Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA) is laying the blame for growing American skepticism toward artificial intelligence and data centers on a foreign influence campaign, telling Breitbart News Saturday that China and Russia are actively working to sour the public on the technology.
The Pennsylvania Republican pointed to what he described as an inverse relationship in public opinion between the two countries. In China, he said, AI and data centers enjoy roughly 80-20 support. In the United States, that dynamic is flipped.
“The reason it’s so polarized in the United States is in part because China is leading a campaign along with Russia to turn people against AI and data centers here,” McCormick told host Matthew Boyle, Breitbart’s Washington bureau chief. “That’s not by accident. It’s because the Chinese are shaping the dialogue, and it’s because these big tech firms did a bad job early on in rolling out these data centers.”
The senator framed the stakes in stark terms, arguing that ceding leadership on AI to Beijing would carry consequences that reach well beyond the U.S. economy. “If China were to be the AI leader, it would give them a military advantage, an economic advantage, and they could set the rules for the world,” he said.
A FINRA-Style Model for AI Oversight
To keep pace, McCormick floated an industry-led approach to AI governance — what he described as a “FINRA-like” model, in which the private sector writes and enforces rules under federal government guidance. The comparison evokes the financial industry’s self-regulatory body, which operates under the oversight of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The proposal comes as lawmakers on both sides of the aisle grapple with how to regulate a fast-moving technology sector without stifling its growth. McCormick, a former hedge fund executive, suggested the answer lies somewhere between laissez-faire and heavy-handed federal mandates.
On the specific question of where data centers get built, McCormick was adamant that the decision shouldn’t rest with Washington. He pointed to agreements in Pennsylvania communities like Bloomsburg and Homer City that he said protect energy costs and water resources, expand local tax bases, and hire local labor.
The remarks reflect a broader push-and-pull playing out across the country, where data center construction has drawn both enthusiasm over jobs and investment and pushback over electricity demand and water use. McCormick’s argument is that well-negotiated local agreements can address those concerns without top-down intervention from the Senate.
McCormick Praises Fetterman, Says Party Is ‘Trying to Cancel Him’
In a notable moment of cross-party praise, McCormick spoke highly of Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), calling his fellow Pennsylvanian “the best surprise I’ve had since joining the Senate” and adding that “his party’s trying to cancel him.”
Fetterman has broken with much of his party on AI policy. Last month, he wrote that “China continues to fuel and benefit from our overreaction,” a position that aligns him more closely with McCormick than with many of his Democratic colleagues.
The two senators’ shared concerns echo a growing body of reporting about foreign attempts to influence the American debate over AI and energy policy. In August, X disclosed that its safety team had identified a suspected Chinese bot farm of roughly 200,000 accounts. According to the company, 200 of those accounts were posting content designed to “manipulate a legitimate debate about American AI and energy policy.”
That finding followed a June report from OpenAI detailing accounts linked to the People’s Republic of China. The report dubbed the operation the “Data Center Bandwagon” campaign, describing how ChatGPT was used to generate posts claiming that data centers were driving up electricity prices. The posts appeared designed to inflame local opposition to the facilities.
Cale Brown, chair of Polaris National Security, told Breitbart News that such tactics are part of a broader pattern. “The CCP will leverage every tool, including American AI and American social media platforms, to divide and weaken us,” Brown said. “At the same time, they ban these same social media tools in their own country because the party’s greatest fear is of their own people.”
A Debate With Real Stakes
The data center debate has become a flashpoint in states where tech companies are racing to build the infrastructure needed to power AI systems. Local concerns about rising utility bills, water consumption, and land use have increasingly collided with the economic promise of construction jobs and tax revenue.
McCormick’s comments suggest he sees a dual threat: genuine local grievances that companies failed to address early on, and a foreign disinformation effort amplifying those grievances for strategic gain. His proposed remedy leans on industry self-governance and locally negotiated agreements rather than federal mandates — a position that may find support among Republicans wary of regulation but could face skepticism from Democrats who want stricter oversight.
With China investing heavily in its own AI capabilities and the U.S. racing to maintain its edge, the senator’s warning is likely to intensify an already heated conversation about how America builds, powers, and regulates the technology that will shape the next decade.
Breitbart News Saturday airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Eastern.
Source: www.breitbart.com — https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2026/09/26/exclusive-sen-dave-mccormick-says-china-russia-fueling-u-s-data-center-backlash/