Opinion | MAHA activists urge Trump to reverse course on AI data centers

Nearly 200 activists aligned with President Donald Trump’s “Make America Healthy Again” movement are urging him to reconsider his push to build artificial intelligence data centers nationwide.

There’s been growing bipartisan backlash to these resource-sapping centers over their environmental harms and negative impacts on public health. Meanwhile, the president and his allies have basically sounded like comic book villains with their rhetoric about the supposed inevitability of new data centers and the need to “roll over” critics.

So it’s telling that the opposition includes activists in a movement like MAHA that, on many fronts, has advocated for a host of policies that undercut public health and stand to make Americans sicker. Perhaps AI data centers are their red line.

In a letter dated Friday, the activists — under the banner “United We Eat” — pleaded with Trump to reverse course on an executive order that prioritizes the use of coal power to help fuel data centers.

“The April 2025 executive order on coal connected rising electricity demand from artificial intelligence data processing centers to expanded support for coal power,” the activists wrote. “It also directed federal agencies to identify regions where coal-powered infrastructure could support AI data centers. That connection deserves urgent reconsideration.”

The activists said they’re speaking out to avoid the appearance of hypocrisy: