Early voting begins amid Republican panic

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1:01Tonight, it's the eve of early voting, and it's hard to say which is worse for Republicans. Donald Trump's polling, or Donald Trump's new campaign slogan, about how inexpensive his Iran war is. Plus, what happens when one of Donald Trump's least popular pet projects touches down in the heart of Maga Country? And I'll head to the big board to explain why polling is not the only metric that puts a race on our radar. All right, it's Thursday, September 17, 47 days, until the midterm elections, which we tell you every day. But this one's a little bit different because we are now just hours away from the very first ballots being cast. Early voting begins tomorrow in Minnesota, South Dakota, and Virginia. So while we've been talking about candidates having only a few weeks left to make their case to voters, in some cases, the time is up. And when those first voters head to the polls tomorrow, they will be waking up on day 204 of Donald Trump's war on Iran, to gasoline that now costs a national average of $4.44 a gallon,

2:06and diesel that costs an all-time high of $6.40 a gallon, which is pushing up the cost of everything else. So if you're a Republican running for office this year, that's your guy. This is his economy. These are his numbers on the eve of early voting. A new Fox News poll found that 61% of voters say the price of gas is a major problem for their family. Another 29% say it's a minor problem. So in total, that's a full 90% of voters agreeing that the price of gas is something of a problem for them. 90%. I'm not sure 90% of Americans agree that today is Thursday. And in case you're wondering, yes, they are connecting those gas prices to the president's policies. 63% of registered voters say that Donald Trump has made the economy worse. That same poll, by the way, also asked voters if congressional elections were held today, whether they'd vote for the Republican or the Democratic candidate in their district. 51% of people said they'd choose the Democrat. 44% said they'd choose the Republican, which is a seven-point difference.

3:06But when you narrow it down to voters who say they are extremely interested in voting, that margin widens to a full 15 points. So overall, these are not great poll numbers. If you're any kind of Republican running for office this year, but if you're a Republican like the former RNC chair, Michael Watley, who's fully cast his lot with Donald Trump, and now finds himself in a tight race, you're a subject not only to those terrible poll numbers, but also to the president himself, showing up in person to help you with your campaign by saying stuff like this about the costs of his war in Iran. It's a very inexpensive price to pay for what we've done. Remember that it's a little more. It's even if it was, frankly, even if it was a lot more. But that's going to come tumbling down. That's going to be like a rocket ship in reverse. Rocketships don't reverse, by the way. I can't speak for the voters of North Carolina, but I don't think I would be persuaded by hearing from a billionaire who's on the losing end of a war that no one asked for and no one approved. It's actually a very inexpensive war, while I pay

4:11$4.5 for gasoline for gas the cost me less than $3 before the war. But that's not only a terrible stump speech. It's just a lie. There's no reason to believe that the war will end or that prices will come down anytime soon. That reverse rocket ship right now is looking much more like a regular rocket ship. Analysts say gas prices are said to take a big jump in the near future with the worst yet to come. As the rate of oil going through the strait of Hormuz remains low and a crucial pipeline in Saudi Arabia remains closed after Iran linked drone attacks. And when fuel costs more, just about everything else costs more because transporting goods to market costs more. And when prices keep going up, that's called inflation, which the Federal Reserve now calls a persistent problem that this week justified raising interest rates for the first time in three years. That coupled with the existing turmoil in the bond market is driving up borrowing costs for Americans on everything from credit cards and home loans. US mortgage rates just went up for the fourth straight week, approaching 7% for a 30 year fixed loan. That's the highest posted rate

5:16in over a year and a half. And that rate, by the way, is for a borrower's best case scenario for locking in a mortgage. Plenty of Americans are now being charged even higher rates for new loans. So happy early voting, Eve, to all who celebrate. Joining me now, our Peter Bynard, MS now political analyst, professor at the New Mark School of Journalism at the City of New York, and author of the Bynard Notebook on Substack and Christina Greer, professor of political science at Fordham University and co-host of the FAQ NYC podcast. Friends, good evening. Thank you for being with us. Peter, there were times. There were wars and there were times, even after 9-11, but second world war where the message to Americans was you have to sacrifice a bit for the greater good and the world war to the greater good was really both existential and important. Nobody takes this war all that seriously. So the idea that it's an inexpensive price to pay and that there's something patriotic about wanting to pay higher prices for gas or anything else, I don't know how that lands. Now, the land's very poorly. I mean, Donald Trump never made the case

6:17for this war to begin with. It wasn't even popular to begin with. Even Americans most unpopular wars like Vietnam are usually popular at the beginning. For a little bit of fun. This was never popular and there's no prospect that it's going to end. I think it's very likely this war will continue until the next presidency. It will continue through Donald Trump's presidency and it will be extremely hard for any American president to end because the end will be so humiliating for the United States to come to terms with the shifting regional order in the Middle East in which we are far weaker. So Christina, I don't really get it because he says that the war with you and I've talked about this. He said the mission accomplished. He says America controls the straight of hormones. At some point, people have to believe their lying eyes, right? They fill gas, they understand the things cost more. We know inflation it up to the extent that Donald Trump's hand-picked Fed chair who was hand-picked to bring interest rates down yesterday voted along with the 11 other Fed governors and presidents to raise interest rates. There's no getting away from

7:19this. No. And Iran has called our bluff consistently. And our allies in the region are now just we don't want any part of this. And to your point, there was never a justification that was made. We all literally woke up one morning and said we're at war in Iran. Even as ill-thought-out as Iraq and Afghanistan were, so many Republicans and Americans could justify it because we were attacked on 9-11. Ergo, there's a response for the next 20 years. This is just a figure of Donald Trump's imagination. Something that Democratic and Republican presidents were smart enough not to endeavor for several presidency's over time. Now, as we get into the holiday season, where people like to travel, you know, we're exiting from summertime and now getting to holiday season, we know Republicans keep trying to say, well, don't think about gas or your grocery prices or the rising prices of everything. Think about trans children playing sports. That's what we just need you to focus on that because our policies are woefully unpopular. The prices of

8:20everything are going up and it doesn't just affect Democrats. That's the thing. It's affecting Republicans in Republican-led districts and they're asking for a justification and something that Republican leaders can't say only that the president has it under control and he seems more concerned about buildings and demolishing buildings and building, you know, new additions and gold, lume, statues and building arcs, everything not the issue at hand. So the focus is just not there. So Peter, you spent a lot of time thinking about global affairs and whether you like them or not, Lindsey Graham was a guy who spent a lot of time thinking about global affairs. He had a pretty sophisticated approach to it. Darlim Graham, who has succeeded him in the Senate and is running for his seat, has said to Christina's point, I believe only U.S. citizens should vote in elections. I believe boys shouldn't play girl sports and I believe in our military. I mean, this is a thing. This is an actual talking point. The first two things are provably just not things. Right. Right. Like, you're telling Americans who are paying $250 million more a day collectively

9:25for gas that they should be worried about citizens voting in elections, not citizens voting elections, which doesn't happen. Right. And boys paying, playing girl sports, which I don't understand how that makes it into the top 50 things that people are worried about right now. Right. I mean, Donald Trump's political success was built on him talking about things that people actually, some things that people actually cared about right. Immigration was a big issue. It was an issue with Democrats, how to genuine weakness, even if you think that his response to it has been horrifying. Right. On the economy, there was inflation and people were hurting and Donald some people believed, I think, wrongly, that Donald thinks it had been better under Donald Trump at least before COVID came along. Now, the Republicans can't really talk, like, you know, like, don't go, can't talk about anything that's actually happening in the country that's actually affecting people. Right. They're having to basically invent issues like sharia law, like how many Americans are actually affected in their lives by this or again, these inventions that Americans are affected by an epidemic of non-citizen

10:29voting. And I think, except for the people who are just completely in the tank, most people understand at this point that it's a distraction. The Texas obsession with sharia law is quite interesting. Like, you would think that God forbid you go to Texas, it's just going to become a Muslim just for showing up. There are something happened this week that sort of flew under the radar, but Thomas Massey, who is fully out of favor with Donald Trump, raised the impeachment of Pete Hegseth. He read the articles of impeachment against Pete Hegseth. He says he's got some other Republicans who would support his push for impeachment. It's not going anywhere because Mike Johnson has vacated the House at this point, so nothing's going to happen. But there is a flavor of accountability that might be coming after the midterms. Well, I think a lot of Republicans recognize that they are not safe. And so they might, many of them might survive this, this 2026 election. But if the train keeps going in this direction, which the president doesn't seem to want to change course, they know that they're all in jeopardy. I mean, these numbers cannot sustain themselves over time

11:33for Republican electives. And you can only create but so many issues. Remember in 20 2004, it was gay marriage out of nowhere, right? Instead of Iraq and Afghanistan wars. I mean, Massey has a point though. I mean, he has always said, we have unified government. All of these problems are under a Republican House, Senate, and President. So the best case scenario for some of these Republicans in Congress is that they don't have unified government and that the Democrats take over one of the houses. So then they can at least say, well, I can't do my job because the Democrats are preventing me from doing it. But as of now, I mean, the fact that it's so close is highly problematic for a host. I'm with you on that. Host of reasons. But Democrats need to articulate not just the problem that is, but what is the vision is if they take over one or both of the houses, how are you going to actually take that out? So this is a very good point because people obsess about the the left-right splits and in the Democratic Party. I'm not sure. I'm not even sure that's an important split. There's a lot of enthusiasm amongst Democrats. We've seen it in the primaries.

12:34But there is a split about what you're supposed to do when you take the reins of power. So if they win either the House or the House and the Senate, what then comes next there? Some people who would like to see retribution and accountability and impeachment and that sort of thing. There are others who would just like to get the stuff under control, like stop the war, bring prices down. Then there are yet others who'd like a democratic equivalent of a sort of a project 2025, a laying out of a strategy as to what governance under Democrats look like. What do you think should happen? I think it's difficult partly because the Democrats won't be able to pass legislation, or even if they did, it would be vetoed by Trump. Part of this is about setting the agenda for 2028. One thing they could do is they could vote to defund the wrong war. I worry that they will be timid about this because of this old kind of legacy of to being called anti-military. But I actually think that that would be a bold thing to do even though they probably wouldn't be able to succeed. To say no more money for this war, I think that would be valuable. Secondly,

13:37the accountability and the investigations are really important, right? Not impeachment votes for the sake of impeachment votes, but there are people who have really done wrong things. Yes, partly because that is at least a certain deterrent to the epic corruption that is continuing. When people know I'm actually going to have to testify, I'm going to have to hire lawyers, I could be in trouble. That's the only way we have of stopping this massive. Then I think you're right. The question then becomes what is the agenda for making the lives of ordinary people better? I think on a small scale, we've seen that Zoram Dhani has actually been a test case for things that Democrats can look to. It continues to be an interesting administration to watch here in New York. You follow this very closely. Speaking of which, there are discussions. We've seen a greater presence of DHS and ICE in New York City. This isn't something that we were able to offend off for some time, but it's here. There are a lot of arrests. They're just not doing what they were doing in Minneapolis. They're not really nearly shooting people, but there's still a lot of arrests. States are preparing for, you know, Kashmah was asked about this. Will you guarantee that

14:41you will not have FBI agents at polling places? He didn't really answer that properly. States are preparing for this intimidation. You don't have to go that far back in history, in American history, to understand what people in uniform at polling places can do to citizens. Yeah, I mean, but the thing is, Oli, most Americans don't know their history. I argue often that black history is American history. Most Americans don't know the history of what's happened to black people. And so that's why they're clutching their pearls. Like, how can this be? You're going to fight people at the polls? And every black American is like, welcome to America. This is the way we have behaved since 1965 voting rights act and even before. So I think that, you know, one, the positive, there's always positives. One of the positive things about this administration is that so many Americans are going to want a wake-up call and two, a crash course in civics. So they're understanding the importance of a secretary of state. When states, the Abrams ran against Brian Kemp and we're explaining it to folks, like, states, the Abrams is running against an opponent and the coaches and the referees and the owners of the stadium in Brian Kemp, who is the secretary

15:44of state who controlled all the ballots and everything and the machinery and all the mechanisms for an election. So this is why Georgia has a fantastic secretary of state democratic candidates so there's no higher. And so there are ways that states are preparing for the future. But this is going to be a serious election, especially as you opened with early voting. A lot of Democrats will hopefully take advantage of early voting while it's still available and while it's still possible because the shenanigans that may happen on November or so many people are prepared for. And so not saying that it can't or won't happen during early voting, but we do know that that. But at least you have options. On election day, that's usually when we see this presence of force. Yeah, if you're like me and you vote at like five o'clock on election day and then you're running into trouble, right? You know, yeah, apparently if you can prove your citizenship, they'll let you out of lock up, but you'll have missed your vote. So take advantage of this. As I said, voting starts in a few hours in three states in the United States. Please stay with me because after the break, I want to turn to Donald Trump's apparent threat to tear down the Kennedy Center if

16:46you can't put his name on it. Plus, MSNOW's Josh Ainegger is going to be here with exclusive new reporting on the consequences of AI's power sprawl cutting straight through the heart of Trump country. Shavvy is called the heartbeat of America for a reason with SUVs made to move with your rhythm. The versatile equinox tackles your entire day. The spacious traverse fits your crew and your whole weekend and tracks bring style with value you can count on. All infused with tech that has your back. So your drive always hits the right chord. Let's do the heartbeat! Adventure awaits in a new Chevy. Right now, get $500 bonus cash on select Chevy Tracks models. Plus, get 2.9% financing on all 2026 Tracks models. Together, let's drive at your Southern California Chevy dealers.

17:46Bonus cash is available on 2026 Chevy Tracks LT and active trims only. 2.9% APR for 36 months. Monthly payment is $2904 for every $1,000 new finance. Example them payment 11%. Must finance with GM Financial. Some customers may not qualify. Not available with lease and some of their offers. Take your retail delivery by 93026. Thanks for visiting our yoga class. Tap when you're ready. What just happened? It's my new BMO Angel City FC debit mastercard. Every time I use it, it taps me into the game. Okay, maybe don't do it again. These socks are nice. I'm going to go ahead and so sorry. The BMO Angel City FC debit mastercard. Tap into the game. A counselor specific to approval in a provided in the United States by BMO Bank and I. Remember FDIC. BMO! I'm Livy Dunn, all American gymnasts and V-Ori athlete. When you travel and train as much as I do, you find happiness where you are. On the mat or on the sand, movement and comfort are essential. That's why I live in performance joggers by V-Ori. Made from DreamNet fabric that's made of 89%

18:51recycle materials, effortlessly soft and made to move as much as I do. My happiness starts here in the softest joggers on the planet. Get 20% off your first purchase at V-Ori.com slash Libby. That's V-U-O-R-I dot com slash L-I-V-V-Y. Exclusion supply. Not only will you receive 20% off your first purchase, but enjoy free shipping on US orders over $75 and free returns. Go to V-Ori.com slash Libby and discover the full versatility of V-Ori clothing. Exclusion supply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions. Federal judges now demanding the Trump administration explain its plans for the Kennedy Center and give 30 days notice before any new changes are made to the exterior of the building. This comes after Trump said yesterday that the complex may be ripped down if he can't put his name back on the building. And after these photos were published last night, showing Donald Trump inside Air Force One, looking at a large printout or a poster which appeared to preview the possible demolition

19:55of that famed institution. In a statement, the White House blamed Democrats for allowing the Kennedy Center to quote, rot, arguing that it needs to be temporarily closed for renovations. But all the White House, all the while not denying the demolition is under serious consideration. And tonight we're learning of yet another brewing battle over the administration's desire to emblaze another federal building with Donald Trump's name. Just hours ago, an emergency motion was filed in court seeking to block the imminent carving of Donald Trump's name into the headquarters of the US Institute of Peace. The motion was filed by board members who were removed by the Trump administration as part of its efforts to shutter the nonpartisan institution. They alleged that a contractor has already been selected to do the carving. Notably, Trump's name is already on the building, but it's a removable bolt-on fixture. This one they want to be permanent. They want it carved in your Peter, Peter, right? The first of the stuff never works, by the way. For all these people who decide that they want to carve their names into things, it doesn't last. It doesn't stand the test of time. But it's kind of, it's weirdly upsetting that this is how we've got big

21:00banners of Donald Trump on buildings in Washington. We got his name going up on everything. This is kind of not what the framers had in mind. No, I mean, it just reflects his complete inability to distinguish the national interests from his personal. It's the same thing of the points, national park tickets. It's right, or the Justice Department. He can't get it through his head that the Justice Department is not his personal lawyers. He's bidding. They actually work for the country. Yes. Right? And so I think it's basically complete. I mean, this is the irony, the horrible irony, the idea that Donald Trump somehow is patriotic, right? Right. Do you have to have some notion of the state of the country as separate from yourself? And he has none. Yes. What? So, ever. And we see it manifested. And this is, I mean, I'm surprised he hasn't tried to call it the Trump United States of America. We made everything else with him. I want to play something from Joyce Beatty tonight. She was on Gen Socky's show talking about that she's a member of the Kennedy Center Board. Let's listen to what she had to say. He's holding the institution hostage. He's saying, if you don't put my name on the building,

22:03I'm not going to take put my money into it. It's just outrageous that we have to consistently have judicial intervention to protect this monument against Donald Trump saying he's going to bulldoze it if he doesn't get his way. So one may care or not care about the Kennedy Center, but now you're made to care, right? And like all of a sudden, their institutions of this country like the Smithsonian that maybe it didn't spend any time out of you, didn't care. But now you're like, it's weird. You're wrecking an institution. I may not feel a personal attachment to, but I now need to be involved in the fact that you're wrecking this and now have to go to court to stop you from doing it. Thank God for the people who are trying to stop the ballroom and stop the Kennedy Center destruction and trying to stop the renaming of institutions. But what a waste of our collective time. Right. I mean, in representative Beatty has been at the forefront of just check, counter check with the president, but she has other important things that she could be doing. You know, Lonnie Bunch, she was the director of the Smithsonian Institute. He held the breach and continues to do so. But you know, he's the intellectual architect behind the, we call it the

23:07Black Sonia and the next museum of African American history and culture. You know, I mean, he's done so much to make sure so many Americans across the country are educated with, you know, Donald Trump and his administration, not just Donald Trump, making sure that we erase and delete the history of America because it doesn't make him feel good. He feels bad. And so this is, you know, to Peter's point, you know, this is why we should care about attorney general races across the country or secretary of state races. I've never interviewed a secretary of state before Donald Trump. I couldn't have named it. Exactly. Or, you know, you know, we think about Tanya Miller who's running in Georgia, right? She's running against an opponent who says, well, I'm here to be Donald Trump's lawyer. And what we remember about Georgia when Donald Trump says, find me those 11,770 or your secretary of state or your attorney general is in that position. That's why these governors races are very important this time. It's incredibly important. So I think, you know, as Americans, this is why I believe in, you know, political tithing, right? It may, you may think you're in a blue state. There are no such things as blue states. It's red states with blue cities, right? New York City had 12 years of George Pataki, a Republican governor, New York City,

24:09or New York State. New York City had 20 years of Republican governors or Republican mayors under Giuliani and Bloomberg. So it is possible, right? Wisconsin is not a foregone conclusion, neither is New York. People have to get out there and actually be participants in their democracy. But you also need to pay attention to other states, you know, you may not know anyone in Georgia, but you need to support the candidates, the myriad of qualified candidates on that ballot. You need to make sure in your own state, you support candidates that actually have a vision, especially the ones who say, I will not be Donald Trump's personal lawyer. I will not actually bend the knees to Donald Trump. You're going to elect members of Congress who will actually consistently fight for cultural institutions when the president has a massive billboard that they have to have. But I would love for my representative. My representative is not to have to be in these fights. I'm grateful that they are, but I would love that they didn't have to be. Right, and this is all we've got. There is Donald Trump's sins of commission and sins of omission. Right? So when we're doing all of this and people are spending, people are spending all of their time trying to just prevent this insanity, right? In a normal presidency, a normal government,

25:13people would be getting together to sit down and say, how do we prevent artificial intelligence from killing us all? Right. Right. Let's work on that problem. Right? Together. Together. Right? And people might have somewhat different views, but like there would be a conversation about that we end up having these conversations instead. Yeah. And we will be paying the price decades from now. Yes. I entirely agree with you. Thank you both for being here tonight. I always appreciate it. Peter Bydart and Chris DeRier. I was going to try and wing your university names, but we have competing New York universities here. Peter is a professor of journalism at CUNY and the author of the Bydart notebook on Substack Christina is a professor of political science at Ford University and the co-host of the FAQ NYC podcast. All right. Coming up, the controversy surrounding AI, as he was just talking about, lands in Trump country where AI's need for power is so strong that it's now breaking up family farms. Chevy is called the heartbeat of America for a reason with SUVs made to move with your rhythm.

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28:27Hi, here's something voters know but the AI industry does not advertise. None of it runs without electricity, a staggering mind-boggling amount of electricity. We're very valid technical reasons for this, but data centers aid up about 4.4% of all the electricity in the United States in 2023. Way before this was the big thing that it is now, 2020-26 now. And that number could triple by 2028. That's according to the US government Department of Energy. That is so much electricity that the tech industry has maxed out the power grid around Washington in what's known as data center alley and is now looking for more power wherever it can find it. That search is now crossing state lines into the small towns and bordering farms of West Virginia. That's where the proposed solution is roughly 260 miles long. It's a 765 kilowatt transmission line stretching across the state. It's forcing a reckoning. Most residents never saw coming, turning the fight from whether or not data centers are good or bad to a battle of what it takes to feed them. And Josh Eininger

29:30traveled to Jefferson County, West Virginia where this proposed high voltage transmission line is about to cut through family land and where the raw politics of AI are quickly getting complicated. Imagine somebody coming into your home and saying, hey I'm moving in, whether you like it or not. As if farming wasn't hard enough already. That's what we all feel like. Hi, town town. Ericka Reiner sang every dime she had into Huckleberry farm. Come on gang. Few dozen acres in Charlestown, West Virginia where she built a second career after losing her federal job last year. She and her family raised beef cattle on land the founding fathers once rode. But now an unwelcome development may threaten it all. Starting there in the front field and it will go right along the tree line. On top of already skyrocketing diesel prices and tariffs, she fears she's about to pay the price for big techs in satiable appetite for power.

30:33Data center capital of the world highest concentration of data centers in the country. Data centers hundreds of them just over the Virginia state line in Loudon County where there is so much demand for power the grid operators are running out. Ripples through the electric current across half the country result of data centers in Loudon County, Virginia. There isn't enough electricity to turn the lights off. They cannot risk a grid shutdown. Their solution plug into a plant in central West Virginia and build an ultra high-tension line. With critics are calling a massive extension cord to carve a 200 foot wide path through more than 200 miles of countryside and straight through Huckleberry Farm. Erica first learned about it from a flyer in the mail. You mean to tell me that taking away my farm is going to be the answer to your problem with sourcing power to get to these centers. That's that's not nobody can convince me of that. It's like right in the middle of your property. Yes it is. Which is where we're able to take away the better part of the third of our ground. People high above the chain on us

31:36don't care that that is beautiful to us. They don't live this life every day but I bet they'll belly up to a table for a nice steak when they're done their meetings and their dinners and all that stuff and it's because of people like us. You know the 13 colonies we came 30 states and this was the border. This was our front here. Tony Campbell spent three decades in the army. Now as head of West Virginians against transmission injustice he's fighting the project known as Valley Link North. A power line rated for 765 kV. That's enough for more than two million homes. If you see that tree line over there the towers rise above that tree lines. It will rise above all the tree lines because it's going to be a massive high V shaped towers that are going to go over 180 five feet high. That's how many stories. Well that's probably give 15 16 story building right. Of course people's concerns about valley

32:38north aren't about the existence of power lines. They have power lines in West Virginia. It's that the ones Valley North would install could be 50% taller than these. A spokesperson for Valley Link was unable to talk on camera but in a lengthy statement said the ultra high voltage requires towers this tall adding they need extra space around them for safety. The statement also said West Virginians will benefit from the power line to the tune of nearly 14 million dollars in annual property tax revenue and as for people's individual property Valley Link says it hasn't yet figured out a final route. Once it does it'll reach what it calls mutually acceptable easement agreements through good faith negotiations. Eminent domain the statement continued is never the preferred option. However if a necessary easement cannot be obtained through voluntary agreement it may be used as a last resort. That means if people are unwilling to sell Valley Link could just take the landed needs for a price it sets. I've talked to folks I said

33:39if they offered you a million dollars for the right way would you take it you know the answer is hell no. It's not for sale. West Virginia is not for sale. You're angry. I am a little angry. You can see it Josh. I am angry because the people who are doing this have no love for our land. They don't have any love for our people. They don't have any respect for us. We're just in their way. We are the people that live along a dotted line that they grew on them out. Literally just devastates the property. It goes right through that quadrant over there and crosses in front of this view. When Terry Sojak-Lock closed on her land overlooking the Shenandoah Valley she expected to build a venue for weddings. But according to Valley Link's own literature the power line will split her property in two. Whatever they might offer for the right of way she says the rest of her land will be worthless. It's the richest part of our country right here in our backyard. They want us to pay for it. They don't really think about what it does to people's properties. I

34:41don't think I don't think they care. I mean why would they? The biggest data center AI market is is running the stage. Thank you folks. The anger over Valley Link is coursing through this part of Appalachia, a region whose politics run deep red, anger at the data center developers, at local politicians and at the president. So if I were a community I would want the data center. After all the expansion of AI infrastructure is a key trump priority and recently even as polling suggests most Americans are opposed to data centers he's only doubled down. He wrote on truth social quote the only reason that communities throughout the USA should not want data centers is if they want to end up being backwards and poor. Back at Huckleberry Farm we flew a drone over Erica's land. She'd never seen it from above. So when you see this I mean what surprises you about this view? That it wants to be taken from us. That's everything we've worked for in our adult lives.

35:46After voting three times for President Trump she blames Doge for losing her government job added in the fuel prices and the tariffs. And now this. When we talk about how angry it makes us when the next you know when the next hardship comes along of the towers the betrayal is pretty significant. Come time for presidential elections. Yeah it's going to warn a conversation of what party we vote for. Absolutely it will. How's it go? Full for me one shame on you. Full me twice shame on me. Yeah that kind of deal. All right joining me now is MS now senior reporter Josh Eininger John. It's excellent. Thank you very much for doing that for us. Full me once. Full me try she's she's she's a three time Trump voter and she said it's going to warrant conversation about how it goes next. So how is she squaring this because she sounds very betrayed by this whole thing but it isn't decisive yet for her. So Ali I think I mean one of the

36:47main points about farming in general is it's just all about challenge. I mean it's always a challenge. It's there's nothing else goes right right there's water there's drought there's pestilence. All the stuff they have to deal with market prices. And there is a deep distrust for people who tell them what to do right and and and want to interfere with their land right so here you have a really hardworking woman who and by the way is conservative she's a Republican she's not you know flying out of the Republican party anytime soon. Right very clear about that but look at what she's dealt with in the last couple years she had a government job actually that she says she believes was downsized because of the doge situation right while she's been doing this now she's focused all her time on this the straight of her moves is closed diesel prices have skyrocketed fertilizer the tariffs and the beef prices are in chaos all of this is happening to her in the last couple of years and she didn't vote for that right she voted for a set of things and that's not what she voted for. So you brought up an interesting point

37:52there's no data center anywhere around that. Loudoun County does have the on across the across the border or into Virginia but this eminent domain thing that was slipped into that very long statement that you got the idea that it eminent domain is never the first choice but it might be used as a last resort Americans respond very strongly to that generally I mean as much as it's the law of the land that eminent domain can be used the government can if it can justify taking your land they can take it and and hopefully arrive at a price for what it's worth nobody wants that. No of course nobody wants that and and and I will point out that was not in their original statement I asked follow-up right to ask specifically about eminent domain and and so that that is a relevant question and people are worried about that that's the biggest thing they're they're concerned about because I mean at the end of the day Ali I really I mean if you take them at their word Valley Link doesn't want to just take people's land they want to do this in a in a way that you know they're involved in the community basically they haven't come up with a route yet they're going to have community meetings they're going to meet with people that are going to negotiate with them but they got to build the line right they say right you had that one

38:57right I said I wouldn't do it for a million dollars well exactly so so what do they do and at some point yes there is this process by which they say that if if it's the last resort they'll go ahead and do that so what is the price in that case what does it mean for somebody like Erica she said so that line that dotted line that would basically be a third of her land now let's talk about the power lines for a second right so there's there's high as they are yep because they there's an electrical field yeah yeah it's that electricity and things like that so Valley Link actually told me that they have examples of places where farming and stuff is done under these lines but no one nobody actually wants it to be their cat exactly yeah right so they don't want their children going to school under power lines either so exactly and in this and in Erica's case her plan is to expand her business yep to buy more heads head of cattle to do more of this work and and she has a whole business plan yep that she says this would just destroy while you're been you've been covering data centers right the AI conversation has exploded in the last two weeks in every possible

40:01way and it's very hard to come to terms with what's really happening on one side there people are saying that humanity is going to be extinct in 10 years there are others who think this is a bit of a financial play because the market is very frothy a number of these companies would like to have public offerings and they kind of need a little government slow down they're kind of this is a bit performative right Stephanie rule holds that view that it's a bit performative where do you think this is what's going on what has suddenly happened in the last two weeks that have made these AI executives suddenly decide they'd like to be on the right side of history I think that to your point it's really impossible to know yeah I think that there is this huge backlash that the public is having against all of it and it started at the grassroots with whether it's data centers or whether it's this power conundrum on in this land that was you know much of it unchanged is George Washington surveyed it as a boy right so like that's at the one end people are just so angry and at the same time you're seeing politicians reacting in real time trying very hard to

41:03distance themselves from this and and so I think there's a world here where you know the whole industry is trying to be like whoa whoa we didn't you know let's all slow down we've all gotten over our skis here and you know maybe we all need to take a deep breath it could be something like that it could be all of the above the end of the day there is huge antipathy toward not just data centers but also AI people fear for their privacy concerns and they fear for you know big tech overreach and I'm not I'm not unhappy that the conversation has shifted a little bit because I think you should be concerned about data centers and the water that they use and the energy that they use and also about the underlying technology right right there to to separate there we should probably think about both absolutely but they all have a political problem yeah right yes and they all have this you know they this PR problem so you know if if everything is based in PR and at a certain level I mean there there's a point where these big tech companies and the White House and you know Congress and the regulators all have to get their act together because they have lost the American

42:04public whether it's through the big picture height you know 30,000 foot AI conversation or it's this yeah farm remarkable thank you for doing this thank you and thank you for coming I think you flew in from somewhere yeah I was in LA and you need to sleep my friend I always appreciate that you you choose us to sleep MS now senior reporter Josh Eininger all right coming out tonight's race on our radar takes us to South Florida where two former TV news anchors are battling out to represent what a Florida's largest congressional districts. All right tonight the race on our radar is Florida's 27th congressional district the statistic was slightly redrawn this year when Florida Republicans conducted mid decade redistricting to earn more congressional seats for Republicans had the 2024 election taken place within the new boundaries this district would have voted for Donald Trump by 14 points it's located entirely

43:08within Miami-Dade County it has a population that is 74% Latino now the district is represented by Maria Elvira Salazar she's a Republican and a former television news anchor Salazar is being challenged by Elliott Rodriguez another former television news anchor most campaign prognosticators still view this as a likely Republican hold but today we were given reason to keep a closer eye on it because Maria Salazar the Republican released this campaign ad. Mr. President some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far in July 50% of the 50,000 people that were detained had no criminal record be careful what your advisors are telling you about immigration policies the same Hispanics who help you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today. Wow that's a Republican in an allegedly safe Republican seat directly criticizing Donald Trump although she dodged a little bit by saying your advisors but directly criticizing Trump on his key policy with no public polling to rely on candidate behavior is one of the best

44:13indicators that we have of shifting momentum that sure look like a shift to me Republicans have dominated South Florida in the Trump era they've actually dominated Florida but Salazar's ad today is one of many signs that Trump's immigration policies have soured Latino voters across the country including in South Florida. All right coming up tonight's night like takes us to a church in Birmingham Alabama 63 years ago a Sunday school lesson called a love that forgives and a light that reminds us of the work that still needs to be done to preserve our freedom. Tonight's night like takes us to Birmingham Alabama where 63 years ago this week four young girls were attending church but this wasn't just any church founded in 1873 the 16th street Baptist church was the city's first black church it became so central to the community that it was

45:14simply known at the time as everybody's church. The four girls came dressed in their Sunday best ready to take part in youth Sunday which is a special day when young people helped lead the service. Addy May Collins was 14 years old outgoing and artistic she liked to sing. Carol Robertson was 14 she loved to read and dance another 14 year old Cynthia Wesley was excellent in math and reading. Denise McNair was only 11 she liked to put on plays dance routines and poetry readings to raise money for muscular district free research. The Sunday school lessons the girl girls heard that morning was called a love that forgives after class the girls gathered downstairs to get ready for the 11 o'clock service. Addy May and Denise were going to sing in the choir Carol and Cynthia would serve as usher's. Addy May's younger sister Sarah was there too she remembers Denise asking Addy May to help her tie a sash on her dress and just as Addy May went to do so bomb exploded. Members of the Ku Klux Klan had planted dynamite just outside the church and the force of the blast

46:16killed Addy May and Carol and Cynthia and Denise. Sarah survived what was badly injured and lost an eye. More than 20 other worshipers were injured in the attack the bombing shocked the country and proved to be a turning point in the civil rights movement. People returned this week to the 16th street Baptist Church to open a new education and visitor center built not just to preserve what happened there but to give people a place to reflect on what it means for them now. Before they left visitors were asked to make a commitment to something they can do to make their own community and the world around them a little better. Across the lobby floor there are concentric circles representing the ripple effect that one action can have on another and above them there's a huge window that lets the sunlight pour in hanging from the ceilings are four glowing rings one for Addy May one for Carol one for Cynthia and one for Denise. 63 years later the light of those four girls are still shining reminding us of the work that still needs to be done to preserve our freedom.

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