Inside Scoop: Data center debate, empathy gone wild, Talarico’s woke past

Jim Antle, the magazine’s executive editor, brings to life the pages of the Washington Examiner’s magazine in the show Inside Scoop. Each episode features exclusive insight from the article authors and expert analysis.Has empathy gone too far? In this week’s magazine, Daniel Ross Goodman speaks with behavioral scientist Gad Saad, host of “The Saad Truth” podcast and author of Suicidal Empathy: Dying to Be Kind. Antle breaks down Goodman’s article and what Saad calls “suicidal empathy.”“This misapplication of empathy might be why you would sympathize with an illegal immigrant over an American worker, a criminal over a crime victim, or a law enforcement officer, an enemy of the United States over your own country,” Antle says. “This has fueled a number of the protests against ICE that we’ve seen in recent months, as people are not sympathetic to immigration enforcement inside the United States.” Antle sits down with Michael Rosen, author of the cover article, “War on data centers a front in vital fight for AI,” about how massive artificial intelligence data centers have become one of the hottest political issues in the country on both sides of the aisle.“This is a debate that started out on the left, but has migrated across the political aisle,” Rosen says. “Bernie Sanders, AOC came together to introduce in Congress a bicameral moratorium on AI data center act, where the two of them have claimed very vociferously that these data centers are destroying the environment.”Rosen explains that data centers are massive infrastructure projects that large technology companies are building to power the AI revolution and keep the United States ahead of China in the race for AI supremacy.“We found out through research that was done by OpenAI that the Chinese government itself has been meddling in this debate,” Rosen says. “According to OpenAI, they had been introducing a PRC-linked influence operation, to focus on what they say are increased utility prices for American customers.”Next in the show, Antle speaks with contributing writer Bethany Mandel about her article in this week’s magazine, “Brandon Gill’s Socratic method,” and why the freshman Republican from Texas stands out in congressional hearings.“I was struck by the fact that when congressmen go viral, it’s usually because they’re trying to bloviate, and it comes off very cringy,” Mandel says. “And so I was sort of struck by the fact that when he goes viral, it’s not cringe-inducing… And this is potentially someone who can think about how Republicans can move forward in a post-Trump era.”She also highlights one of Gill’s most talked‑about hearings, where he presses an abortion provider on what her preferred method of abortion is. “It was really, really chilling,” Mandel says. “And that to me struck me as something that you know a lot of men aren’t willing to do. And he just, he was willing to take the heat to say what he believed.”From his Socratic-style questioning in hearings to influences from Rush Limbaugh and Dinesh D’Souza, Bethany argues Gill could represent a new kind of Republican in the post-Trump era.Will “Peak Woke” social media posts haunt Texas Democrat Talarico’s Senate bid? This week’s in-depth report breaks down Jay Caruso’s article on how Talarico is running from his record to court Texas voters by walking back some of his past ‘cringy’ comments.“But hope for Democrats and the Talarico campaign rests on the idea that voters will accept the new, moderated version and forget the one that is alive and well in the age of instant media,” Caruso says. “Harris tried the same tactic against a far more polarizing opponent and discovered the old positions do not disappear simply because she stopped repeating them.”INSIDE SCOOP: WORKING-CLASS ZEROS, COURTING DISASTER, NEVADA’S BIG GAMBLETalarico has to hope that Texas will be more forgiving. The record he is running from is still out there, and his opponent, Republican Senate nominee Ken Paxton, has the campaign budget to keep it flowing to all areas of the state.Tune in each week at washingtonexaminer.com and across all our social media platforms to go behind the headlines in the Washington Examiner’s magazine show, Inside Scoop.