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- [00:04]
Christian Amanpour
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Amanpur. Here's what's coming up. As Gaza's ceasefire talks continue in Egypt, prominent Israeli journalist Nir Hassan looks back at what he calls the Israeli campaign of atrocities. Then, with the White House ramping up military pressure on Venezuela, is the US Attempting regime change against President President Nicolas Maduro? I speak with opposition politician David Smolensky and former Biden official Juan Sebastian Gonzalez.
- [00:37]
Hari Srinivasan
And maybe this is the cost of doing business if we want this future built on AI. But is that cost too high?
- [00:44]
Christian Amanpour
The dark side of America's AI explosion. Harry Srinivasan does a deep dive with investigative reporter Hannah Bechler. Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christian Amanpour in London. The talks continue in Egypt to end the war in Gaza between Trump's key envoys, Steve Witkoff and son in law Jared Kushner. Along with Israel's chief negotiator Ron Dermer, they join top officials from Egypt, Egypt, Qatar and Turkey. But now, more than two years after the horrendous Hamas attacks of October 7th and Israel's brutal military response, if a ceasefire is reached, what will life be for Israel and for Israelis and for Palestinians after the bombs stop falling? In his latest column for Haarez, the Israeli journalist Nir Hassan writes about what he calls the October 8 surprise. Israel's response to the October 7 massacre, which has left tens of thousands of Palestinians dead, Gaza in rubble. And he writes, destroyed the foundations on which the state of Israel was built. So, Nia Hasan, welcome to the program. I need you to explain that for our audience because destroying the foundations on which Israel was built is, you know, an important statement to make. And I want to know, on what do you premise that?
- [02:25]
Nir Hassan
Well, I wrote in my article that I think my government is responsible of two disasters. The first disaster is October 7, of course. But the second disaster, which I think will affect our life for years and decades to come, is the respond. The brutal response of Israel to the October 7th attack. And this respond included, I think, countless numbers of war crimes and crimes against humanity. And it destroyed the name of Israel. It started a wave of sanctions and boycotts against the culture, the sports, the economy in Israel and much more. But all of those, they are only the small parts of the disasters. The disaster itself is the tangible.
- [03:33]
Hari Srinivasan
Death.
- [03:34]
Nir Hassan
Of tens of thousands of Gazans of the destruction that we made in Gaza, the eras of walled cities. And I think it's going to destroy the legitimacy, the international legitimacy of Israel around the world. I think it's going to destroy the.
- [04:02]
Christian Amanpour
Inner.
- [04:05]
Nir Hassan
Unity inside the Israeli society because many Israelis will try to get themselves as far as they can from what seems to be war crimes and crimes against humanity. And I really afraid for the future of this state after what I called the October 8 disaster.
- [04:31]
Christian Amanpour
So Nia, let me ask you, there was, I don't know how you reported and how you were thinking immediately after October 7, but we know that it completely plunged Israelis and Jews around the world into a terrible trauma which continues to this day. And I'm wondering how you remember back two years now of what the reaction was then from inside Israel and what it took and how long did it take you to then shift your lens a bit to as you call it, the revenge. And what's happening in Gaza.
- [05:10]
Nir Hassan
Of course, October 7th, it's a trauma. I think the Israeli society is inside the trauma. We are not in the post trauma. We are still in the trauma. For the Israelis and even for me, I can say the sun of October 7th didn't set yet. This is still continued as long as we have hostages in Gaza. It's felt that this day didn't end.
- [05:37]
David Smolenski
However.
- [05:40]
Nir Hassan
I think as soon as October 8, as soon as the IDF start is attacked on Gaza, the connection between the real goal of this war of defense, the borders, saving the hostages and defeating Hamas, there is a very. It doesn't feel that the act of the IDF, even from the first day, from the second day of the war have any connection to these goals. It's really, really quick became a war of revenge and destruction. And it feels like the Israeli leadership trying to erase the failure of October 7th by the blood of the Palestinians in Gaza. But for me, as for for I think all the Israeli society, we were in the pain, we were focusing on our pain after October 7th. And I was covering the massacres in the massacre, especially in Kibbutz Niwoz and in other parts of the Negev. And it took me a few months to understand that what happened in Gaza will affect my future and the future of my children here in Israel. Not less than what happened in October 7th. That the way that my government respond to this disaster, to this massacre and atrocities of Hamas will change the character of the state of Israel not less than the day, the October 7th itself.
- [07:29]
Christian Amanpour
And Nia, let me ask you because these talks are going on and we've heard nothing but pretty positive. The various spokespeople tell us that, you know, they're continuing and important people are there and you know, the modalities of the hostage returns and the returns of Palestinian prisoners and bodies, et cetera. And obviously the modalities around the Israeli withdrawal and whether that will happen once the bombs have stopped falling. And this horror of October 7th and the October 8th that you mentioned, once that seems to be this phase of it over. Do you think that how long do you think it will take your country and how do you envision the Palestinians ending up after all of this?
- [08:21]
Nir Hassan
I think my point in the article that you mentioned is these two disasters that I Talked about, the October 7th and October 8th, are connected. And there will be no rehabilitation, there will be no healing of the Israeli society without some kind of rehabilitation and healing of the Palestinian society in Gaza. It goes together. And I think we are not even in the stage of knowing what's going on there. I mean, I'm covering Gaza daily for a year and a half now, and I still don't feel that I know exactly the magnitude of the catastrophe that happened in Gaza. So first of all, we will have to figure out what's actually going on there, how many people really died. I mean, we know the numbers of the Ministry of Health from Gaza, which is almost 70,000 people. But most of the experts that I talk to saying that this is the minimum number. And the end will be much the data in the end, the numbers, the death toll in the end will be much higher and it might reach 100,000 and even more if we included excess mortality. And just think about it, think about the fact that Rafah is more destroyed than Hiroshima, most of the cities in Gaza are more destroyed than Nagasaki. How long it's going to even start to thinking about rebuilding and healing this land. But what I'm saying to the Israeli society is that we must look straight at what happened in Gaza and must acknowledge it and thinking about the day after the war, because for now, most of the Israelis, it's not in their focus. They are not thinking about Gaza. And this is very bad for the future, I think.
- [10:32]
Christian Amanpour
So I wanted to ask you that because I don't know what reaction a piece like this with a headline like the one we've discussed and what you're writing. What is the reaction inside Israel to your reporting and your conclusions?
- [10:49]
Nir Hassan
Well, I got a lot of reactions. I will say, like 50% of them, it's like cursing and death wishes and that kind of stuff. But about the other 50% is people telling me it's about time. It's about time talking about it. It's about time that we will deal with what happened there. And we'll ask ourselves, was it necessary, Was it really necessary to kill so many people and to act in such a brutal way along this war? And it gave me some hope. It gave me some hope that the Israelis stopped denying what happened there and stopped start the discourse around it.
- [11:47]
Christian Amanpour
I mean, you've quoted the historian Adam Raz on the emergency of a emergence of a community of crime at the beginning of this war, where there is sort of a shared guilt that you say, and you admit starkly, I too am part of the Israeli community of crime. It's a really difficult thing to say, especially after what Israel had to deal with after October 7th, of course.
- [12:18]
Nir Hassan
But still we have to ask ourselves how we got here. I mean, the name of Israel from now on will be connected to this term of genocide. Now, I don't know if there was genocide in Gaza, there is genocide in Gaza, but it almost doesn't matter. It even doesn't matter if the ICJ will decide there is genocide in few years from now. The fact that the name of my country is now connected is now.
- [12:53]
David Smolenski
People.
- [12:54]
Nir Hassan
Around the world, this is what they think when they think about the name of Israel. It's horrible. I think, I cannot think how bad. I mean, it's, it's really scary. And I ask myself how did you get here? And I think it's October 7th. The trauma of October 7th cannot explain it all. Of course it's part of the answer, but the other part of the answer is long processes that going on in the Israeli society for many, many years with a corrupt and extreme leadership, with growing in militarism, extremism shifting to the far right wing in our political system. And, and I think all of it together got us to the point that we can commit such crimes in Gaza.
- [14:04]
Christian Amanpour
Yeah. I want to ask you a question. You know that your prime minister essentially declares victory? I mean, he has been saying that we're winning. We have decimated all our enemies around us, from Iran to Lebanon to Hamas, et cetera. They've, you know, they've sent missiles to Qatar to Yemen, etc. And many say, well, actually, yeah, I mean, there's a lot of tactical success. Do you think that is a price worth paying or reason for a government to claim a victory?
- [14:42]
Nir Hassan
No, as I told you, I think this victory is as he claimed. I don't think it's, it's a victory. The price that Israel and the Israeli society will pay for this war will be enormous and it will go with us for years and decades to come and it will change the foundations. The DNA of Israel. And I don't think it's a price worth, worth paying.
- [15:20]
Christian Amanpour
Let me ask you this.
- [15:21]
Nir Hassan
I don't feel like we are on the victory side, on the side that won this game.
- [15:27]
Christian Amanpour
You know, you have spent a lot of time actually talking to Palestinians. You talk about we don't know what's going on. Yes, we're all banned. You're banned, we're banned. We can't go in independently to Gaza, which is truly a disgrace. And we petition every time we can to be allowed in. But you have made it your business to try to talk to as many Gazans as you possibly can by various methods. You wrote in your article that you characterize right now Gaza as gray and red. The gray of the destruction and the dust that covers everything and everybody and the red of the blood after, after all these attacks and all these, you know, terrible, terrible things that happens. But you also share stories of conversations with Gazans. Most notably, you co authored a piece about the doctors with, with the do walking through on a video way the hospitals. What have you learned about the Palestinian people, the doctors, the people of Gaza throughout these last two years of war there?
- [16:27]
Nir Hassan
Yes. As you say, it's not very good journalism to cover this war from far away.
- [16:33]
Christian Amanpour
No, it's the only way we can do it, Nia. It's the only way we can do it.
- [16:37]
Nir Hassan
Exactly. This is the only way we can do it. And when we you try to reach the people in Gaza, the Palestinians in Gaza, you found out that they're willing to talk to you and they are telling their stories and it's sometimes very painful but very humanic. They telling the, the human side of this war. And yeah, as you mentioned, we went to for virtual tour.
- [17:19]
David Smolenski
Okay.
- [17:20]
Nir Hassan
We asked ourselves, okay, there was the debate in Israel which around the question of starvation in Gaza, where there's a famine in Gaza, or it's only a campaign of Hamas's, as Prime Minister Netanyahu said. So we asked ourselves, okay, what can we do to solve this question? And we reach out to as many doctors as we could in Gaza and ask them to take us to a tour, a virtual tour to open a zoom and to walk with us from one bed to another in the hospital and show us the, the children and people who suffered from malnutritions and that we can speak with them, that we can see their conditions. And it was awful. It was, I cannot there's no words to describe what we saw in this virtual tours. And I think if people we saw what I and my colleague Zerdan Michali that worked with me on these investigations. If people saw what we saw, no one would argue about the question of starvation, famine in Gaza.
- [18:41]
Christian Amanpour
Well, we've just been showing the images, some of the images that you were able to capture on this by talking to the doctors. And it's terribly painful. And it's pretty amazing that you're doing this kind of work and it can't be easy. And I really appreciate you coming on and talking to us. Nir Hassan from Haaretz, thank you very much. Thank you.
- [19:02]
Nir Hassan
Thank you very much.
- [19:04]
Christian Amanpour
And stay with CNN. We'll be right back after the break.
- [19:16]
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta, host of the Chasing Life podcast.
- [19:20]
Hannah Bechler
I'm actually getting very specific suggestions on.
- [19:23]
David Smolenski
Things we can fix at the FDA.
- [19:25]
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
Dr. Marty Makary, earlier this year he stepped into the role of FDA commissioner.
- [19:31]
Juan Sebastian Gonzalez
And there's no shortage of things that.
- [19:32]
Hannah Bechler
Are broken to fix at the fda.
- [19:34]
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
What does he want to reform and how does he see the FDA's role at a time when science, politics and public health are more entangled than ever before? Listen to Chasing Life streaming now, wherever you get your podcasts.
- [19:54]
Christian Amanpour
Now we turn to the Western Hemisphere, where tension is escalating between the Trump administration and Venezuela, Venezuela's Maduro regime. The United States has deployed warships, fighter planes and an attack submarine to the region. The White House labels President Nicolas Maduro a narco terrorist, claiming he controls one of the nation's criminal organizations. The US Intelligence community, though, rejects that claim. Now, if the White House is laying the groundwork for regime change in Venezuela, they might want to consider the history of American interference in that hemisphere and in that continent. From the failed Bay of Pigs assault on Cuba in 1961 through an abortive coup against Maduro's predecessor, Hugo Chavez, under George W. Bush, American meddling tends to create long term problems. And would Venezuela's political opposition even welcome American military intervention? David Smolenski was deputy director of the opposition's presidential campaign last year and he now lives in exile and he joins us from Washington, D.C. so, David Smolanski, I posed a lot of questions and, you know, reminded the audience that it's not always a successful or ever successful American military intervention. But what do you think? I think you and your party are actually welcoming it.
- [21:11]
David Smolenski
Well, I first of all, thank you so much for having me. I support the dismantle of a criminal organization, actually a drug cartel that is running my country. For almost 27 years, Venezuelans have been victims of crimes against humanity. Almost 9 million Venezuelans have Fled largest migration crisis in the world, even surpassing Ukraine and Syria. And Maduro is responsible to get to this point because we decided a regime change last year when we won the election, 70, 30. And we proved that with the voting tallies and the reaction from the regime was using brutal force and disappearing thousands of NFL Venezuelan and illegally detaining 2,300 innocent Venezuelans. So that's the situation that we're facing right now.
- [22:05]
Christian Amanpour
Yeah. So you're talking about the election which we covered. Maria Corinna Machado, the opposition leader, she's hiding in Venezuela. She said about this Trump move, I totally support his strategy. I'm in favor of the US Dismantling this criminal structure. She said that to the Times, but others, like Enrique Capriles are against it. Tell me about what it means to have a divided opposition. Not just the, you know, Maduro people obviously are against this, but even the opposition. What does that mean for you all as you try, I assume, to have some unity in the fight against your common enemy?
- [22:42]
David Smolenski
Cristiane, if I can assure something, and especially to your audience, is that the democratic movement is completely united. We have a leader that was legitimized in a primary election a couple of years ago, Maria Corina Machado, which has become a symbol of resistance because she's been in hiding for more than a year because Maduro want her to be imprisoned. And we have a president elect, Edmundo Gonzalez Urutia, that every Venezuelan and including different governments, recognize him as the rightful leader of my country. So what we want is that what Venezuelans decided last year be respected. And I support any pressure that comes from the international community, the U.S. latin American countries, European Union, because we are ready to lead. Sorry, we are ready to lead a democratic transition in Venezuela where we can create conditions for Venezuelans to go back, where we can provide security, access to justice, strong institutions, and have a democracy again, like Venezuela had during the second half of the 20th century.
- [23:49]
Christian Amanpour
I just want to play a little bit of an interview that I did with Ms. You know, Machado before the Trump administration came in. So this was in last summer. This is what she said about the Maduro regime and its loss of legitimacy.
- [24:05]
Maria Corina Machado
The regime is at its weakest position ever. They have lost total legitimacy. And what they have done is unleash a campaign of terror, persecution. So we are certainly willing to move ahead into a negotiation process in which we are willing to give Maduro and the regime the guarantees so that these could move smoothly, orderly, as fast as possible.
- [24:33]
Christian Amanpour
So let me ask you what happened to this negotiating process. And I don't just mean between the internal actors, but also at the beginning of the Trump administration, his emissary there was wasi mean, there was some negotiations, there was some movement towards trying to get, you know, Maduro to accept these realities. What happened? How come it suddenly changed and now it's gone to full militarization?
- [24:59]
David Smolenski
The reality is that Maduro and the different members of this drug cartel that is running Venezuela have never had honest intention to negotiate. They have used dialogues and negotiations to gain time to demoralize people, to divide in the past the democratic movement and to fracture the international community. Maduro had many options and many offers before the presidential elections last year, during the day of the presidential election and after, to leave power peacefully. And he decided to do what is known in Venezuela as a knock knock operation. What is, what is the knock knock operation, if I may explain, is because they go to your house, they do knock knock and they kidnap innocent Venezuelans and disappear as we speak, Cristian, as we speak right now, according to United nations fact finding mission report which I have here, innocent women are sexually abused by security guards of the regime. Teenagers are suffering from electric shocks. Dissidents are disappeared and killed in custody. That's where Venezuelans are facing. And I can understand sometimes by international audience that this is very difficult sometimes to learn or understand. But we've been dealing with this for 26 years. How do you explain that more Venezuelans have fled my country than Ukrainians that have been brutally invaded by Russia or Syria? And I have to say something. Maduro has been able to stay in power because of the support of external actors. Russia, the main arms provider, Iran, the second arms provider, and Cuba, who has been in Venezuela since day one, infiltrating the internal country agencies and the security forces. And they are part of the torture and the repression as well.
- [26:48]
Christian Amanpour
So clearly a lot of horrendous stuff is happening in your country and we've reported it as much as we can and when we can get journalists in there. But the question is, I suppose as well, you've seen the history of American intervention has not been positive for many, many countries in the United States, often, sorry, in Latin America, but most notably, you know, Iraq, I mean, that was a question of regime change there. Even Libya. Are you not afraid of that kind of unintended consequence, that kind of backlash, even Maduro trying to unite people talking about foreign aggression?
- [27:25]
David Smolenski
Totally not. First of all, the difference between Venezuela with Libya and Afghanistan, if we have a history of democracy, almost half of the century. We lived in democracy and we have a legitimate leader on Maria Corina Machau and President Elect Edmundo Gonzalez. And regarding the history in Latin America, I think with due respect, that's an old narrative. Actually. The last US military intervention in Latin America happened 36 years ago in Panama, which by the way, was successful. And by the way, the guy who was running Panama in that moment was a drug trafficker.
- [27:57]
Christian Amanpour
On that note, Mr. Smolensky, thank you very much indeed for joining us. So next, let's turn to Latin American expert Juan Sebastian Gonzalez, who served on President Biden's National Security Council. So welcome to the program. You heard what David Smolensky was saying and he kind of was right about Panama. I remember it, 1989, George H.W. bush, just before the Gulf War. And it was also based around the idea of narco trafficking. Tell me what's wrong with that picture?
- [28:30]
Juan Sebastian Gonzalez
Well, first, thanks for having me. I think I agree with a lot of what David said. I think the difference with Panama specifically is that the United States had a military base inside of Panama and I think between 20 and 30,000 Marines already inside of the country. Not only that, the Panamanians did not have a military. They had more like a national guard. So I think it's apples to oranges when you really survey the environment inside of Venezuela. Maybe Caracas is stable, but you have another cartel trend, oriente the east of the country. You have illegal armed groups like the Colombian guerrilla group, the National Liberation army in the west, and you have pseudo paramilitary groups that are sometimes and sometimes not loyal to the Venezuelan government. And I think any sort of US Intervention, especially having boots on the ground, is something that would be a causaleb to every legal armed group that has been fighting in Colombia and other parts of the hemisphere for over half a century. So it's easier said than done.
- [29:26]
Christian Amanpour
So let me ask you specifically about the cartels, because I think this is fairly new. I think this trying to use this specific constitutional or legal provision by the Trump administration calling them, I think, narco terrorists. Can you tell me whether the US has any evidence of, you know, Venezuela, Maduro specifically, of running that kind of operation and more? Well, equally important, how much of the bad drugs come from Venezuela into the United States?
- [30:01]
Juan Sebastian Gonzalez
Certainly. So first, I would say the United States has amassed a powerful naval presence in the Caribbean. I think roughly, by Some accounts, roughly 10% of all naval assets. But the deployment is vastly disproportionate to any real counternarcotics mission. So this really looks, walks and talks like A regime change preparation. Now, the, what the administration is doing is merging the war on terror with the war on drugs. And there are some legal questions around that, especially around the unilateral use of force against alleged traffickers. But look, I served in the White House. This is a question that we've asked in every single, from every single angle from the intelligence community, even from the opposition. There is drug trafficking inside of Venezuela, but Venezuela is primarily a transshipment point. If the United States was very serious about combating drug trafficking, for one, they would give all the money they're giving to spending on the Navy to the Coast Guard, which has the legal authorities, the training and the network of relationships in the Caribbean to not just interdict, but seize cargo and actually gather intelligence that helps build the stronger cases. They would also be focused on the Pacific, where 75% of the cocaine that enters the United States transits from, not the 5% that actually goes through Venezuela. So this is not a counternarcotics operation. Now, specifically with regard to Maduro, the trend Aragua designation is a foreign terrorist organization with Nicolas Maduro. Maduro, as it said, look, I'm not going to defend Nicolas Maduro. But what I will say is that there is no evidence that supports a kind of command and control structure that is led by Maduro. These are usually officials in the military or other parts of the regime that are implicated in drug trafficking. Yes, there is. Yes, it's a transshipment country. But the reason that drugs have never originated from Venezuela in the way that they originate From Colombia, over 95% of the cocaine that comes to the United States comes from Colombia is because Venezuela has one of the largest oil reserves in the world. They have the largest gold reserves in Latin America. So there's never been a need for them to develop a native drug producing industry.
- [32:07]
Christian Amanpour
So on that point, what do you think is you say regime change, but what's the big picture for the Trump administration? Is it about, you know, is it because it's a petro state and that's valuable? Is it about, you know, dominance? As everybody talks about, oh my goodness, is Trump going to divide the world into spheres of influence? What do you think is the strategic impetus behind this?
- [32:30]
Juan Sebastian Gonzalez
I mean, that's a good question. I think there are a lot of tactics in search of a strategy. These tactics are contradictory. On the one hand, they're suspending temporary protected status or trying to eliminate it. The courts are pushing back on that for Venezuelans. They are violating the due process and human rights of Venezuelans by Deporting them to a notorious prison in El Salvador, Secot. And then at the same time they have a migration agreement with the Venezuelan government. They allowed Chevron to actually extract petroleum from the country. So it's unclear whether this administration actually has a strategy. The concern with that is that, you know, this is something that's going to go beyond a naval deployment in the Caribbean. I think the logical next step in an escalation is that they LOB Some of those 250 Tomahawk missiles that they have at ELN, the National Liberation army safe havens in the west of the country, maybe some clandestine airport or landing strips. Once you get into Miraflores, the situation becomes much more complicated. And look, I agree with David that, that Nicolas Maduro lost the election. He's been in power since 2013 and because of mismanagement, massive corruption and yes, US sanctions, the economy is decimated and they've had to maintain control, including through election tampering. They've lost elections, refused to concede the results. But to ensure the safety of Edmundo Gonzalez as the president of Venezuela is going to require 20, 30,018 and 19 year old Marines in the country. And that is a recipe for a prolonged con conflict.
- [33:58]
Christian Amanpour
And we all know where that has been in the past and what it might look like in Venezuela. You personally led talks for the Biden administration that eased some of the sanctions, secured the release of some American hostages, political prisoners. As you've said, Maduro stole the election. So the question is, is there any way to negotiate with this, with this person, you know, that, you know, Rick Grenell, who's President Trump's envoy to Venezuela on this issue, was doing some, I think, diplomacy at the beginning. And what do you think has been the turning point? What changed the direction of travel here for the administration?
- [34:37]
Juan Sebastian Gonzalez
Certainly, well, yeah, we did engage in negotiations. I think one of the successes of the negotiations was the outcome of the elections which clearly elected Edmundo Gonzalez. It created a democratic opening, but certainly Nicolas Maduro did not respect the results of the election. I think still a negotiation channel is key. I think the approach, the smart, logical and strategic approach is to have conditional sanctions relief, you know, that is tied to clear outcomes. There should be a channel for dialogue. If we look at any sort of similar processes around the world, there has to be a channel for dialogue. And certainly what is the Maduro government or regime is not subject to the normal puts and takes of a negotiation with a state because there are criminal elements. There is the influence of China, Russia and Iran. But the United States has to really, I think, invest in the long term in trying to promote a democratic transition in the country. You know, we've seen I think Venezuela is useful to look at. I think from the context of maybe post Soviet transitions where countries like Poland are still transitioning, there's not going to be an easy solution to the situation in Venezuela. There needs to be, I think, a channel for dialogue. But also the United States needs to put pressure on. I think there's also a failure here of the governments of Latin America and the Caribbean that have largely stayed silent. And I think they would be wise to actually organize and try to pressure Maduro to cede control or make concessions to avoid the United States escalating.
- [36:06]
Christian Amanpour
It's really interesting. Juan Sebastian Gonzalez, thank you very much for joining us. And we'll be right back after this short break. Next, build, baby, build, as they might say. That is the White House Silicon Valley slogan urging companies to invest in artificial intelligence infrastructure inside the United States. The campaign has so far been extremely successful with tens of billions of dollars funneled into data centers across the country. But while these investments may appease President Trump, they are causing major issues for surrounding communities as well as for the climate and the environment. Hannah Bechler, investigative reporter at Business Insider, joins Hari Srinivasan now to discuss her findings.
- [37:03]
Hannah Bechler
Christian, thanks. Hannah Beckler, thanks so much for joining us. You had a recent investigation in Business Insider titled Exposing the Dark side of America's Data Center Explosion. What surprised you about this investigation?
- [37:18]
Hari Srinivasan
Sure. Thanks so much for having me. I think we have all of these big tech companies who are racing to build out a speculative future built on AI. But the impacts that are happening on our communities, our water, our electricity grids are happening right now. So what we really wanted to investigate is what's happening on the ground, what's going on and how resource intensive is this build out, you know, for our.
- [37:43]
Hannah Bechler
Audience, unless they are watching this conversation live over the air, so to speak. Even the YouTube archive of this is part of what is stored in the data center. Right. Kind of give us an understanding, I guess, of what these are and what's different about these versus all of these AI focused data centers that are coming in the future versus the ones we're familiar with today.
- [38:09]
Hari Srinivasan
So the first thing to understand is that a lot of the data centers there used for things like social media, our emails, our applications that we're using every day. So all of that doesn't really exist in a cloud. It exists in data centers which are these kind of Big warehouses full of servers that are sort of processing all of that information, all that data all the time. What's different about data centers that are built to process AI is they are even more power intensive. So they require servers that are just many magnifold more power intensive than what we're usually seeing. So we're just seeing a huge escalation in how much electricity these data centers are using.
- [38:47]
Hannah Bechler
Okay, and where does that electricity usually come from? If somebody puts one of these data center warehouses into a community, what are they plugging into to get that power?
- [38:57]
Hari Srinivasan
Well, they're plugging right into the electricity grid just the same as, you know, our houses and small businesses, that sort of thing. But I think what we're really seeing is that in order to handle the sort of extreme power load, they're often needing to build sort of specialized transmission lines, that large scale infrastructure to support that kind of power. And what we're seeing is utilities sort of democratizing those expenses across all the ratepayers. So that means that it's not just the data center, it's our houses and our small businesses who are paying a little bit more to be able to support that kind of infrastructure. Okay.
- [39:31]
Hannah Bechler
And if everybody in the neighborhood, so to speak, is paying for the new transmission line to keep that data center alive and our bills go up, I'm assuming some of these communities are pushing back.
- [39:42]
Hari Srinivasan
They are. We're starting to see some pushback. Places like Georgia and Virginia, in particular Virginia. A filing from Dominion, which is the largest utility company in Virginia, sort of estimated that Virginia ratepayers could be paying as much as 50% more on their electricity bill in order to sort of support broad expansion of the electricity grid in Virginia. So we're starting to see a little pushback. We're starting to see residents say, you know, what's going on here? What does this look like? And regulators are starting to take notice as well.
- [40:12]
Hannah Bechler
In response to your investigation, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google told Business Insider that they were committed to paying their full share for upgrades to grid infrastructure like high voltage power lines. Is that the case for the 1200 data centers that are out there? Because these are just kind of a couple of the companies. Are there companies and municipalities with all kinds of different policies and expectations.
- [40:39]
Hari Srinivasan
I mean, I think those companies really dominate electricity use nationwide. So it's meaningful that they are at least saying that they are committed to paying their full fair share. The problem is that when we look at the actual regulatory filings, we're still seeing a number of data centers for example, there was one in Georgia recently, QTS facility, you know, and they're, they're submitting regulatory filings asking for a $300 million transmission line that's being built out there. And that cost will be displaced against, against all the ratepayers in that area. So it can be really difficult to measure these things and exactly how much data centers are actually paying for the massive infrastructure buildout that is required to support their electricity load.
- [41:25]
Hannah Bechler
Okay, give us an idea of how widespread this is. I know in your story you guys had a map and there were a lot of little dots all over the country.
- [41:33]
Hari Srinivasan
So I think what was really striking is in around 2010, we were seeing about 311 data centers that was nationwide. And then by the end of last year, that number had nearly quadrupled to 1,200 data centers. So it's a, it's a massive expansion in pretty short amounts of time. And they're mostly concentrated in Virginia, but we're starting to see some other hotspots. So in Maricopa county, for example, in Arizona or in the central Ohio area.
- [41:59]
Hannah Bechler
And what's the incentive that towns and municipalities around the country have to try to lure the data centers in? I'm assuming that there's a benefit that they're saying, okay, well, we want this data center in our area.
- [42:11]
Hari Srinivasan
So what we found is a couple, three dozen states have state level sort of incentives where they're giving sort of 100% sales and use tax abatements to data centers, which is really significant when you're thinking about the amount of investment that is going into building these centers. And then on top of that, municipalities or counties are also offering significant incentives for data centers. So they're saying you can get 100% property tax abatements, for example, for 15 years, which is, is really striking. What data centers are saying and their operators are saying is this is a opportunity for these areas to sort of transform their economies into high tech economies where there's lots of high paying jobs. The reality that we found is that 80% of data center jobs are in their construction. And once they're actually fully built, you're only seeing, you know, maybe as few as 25 full time jobs, permanent jobs at each facility. So they don't really employ that many workers.
- [43:14]
Hannah Bechler
You know, when you looked at this, you had to figure out how much electricity these data centers were going to be using. How did you do that?
- [43:25]
Hari Srinivasan
Complicated. So many of these operators, they don't really want to disclose how much power their fleet of Data centers is using at any one time. So we actually followed our own methodology which we developed, developed in very close consultation with many academics, engineers and industry insiders. So we used the air permits. So these are regulatory permits that are issued to the backup generators that each data center has. So data centers can never be without power. So they're always built with these backup diesel generators. And those diesel generators are a point of pollution. So they're regulated by state departments of environment. We went and requested from all 50 states and DC for those permits issued to data center backup generators. So it's a bit of a, you know, a couple step process here. But that's how we were able to extrapolate the our estimate electricity use is we added up the amount of power those generators are able to produce. We applied sort of a redundancy estimate. So you always build more generators than you actually use and then estimated the amount of what's called capacity, which is how much know power or how much use are those servers running at any one time. So somewhat complicated, but we're able to estimate a range of what these data center are. We estimate their electricity uses and put.
- [44:52]
Hannah Bechler
That in perspective for us how much power our data centers going to be drawing in the United States if all of these come online.
- [44:59]
Hari Srinivasan
So by the end of 2024, if all of those permanent data centers are built and constructed and come online, we were estimating that their power use in total could be as much as Ohio, the entire state of Ohio used in 2023, on the low end and on the high end it could be as much as Florida used in 2023. So it's a really massive amount of power. A federal estimate actually puts that far higher. So by 2028 they estimate that data centers could be using as much as 600 terawatt hours of electricity each year, which is 12% of what the US uses each year. So it would be a significant amount of power.
- [45:39]
Hannah Bechler
There was a study that was estimating that AI driven data centers could consume 1.7 trillion gallons of water every year by 2027 around the world. In Oregon, there was a local newspaper that found that the Google data centers in the Dalles had used 355 million gallons. They put it in the context of of roughly 500 Olympic sized swimming pools. And it's just I don't think people understand the scale of the kinds of water we're talking about or the scale of the kinds of electricity. I mean, when you talk to different researchers, how concerned were they?
- [46:19]
Hari Srinivasan
Very concerned. So something that we identified is that as many as 43% of data centers, and these are our largest data centers, are constructed in areas where already seeing extreme water stress. And what that means is there's not enough available water for the residents that are already there. I think what's also really unique about data centers is unlike other sort of water intensive industries, data centers are using drinking water. So that means again that they are competing directly with residents who are or you know, need that drinking water to just survive in the desert. For example, some of these data centers that are built in Maricopa county, it's in the desert, so water is a precious and finite resource.
- [47:03]
Hannah Bechler
Who owns most of the data centers that are coming out? How did you find that out?
- [47:07]
Hari Srinivasan
So sometimes the permits are issued directly to the companies. It's very clear, you know, but in many cases they are issued to Shell LLCs. So we had spent a lot of time looking at other regulatory filings both at the state and federal level to sort of match those LLCs to their parent company. Once we did that, it was pretty. The most data centers are operated by Amazon. So by the end of 2024 they had 177 data centers by our count. And then we looked at again how power intensive these data centers are. And the top five probably won't surprise most people. They're the big, big tech companies that are investing billions of dollars into data center expansion. But it's Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Meta and qts.
- [47:57]
Hannah Bechler
Microsoft, they said that they remain committed to developing and supporting innovative solutions to reduce em, focusing on long term solutions. Amazon, which you mentioned, they said they aim to reach net zero carbon emissions across their operations by 2040. Meta said they're committed to fostering the long term vitality of the communities where they operate. Qts, which is a company that most people haven't heard of, but that owns a lot of these data centers as you point out, said 100% of QTS centers constructed since 2018 consumed no water for cooling. And then Google, they said they reduced their data center energy emissions by 12% in 2024 despite significant growth in electricity demand. So you know, you spoke to a lot of different people that were kind of living in the neighborhoods where these data centers are coming now or they're planning to come. What were the concerns that they had as I guess neighbors.
- [48:52]
Hari Srinivasan
So what you have to imagine is these facilities are, first of all they're enormous. Many of them are very, very large. They operate 20. So what that means is that they have these large industrial cooling fans that are operating Constantly. And those fans are loud. They emit sort of a loud sort of buzzing, droning noise that's so loud that when we spoke to some residents who their houses are built, you know, just a couple hundred feet away, that constant noise, it's shaking their windows. One resident told us that he had to move his family into the basement in order to try to escape the noise to be able to sleep. So it's sort of an omnipresent present fixture of their lives.
- [49:29]
Hannah Bechler
Now, in response to one of the people that you were talking to in your story, Amazon said that we saw a meaningful reduction in the noise from the improvements. Basically mufflers on fans, taller exhaust vents, and they are now are operating well below ordinance. So what is the role of government to try to regulate this? I mean, maybe give us some perspective from one administration to the next or. Or as these projects keep rolling out, is there regulation somewhere that we should look at as a model? Is there regulation that's failing somewhere that we should try to avoid?
- [50:05]
Hari Srinivasan
Well, you know, it's been interesting to look at it historically. So when you are looking at 2017, for example, some of these very giant data centers are going into Ohio. Ohio regulators are allowing the utility, for example, to give them what they call economic development rates. So, meaning that a company like Meta might actually pay a cheap, cheaper electricity rate in order to kind of build their data center. So you go from that perspective in 2017 to as recently as this year, we're seeing regulators actually think actually we need to add additional riders onto these data centers to make sure that they're paying their fair share for this transmission costs, that we're not displacing the electricity cost onto residents and small businesses in the nearby areas that data centers are paying their fair share for electricity costs. So we are starting to see some regulatory efforts taking shape in Ohio and Virginia and Georgia. So kind of remains to be seen if those same regulations are adopted nationwide.
- [51:05]
Hannah Bechler
Is this just the cost of doing business and a future with AI?
- [51:10]
Hari Srinivasan
Great question. I think the problem is that none of us really know. So much of this, again, is speculative. We're not seeing the payout that we expect to see in economies or how it's transforming sort of our work life in the same way that some of these big tech companies are promising. What we are seeing though, is a dramatic change in how our electricity is produced, how the impact on the environment is, our electricity costs, the amount of clean water we have. So I think we just have to really think, yeah, maybe this is the cost of doing business if we want this future built on AI. But is that cost too high?
- [51:46]
Hannah Bechler
Investigator reporter with Business Insider Hannah Beckler, thanks so much for your time.
- [51:49]
Hari Srinivasan
Thank you so much for me having. Thanks for having me.
- [51:52]
Christian Amanpour
And finally, while President Trump and Silicon Valley turned their back on the climate, Chilean scientists studying in the world's driest desert, Atacama, have made a breakthrough that could solve worsening drought issues. The key a small, resilient flower that blooms during rare rainfall events. Many studies have suggested Chile's droughts could reach extreme levels by 2050, but it is this unsuspecting plant holds the genetic clues capable of helping crops withstand extreme conditions and create long term agricultural sustainability. Well, what a good news story. And it's been a positive week for the climate after it was announced that history has been made because for the first time ever, renewable energy generated more electricity than coal this year. That's it for now. If you ever miss our show, you can find the latest episode episode shortly after it airs on our podcast. And remember, you can always catch us online on our website and all over social media. Thank you for watching and goodbye from London.
- [53:05]
Nir Hassan
Tab.
- [53:05]
Michael Ian Black
I Got News for your Ears. The podcast. I am your host, Michael Ian Black. But the med bed thing was shocking. Yeah, it was shocking because he apparently posted it sincerely thinking that he had signed legislation making these fictional beds available to everybody. Star trek capsules that Dr. McCoy would put you in and he would close the thing and then he would open it and you'd be healed.
- [53:29]
Hannah Bechler
Oh, gonna click my heels and jump for joy. Got a clean bill of health from Dr. McCoy.
- [53:34]
Michael Ian Black
Have I got News for your ears Releases new episodes every Wednesday. Don't miss an episode. Follow us wherever you get your podcasts.