00:00I'm kind of glad we hit the landmark. It brings attention back to one of the biggest challenges in government.
00:04I always said the education, health care and debt are the three biggest challenges to America.
00:10This is a landmark for sure. The problem is every time we get further in debt, we've been downgraded twice
00:15as a as a currency.
00:18When we reach the corruption of Social Security, which is going to come this next presidency,
00:23you'll see a real uptick in the the ability to borrow versus the interest rate.
00:28And that's going to basically hamstrings. I don't even know if we'll be the industry standard at that point of
00:33currency.
00:35I've told it several times. We had several of us, about 20 of us, holding out on different bills.
00:40But the president a lot of times says, look, this is the best bill you can get.
00:43And this is why I don't think we need a filibuster for a budget.
00:47Now, I agree. I think we should have a filibuster for everything else, every other law.
00:50But for the budget, it's our only constitutional responsibility.
00:53It doesn't matter if the Republicans or the Democrats are in charge.
00:56Whenever you have a filibuster, it just adds pork.
00:58That's one thing we could do that would be really easy to reduce the deficit spending.
01:02But you said, you know, the president says, well, this is just the best bill that you can get.
01:06Do you think he's worried enough about the national debt?
01:10I don't think anybody's worried enough when it comes to politics.
01:13I'm very concerned that when we actually talk about what our future is for Americans, for our children,
01:20when they're paying $2 trillion in debt servicing, which is coming quickly, by the way, in the next 10 years,
01:24I would say.
01:24We've already doubled our debt just in the last decade.
01:28Think about that.
01:28We went from about $20 trillion to $40 trillion in just 10 years.
01:32Our interest rates are going up because we've been degraded as a currency.
01:36This is a massive problem.
01:37It's going to affect everything we fund.
01:39When you only bring in about $5, a little over $5 trillion in taxation and revenue,
01:44and then you spend $7 trillion every year and it's going up and the disparities are becoming greater,
01:49that's not a good sign for the future.
01:51We talk a lot about AI on the show, and I imagine it's something you're talking about when you're on
01:56the campaign trail as well,
01:57when you're back in your home district and around Alpharetta.
02:00It's become a real political issue, the building of these data centers.
02:02And I wonder sort of where you fall on if the U.S. should be going full steam ahead building
02:07these things,
02:07if you'd counsel there needed to be more time here for communities to consider the impact that they might have
02:12on them.
02:13What's your outlook on the massive data center build that we're seeing across this country?
02:17Well, I've toured several data centers.
02:19I just got back from NVIDIA a couple weeks ago, talked to Jensen Huang, talked to leaders in the industry,
02:24talked to community leaders, people who are concerned.
02:27One of the things that really worries me is actually outside influence.
02:30We have some communities that have 250 people show up to protest a data center being built in that community
02:36when you know there's hardly more than that in the community.
02:39We have people being shipped here from all over the United States.
02:42What is a concerted effort?
02:43Why are people from other communities coming in?
02:45I think this is a bit nefarious.
02:47I think that China or somebody who doesn't want us to compete with them is funding it
02:50because this is something we do need as Americans.
02:53If you think about the wealth, the technology, the ability to solve things in the health care,
02:58less than cancer, radiology, energy, pretty much will affect every portion of our life.
03:04And if we don't get this right, we will fall behind.
03:06There are ways to do it very responsibly, by the way.
03:08All the data centers now are closed.
03:10They don't consume water.
03:11They recirculate it.
03:13The energy sources, those fuel cells that we're producing are phenomenally clean
03:17and produce enough energy to fund them and then some.
03:20In other words, it can be a benefit to the community.
03:23So all the worries, all the drummed up alarmism is really bad for the future of America
03:28if we don't get this right.
03:29I was just over in Ireland and talking through the ambassador there to the companies there.
03:34And if they don't build data centers and energy sources,
03:37they will move those 70% of their income is produced by American headquarters in Ireland.
03:41They will move somewhere else.
03:43That's not a good sign for the future of business and wealth in America.
03:46And by the way, we can build on basis.
03:48That was my suggestion to the president and to the administration.
03:51Basically, you're not going to have any protests.
03:53You can see you have plenty of land.
03:55Fort Gordon is the cybersecurity headquarters.
03:57It's a great place to build.
03:58Fort Benning, Fort Hunter, all these places just in Georgia alone.
04:02Every state just about has a massive base where you have room to build these.
04:07It wouldn't be a negative impact.
04:09As a matter of fact, it would be a very positive impact.
04:11And you can actually lease those and actually be additive to reduce the footprint of a base
04:17when it comes to expenditures.
04:19I mean, I'm wondering if that's something the Pentagon or the president is pursuing,
04:23are pursuing some form of grammar.
04:25Sorry, it's been a long week.
04:26But I also want to follow up with you said, you know,
04:28there may be some nefarious nature to some of these protests.
04:31Do you have any evidence of that?
04:32We do have polling from Gallup that shows 7 in 10 Americans
04:36opposed data center construction in their neighborhoods.
04:39Yeah, and I get that.
04:40But if it's in your neighborhood, I totally understand.
04:43If you're there from your neighborhood, it makes sense.
04:45But what about people when they're coming from all over the United States?
04:47That seems a little bit suspicious.
04:50The articles are written, and believe me, I've been in politics long enough to know that
04:54there are a lot of conspiracy theories out there.
04:56I think there's a lot of misinformation on data centers.
04:58I get it's a hot topic, but it's up to us to educate the public on what it is and
05:03is not.
05:04People even criticize, oh, it's just a temporary job.
05:06Now, every construction job is a temporary job until that construction is done,
05:10then you move on to the next.
05:11It's very good for the local economy.
05:13It's not going to be obnoxious or loud.
05:16It's not going to produce a heat signature that's going to go outside of that area.
05:19It's not going to consume water.
05:21It's not going to detract from your energy bills.
05:23So what is the real information we need in order to make a good decision?
05:28Because I think there's a lot of misinformation out there,
05:30and that's what we need to be good at is being proactive, being visionary rather than reactive
05:34and reacting to the mobs that maybe don't have all the details.
05:37I wanted to add, you sit on the Armed Services Committee,
05:39and there was this announcement that the U.S. is going to withdraw from these military exercises
05:42it's done with South Korea.
05:44And I'm curious what you make of that.
05:46You, having been in the Marines and the Navy,
05:48is this a step in the right direction, do you think?
05:51Or are you somebody who believes that those exercises are critical
05:55for kind of showing American might in the Pacific?
05:58I hope it's temporary.
05:59I actually participated in those exercises.
06:00I was stationed over in Korea a few times,
06:03actually deployed on basically their version of an expeditionary unit on a ship
06:07doing amphibious assault landings.
06:10It was a delightful experience.
06:11The Koreans, the Iraq Marines over there,
06:14oh, man, are they bad?
06:15I love those guys.
06:17Really hardcore.
06:18Love training with those guys.
06:19They see the world similarly.
06:21They have one enemy, one fight.
06:22Their motto is person, which means they must win.
06:25If they lose, they're dead.
06:27They understand the fight.
06:29They see the world similar to us.
06:30They have a similar faith.
06:31They have a similar economy structure.
06:33I want to see them go closer to us,
06:35not to other countries who are basically invested in communism.
06:39That's really good for the stabilization of that area.
06:41But I'm one of those people that believes in integration of foreign areas.
06:46They're very friendly to us.
06:47I think that's very good for our force projection and peace through strength.
06:50We see the USS Abraham Lincoln making its way back to the United States after an incredibly long deployment.
06:55Yeah, incredibly long deployment.
06:57What is your takeaway from that?
07:00Yes, we've all seen the stories of what conditions were like on that carrier.
07:03Is there a broader takeaway that you have about resources, as Christina mentions, the way that they're being deployed right
07:09now?
07:10Yeah, so you're talking to the right guy.
07:11I've been on three marine expeditionary units.
07:14I've lived about two years on a ship.
07:17The first one I was on was USS Tripoli.
07:19It was retired right after our flow.
07:20So it was a really old ship.
07:22Went dead in the water four times in the Persian Gulf.
07:24And the top of the deck was about 140 degrees.
07:28I mean, just sitting in your room, no air conditioning, just sweating profusely.
07:31It was gross.
07:32We had raw sewage coming out of Thailand all over the ship.
07:36Things happen.
07:36I mean, that's the realities of this that's been going on for decades, by the way.
07:40That was back in the mid-90s, not to date myself.
07:44But this is what we do.
07:45I mean, sometimes there's hardships that happen.
07:47We are a creature of necessity.
07:50We deploy as needed.
07:52And most crew members understand that.
07:53By the way, even back then, we had crew members try to jump off the ship to commit suicide or
07:59to make a statement.
08:00So this is nothing new.
08:01This is just an ongoing issue.
08:03I understand that we don't want to keep people out for longer than six months if possible.
08:07But sometimes necessity dictates.
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