Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA) said Saturday that China and Russia are actively working to turn American public opinion against artificial intelligence and the data centers that power it, citing a stark gap between how the technology is viewed in the two countries.
Speaking on Breitbart News Saturday with Washington bureau chief Matthew Boyle, McCormick pointed to polling showing AI and data centers are roughly 80-20 popular in China, while the numbers run the opposite direction in the United States.
“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 said. “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.”
McCormick argued the stakes go well beyond public opinion polling. He said falling behind China in the AI race would hand Beijing leverage across military, economic, and geopolitical fronts.
“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.
To keep the U.S. competitive, McCormick proposed a “FINRA-like” framework for AI oversight — an industry-run system of rules and enforcement operating under federal guidance, rather than direct government control.
On the question of where data centers get built, McCormick said that decision should not be dictated by senators in Washington. He pointed to agreements struck in Pennsylvania communities including Bloomsburg and Homer City, which he said were designed to protect local energy costs and water supplies while expanding the local tax base and hiring local workers.
Praise for Fetterman
McCormick singled out Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) for praise, calling him “the best surprise I’ve had since joining the Senate” and noting that “his party’s trying to cancel him.” Fetterman has broken from many in his party on AI policy, writing last month that “China continues to fuel and benefit from our overreaction.”
The evidence behind the claim
McCormick’s comments follow a disclosure by X in August that its safety team had uncovered a suspected Chinese bot network of roughly 200,000 accounts, about 200 of which were reportedly posting content aimed at manipulating debate over American AI and energy policy.
That came after a June report from OpenAI detailing a campaign it dubbed the “Data Center Bandwagon,” in which PRC-linked accounts used ChatGPT to generate posts claiming data centers were driving up electricity prices for ordinary Americans.
Cale Brown, chair of Polaris National Security, told Breitbart News the pattern fits a broader strategy.
“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.”
Breitbart News Saturday airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Eastern.
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