The president’s posts about artificial intelligence on the social media platform he founded were met with an unusual volume of criticism.
Page F2From§Eachthe early evening edition — 15 September 2026
Commerce Secretary who said data centers 'suck water' now calls the water shortage propaganda
As it ran on the front
I couldn't cover the water bill outright this month, so I split it — forty now, twenty-two later, with a late fee if later runs long. That's not a complaint, that's what forty dollars in savings and a mortgage due the same week does to a man. The county says the increase is demand-driven, and the demand they mean is the server farm going up two exits from my house. I copied the total onto a card and set it on the dash, where I'd see it at the two lights I sit at most mornings.
I want to walk you through the glovebox, because that's where I keep the folder, and the folder's what this is about. September 2nd. Howard Lutnick — the Commerce Secretary — on CNBC, asked how people in both parties were reacting to data centers and their water use. He laughed before he answered. Here's the line, copied exact: "One of my favorite things is when people talk about data centers using water." Then he called the whole complaint — the bill, the county, the two exits — propaganda. Not "critics allege." Not "there are questions about." He said it the way you'd say a shop vac needs emptying.…
…(cont) That's the word I keep circling, and I'll get back to it. For now I just want to sit in the driveway with the folder open and ask what, exactly, got invented here. The bill's not invented — the county cut it. The server farm's not invented — you can see the fencing from the frontage road. Sixty-two dollars isn't something I dreamed up on a Tuesday. If a man's water worry is manufactured, somebody in that department owes me the name of the manufacturer.
Second page in the folder, dated earlier than I expected — August 31st, two days before Lutnick sat down for that interview. The President, on his own social media site, told any town that turns down a data center it would end up "backwards and poor." He didn't say the water concern was invented. He said something closer to the opposite — that it's real enough to cost you, if you keep raising it. So inside two days, out of the same administration, I've got one official telling me the worry is made up and another telling me the worry is accurate and I'll pay for having it out loud. I've reread both pages enough that the ink's gone soft in the folder. I still can't get the two of them to agree.
What I do with a bill I don't trust, I've learned, is take it to the garage instead of the kitchen — my wife's heard enough about the water district for one month — and go through it line by line with the radio on. The line I land on isn't the total. It's the phrase the county used for it: actual usage. Two different parts of the same administration describing the same water, in two different words, and only the county sent theirs to my house with a due date.
Oh — one more thing before you go. Lutnick's office put that interview out on a Wednesday. I checked my bill's date against it twice, because I wanted to be sure I had it right. My bill is dated the Wednesday before. Which means the water was already metered, already added up, already sitting in my mailbox with my name on it, a full week before the man in charge of the department called worrying about it propaganda.
“This is the con running in real time — first they tell you the water bill isn't real, it's propaganda, and two days later they tell you if you keep fighting it you'll end up broke. Same administration, same week, and both answers land in the same place: shut up and let the server farm move in. Sixty-two dollars a month is rounding error to them, but it's my rounding error, and it's got my name on the envelope, not theirs.”
“Look, Secretary Lutnick never said water isn't used, he just pointed out the concern's gotten overblown — sorry, overblown, did I say that, I meant it's been contextualized by serious economists, which happen to agree with the administration, which is a coincidence. And "backwards and poor" isn't a threat, it's the President being candid about opportunity costs — towns are free to say no, they just shouldn't be surprised when free comes with a price, which, okay, hearing it back, might be a threat.”
The receipts
· Trump Commerce Secretary Once Said Data Centers ‘Suck Water,’ Now Scoffs That Such Concerns Are Just ‘Propaganda’ from the morgue, 2 Sep 2026
· Out-of-Touch Trump Says Communities That Reject AI Data Centers Will Be 'Backwards and Poor' from the morgue, 31 Aug 2026
· Trump says communities opposed to data centers want to be 'backwards and poor' from the morgue, 31 Aug 2026
· Trump takes the risk on data centers from the morgue, 3 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.