Welcome to Monday’s Washington Secrets, where we ask whether the world is on the brink of a new political movement, decorated with antler chandeliers? Plus, we have polling on how to win the data center wars (sort of). It may be slated to reach 87 degrees today, but Secrets has a cold. Send honey and lemons, and see you tomorrow.
Is this what a new political movement looks like?
Tucker Carlson is in a plaid shirt in his man cave. Its wooden walls are hidden beneath racks of antique rifles, spears, and machetes.
Beside him, beneath a chandelier of antlers, Marjorie Taylor Greene has her hand on the arm of Brian Glenn, the former White House correspondent of Real America’s Voice, whom she married in Las Vegas last week.
Around the table are other MAGA breakaways and their spouses. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who has installed himself as a thorn in the side of President Donald Trump, and Joe Kent, who resigned as director of the United States National Counterterrorism Center in protest at the Iran war and the influence of Israel in American politics.
“The movement has begun,” posted MTG with the photograph of their meeting, immediately raising speculation that this America First splinter group was planning to launch a new political party, founded on their shared critique of Trump’s failings. The result was an even mix of reverence and ridicule.
The question is whether they can turn clicks into commitments. And social media presence into something real.
The Tucker Carlson Network, for example, claims its content garnered 1.53 billion views across social media and podcast platforms in the eight-and-a-half weeks after the Iran conflict began.
Secrets asked Glenn about the plan, but he said he could not discuss what was agreed upon at the meeting. He said there was a hunger for an alternative to Trump’s vision on the right.
“MTG’s post with that picture has 8.5 million views, 74K likes, 13K repost, 13K comments, and has been bookmarked 4.3K times,” he messaged. “The support is massive. This is a political earthquake.”
In a sign of how big they are thinking, he compared the meeting at Tucker’s home to laying the groundwork for the first Continental Congress in 1774.
Last month, Carlson announced he would do everything possible to break up what he sees as a one-party system posing as a democracy.
“And that’s the lesson of the last two and a half months, to me,” he told the Columbia Journalism Review. “If you vote for Trump and you still wind up in a regime-change war — if Chuck Schumer is strongly behind Trump’s foreign policy, which he is — then we need options, or else let’s just give up and be ruled by the most unscrupulous people.”
“And I’m just too young to accept that. We need a third party.”
It’s fair to say that the reaction to the new movement was mixed.
Some insiders suggested the photograph, with its candles and artifacts, gave off Arrested Development “Alliance of Magicians” vibes, with its rallying cry of “We demand to be taken seriously.”
“They are about to discover that having an online following is not the same thing as winning elections,” a former White House told Secrets.
Laura Loomer, the online influencer and Trump confidant who has clashed repeatedly with Carlson and Greene, said: “Every single one of these people belongs on a government watch list. Every person in this photo is a traitor to America and an anti-Trump operative amplified by foreign adversaries.”
Glenn said the critics were forgetting just how Trump won the last election.
“If you remember, Trump could’ve never gotten elected without MTG and Tucker Carlson,” he said.
How to win the data center war
(Or at least not lose it so badly.)
Data centers are everywhere. The facilities that provide capacity for online computing, storage, and artificial intelligence are all over the headlines, popping up in midterm campaigns, and coming to a sleepy town near you.
They pit Big Tech, which needs them to keep America’s AI advantage growing, against local government and citizens who worry about water use, energy prices, and noise.
Polling from our friends at J.L. Partners lays out the battlefield, with some surprising results.
Some 43% say there are already too many data centers in the country, up from 35% in January, which suggests that the window for big tech to persuade voters of their benefits is closing.
And only one in 20 says the country needs more of them.
But 17% say there are about the right amount, and 23% say they don’t really know what they think. Those are two winnable groups for Big Tech.
In his analysis, J.L. Partners co-founder James Johnson said the debate seemed more about the impact on local communities than a reflection of the bigger AI picture. Their backers should accept that data centers will change the face of these towns forever.
“Shying away from it – or getting hung up on trying to correct myths on water usage or noise – is a mistake, and like in any political campaign it is inadvisable to play on their opponents’ turf,” he said in his latest American Pulse newsletter. “Instead, they should embrace their role and mark themselves out as being the guarantors of the town’s future.”
There is another tactic that can win in red states and counties.
When respondents were first told of Trump’s support for data centers and the jobs and growth they bring, the numbers ticked towards acceptance.
Support rose from 23% to 27%, while opposition declined by 5 points among all registered voters.
It will not win the data center battle, but tech companies may get a quick win in some areas by pointing to Trump’s backing.
Quote of the day
Trump was asked last night why the U.S. had stepped in to buy yen, propping up the Japanese currency. It was a straightforward question. And the president could not resist making a joke of it.
“We’re always there for Japan. Japan’s been very good for us — with the exception, of course, of Pearl Harbor. They were not good.”
This time, he was speaking alone to journalists aboard Air Force One. Last time he cracked that joke in public, he was sitting beside Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi in the Oval Office.
Lunchtime reading
Author of Democrats’ 2024 autopsy says party left out key chapter: The chapter suggested it was Joe Biden’s decision to run for reelection that doomed the party to defeat, and said that the party’s top strategists were “financially secure” and thus removed from the challenges facing ordinary Americans.
Why Marco Rubio is rising: Zachary Faria argues that the Secretary of State understands how American power works around the world.
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