Michigan residents react to Trump's comments about data centers in communities

In a widely shared and controversial post to Truth Social on Monday morning, President Trump blasted communities across the country that are rallying against data centers. 

The president claims that China "could not be happier with this anti Data Center movement."

"The massive use of rural land, and I don't know how the water and electricity draw is going to be yet, that's concerning to us," Mike MacDonald from York Township told CBS Detroit.

Data centers like the hyperscale project being built by OpenAI and Oracle, named "the Barn" in Saline Township, don't seem to be very popular amongst residents in the area, and Mr. Trump's post has angered many Michiganders in the communities targeted in the message.

"I haven't heard anybody who doesn't have the same opinion; everybody seems to be unanimous on that," said MacDonald.     

Despite widespread backlash to data center projects across the country, such as the one in Saline Township, Mr. Trump championed the expansion of data centers, saying the "only reason that communities throughout the U.S.A. should not want Data Centers is if they want to end up being backwards and poor."

"Nothing he (President Trump) says means anything anyway. I think it's a waste of resources and I'm strongly opposed to AI in all its forms," said Timothy from Saline Township.

The fight over data centers, which has played out at city council meetings across Michigan, is only growing. 

"The focus on data centers has been unique specifically to this calendar year; there's just been an explosion of activism out there against data centers," said Chris Kobus, engineering professor at Oakland University.

Kobus told CBS News Detroit that the debate over these massive buildings is even more prevalent in Michigan because the state has seemingly perfect conditions for building data centers. 

"The power infrastructure, there's infrastructure for cooling, particularly water, internet backbone is very important. They're just looking for locations where they don't have to do a lot of infrastructure build that already isn't there," said Kobus.

The conversations surrounding these data centers should remain vital ahead of November's midterm elections across the country and in Michigan. On Monday, Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed posted online, claiming that opponent Mike Rogers' position on data centers is the same as what Mr. Trump posted on Truth Social.