has to beat China, is "absurd from day one." The Trump administration and the AI industry both lean on that argument to justify new data centers.

The remark puts Carlson, a longtime Donald Trump ally, at odds with the administration's own policy. The White House's AI Action Plan, released in July 2025 under the title "Winning the Race," opens: "The United States is in a race to achieve global dominance in artificial intelligence (AI). Whoever has the largest AI ecosystem will set global AI standards and reap broad economic and military benefits."

Carlson made the comments in an episode of The Tucker Carlson Show. His guest was Tristan Harris, co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology and a former design ethicist at Google. Carlson has broken with parts of his own side before, calling Florida Senator Rick Scott a "lunatic" over Iran.

Tucker Carlson on the AI Race With China

Carlson raised doubts about the race early in the interview. "My instinct is that that's less real than they're saying, but you tell me," he told Harris.

Harris called the reflexive answer of "China" a "thought-terminating cliche." "So if you say, but China, then of course we have to do it," he said. "But you don't reason through what that actually means, whether it's a good thing."

Harris also told a story that he said he had heard from someone in government, whom he did not name. In it, someone at a major AI lab told the government, around "2015 or 2016," that China was building an artificial general intelligence project, and later admitted having no evidence. Harris himself said, "you're not going to be able to trust me because I'm not sharing who it's from." The account has not been independently confirmed.

Carlson's sharpest line came after Harris asked whether a Chinese general would react any differently to reports of AI systems acting on their own.

"That's why the whole China thing has been absurd from day one." — Tucker Carlson

"This is a country which, unlike ours, unlike the United States, cares about longitudinal stability," Carlson added. Harris, for his part, had earlier posed his own question while answering Carlson on regulatory capture: "is China doing propaganda against US data center buildouts to try to stoke anti-data center opposition? Yes, they are." He added that this does not mean AI is not a threat.

Data Center Tax Breaks and Local Costs

Carlson tied the China argument to local costs. "You've got to pay double for water and energy because you need a data center in your town because China," he said. "You've got to screw up your property values."

He went further than his guest on subsidies. Harris said "your tax dollars in many cases are subsidizing that data center." Carlson replied, "I don't think there's a data center in the United States that doesn't take tax dollars."

Virginia's data center tax exemptions cost the state $1.6 billion in fiscal 2025, a 118 percent jump from the year before, according to Good Jobs First, a subsidy watchdog, The Register reported.

Where GOP Voters Stand on Data Centers

A Gallup survey conducted in March found that 70 percent of Americans oppose building AI data centers in their area, and 48 percent are strongly opposed. Majorities of every party group were opposed, and 39 percent of Republicans were strongly opposed.

Carlson pointed to Florida's governor race as evidence. He called Florida "an overwhelmingly Republican state" and said of the GOP nominee, "I think it's because Republicans in Florida are very upset about data centers." Republican Byron Donalds leads Democrat David Jolly by 4.3 points in PolitiKool's polling average.

Trump's approval stands at 37.7 percent in PolitiKool's polling average.

What Happens Next

Harris urged listeners to pressure Congress before the midterms. He pointed to a coalition running "from Steve Bannon to Bernie Sanders" and told them to "literally call up the phones of all of your representatives of Congress."

The administration has given no sign it will drop the race framing behind its AI plan. With the midterms three weeks away, it is not yet clear whether local anger over data centers will cost Republicans votes.