How the GOP is approaching data center backlash and why Trump is pivoting to North Korea: Morning Rundown

Republicans are sprinting to get in line with voter skepticism on data centers as they emerge as a top midterms issue. The immigrant father of a sailor aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln was detained by immigration authorities, his family says. And why Trump is trying to entice Kim Jong Un into meeting.

Here’s what to know today.

Republicans wrestle with data center backlash

Republicans in some of this fall’s biggest races are embracing growing backlash to data centers in the hopes of courting voters unhappy with the industry.

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Former Rep. Mike Rogers, the GOP nominee for Senate in Michigan, announced support for a one-year moratorium on development. Ohio gubernatorial nominee Vivek Ramaswamy released a plan stating future data centers must pay some bills and taxes for residents. Even Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who had welcomed the projects, ordered an audit of the ones in his state.

“There’s no getting around the fact this is a real issue,” Ramaswamy said.

Both parties are rapidly trying to figure out how to best address the subject. The GOP faces a unique challenge: pushing back on the facilities while President Donald Trump promotes their benefits and becomes closer with tech leaders.

Republicans told NBC News they believe they’ve got the right approach, embracing Trump’s “Ratepayer Protection Pledge” and promoting local control.

Here’s what else they said.

More politics news:

• Former Anchorage mayor Dan Sullivan endorsed Sen. Dan Sullivan to beat Dan Sullivan in the Alaska Senate race. (Yes, you read that right.)

• Hakeem Jeffries recently met privately with Jared Kushner, and they discussed possible areas of cooperation, a source familiar with the meeting confirmed.

 Father of sailor aboard USS Lincoln detained by immigration authorities, family says

The immigrant father of a sailor aboard the beleaguered USS Abraham Lincoln was detained by immigration officials, family members said.

Service member Joshua Aviles said he was “fighting for a country that has given me everything,” when he learned his father was detained. “This is heartbreaking for me,” he wrote online.

The Department of Homeland Security confirmed that Border Patrol arrested Luis Manuel Aviles during a traffic stop and said he would remain in ICE custody pending removal proceedings.

Aviles’ stepdaughter said he has been in the U.S. for roughly 20 years and that she has no knowledge of an arrest history or criminal allegations against him.

“He’s doing everything the right way,” she told NBC News.

Read the full story here.

Why Trump is seeking a new summit with Kim Jong Un

With no end to the Iran war in sight, Trump is trying to revive diplomacy with North Korea.

The pivot toward Kim Jong Un could be Trump’s way of moving focus off his struggles in the Middle East, according to researcher Lim Eul-Chul.

“He has not been able to extricate himself from the quagmire of the Iran war,” Eul-Chul said. “He may be proposing dialogue simply to divert public attention for a while.”

But the secretive communist state’s leader is in a stronger position than when he last met the U.S. president in 2019. Kim “is calculating and strategic,” one security expert said, and he is unlikely to agree to a meeting unless Washington first abandons its goal of a nuclear-free North Korea.

Read the full story here.

Related news:

• House Democrats sent a letter demanding the Trump administration provide a full accounting of Iran war costs.

Human-caused wildfire forces evacuations in Nevada

A fast-growing wildfire is raging in northwest Reno, Nevada, destroying homes and forcing tens of thousands of people to evacuate.

The human-caused Hawk Fire began Saturday and has quickly grown to 20 square miles, jumping over fire trucks and making it difficult for responders to get to hot spots while residents were trying to get out, Washoe County Sheriff Darin Balaam said.

“It was extremely confusing,” the sheriff said, describing how changing winds sent the flames in different directions. Strengthening winds are expected to make the blaze even more unpredictable.

Six people were injured, including three civilians and three first responders, officials said.

Here’s what else to know.

Staff Pick: Inside a Myanmar romance scam compound targeting Indian Americans

My phone rung at around the same time almost every day for the past two weeks. It’s Ganea, a married father of two kids from western India, who describes to me how he has been imprisoned in a newly built scam compound in Myanmar for nearly four months where he’s forced to defraud Indian Americans online.

Lured by the promise of a well-paying insurance job, Ganea arrived in Thailand to turn a page in his life but was instead trafficked across the border into Myanmar. There are hundreds of others like him inside the compound, where they are forced to work over 18 hours, presenting themselves as successful women online, offering companionship and an opportunity to get rich quickly, he says. Instead, it’s all a ploy to rope in affluent Indian American men and rob them of their life savings.

Ganea and others are pleading for rescue, and telling a rare, intricate tale of the rapid evolution of so-called pig butchering scams, which cost Americans at least $10 billion in 2024 alone.

— Mithil Aggarwal, reporter

Read All About It

• Sean Grayson, the former deputy convicted of fatally shooting Sonya Mblockey, died six months into his sentence at age 32, his attorney said.

• Kyle Kirkwood won the IndyCar race in downtown D.C. celebrating the nation’s 250th birthday.

• A French tourist died in California’s Death Valley after the vehicle he was in got stuck in mud, officials said.

• Former NBA center Enes Kanter Freedom was ejected from the Indiana-Chicago WNBA game after he was confronted by Sky guard Natasha Cloud.

• A Minnesota man is accused of crushing his co-worker’s head with a hydraulic grapple and killing him in a prank gone wrong.

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