Tony Katz & Senator Todd Young on RNC Midterm Convention & Micro Modular Reactors

0:00Why, from the heartland and the crossroads of America, it's Tony Katz today. We will defeat the communists, we will reject, and that's what they are, and not socialists, and not Democrats at communists. We will reject these radical left lunatics, we will demolish the extremists, fanatics, lunatics and criminals who want to destroy our country, they want to destroy the country. There's something wrong with them. Yes, we understand this, sir. We are fully understanding that there is something wrong with them. Tony Katz, Tony Katz today, good to be here, good to be with you, find everything I do. Over at Tony Katz.com, T-O-N-Y-K-A-T-Z, Tony Katz.com.

1:01The president spoke again this last night, because he did the big speech the first night of this convention. This convention went better than was expected. A thousand percent, it went better than was expected. I mean, there's no other way to describe that. There's no other way to describe the fact that, yeah, it worked, and it worked very well. Senator Todd Young joins me right now. He is the senator from Indiana, and sir, I know you're in transit, but you are there, right? You are there at the convention. I was keyk, yeah, a lot of excitement coming out of that convention. I know some of the reporting failed to convey the level of enthusiasm that I think are

2:03base of felt as they left Dallas, but it was great. It was a great event. Now, when it first started, it came up, and people first started discussing it. There was trepidation. There was concern. There was concerns about cost and what sponsors were being charged, and then there was a conversation about who's really going to show up. But even NBC was discussing the fact that as a visual, it was a very, very good visual, and it helps Republicans maybe gather where their base is. Are you under the impression, your colleagues under the impression, that there is a turnout concern going into November? I think, you know, in all candor, I do think that there are some members of our party, some of whom I'm friends with and talk with regularly, who do wonder whether or not people are going to turn out, especially members of our base,

3:07because President Trump is not on the ballot. I think much of those that concern was mitigated or even eliminated in Dallas. But that's still out there, Tony. But a point I've made is this is to be expected in a midterm election. And our task now is to continue to try and convey some of that energy that many of us had an opportunity to experience in person in Dallas, but also make the case to middle the rotors to more traditional conservatives, to even some fair-minded moderates or independent Republicans who don't like the sound of socialism and collectivism and may not be 100% happy with Republicans. Wouldn't give us an A plus, maybe gives us a B or an incomplete, but they know they don't

4:08like the sound of socialism. And so I feel like if we can make that case, make it carefully in a disciplined fashion and put the right money behind it in the right geographies, we are going to over-perform expectations and have a real shot at not only keeping control of the Senate, but a real shot at winning some of these other battleground races may be holding on to the House as well, which would defy all expectations at this time. Welcome to Senator Todd Young of Indiana. Let me move the subject because you made the announcement and it's a large one that at what we call crane, which is right here in Indiana, this is going to be the Navy's first advanced nuclear microreactor. Now we often refer to these things as SMR, small modular reactors. This has been a conversation regarding data centers, but this is a very, very big move.

5:09And certainly people have an eye- arguing, a rational fear of nuclear as opposed to a rational question of how safe is this, what does this do? Walk me through the deal and where you are in the support or where the opposition is against these SMRs, these small modular reactors. Well PKU characteristically described this with a level of accuracy that sometimes defies lesser radio hosts. That's exactly right. This is a microreactor, which is not quite an SMR. SMRs are a little bigger with more capacity. But this would be the first shore-based nuclear reactor, according to my briefings, that is used for electric power generation, which is what all of the excitement around the state of India and really throughout the country is directed towards.

6:12How are we going to solve our utility challenges? How are we going to meet this golden age of AI and innovation without bankrupting people through their utility bills? And so many of us are putting at least a measure of hope and faith and support behind nuclear because it's clean, because it's efficient, because it can be scaled. So for a lot of other reasons, the purpose of this microreactor is to prove that concept but to do so in a controlled setting at a military base. Of course, crane will be the first because of our expertise in Indiana with nuclear power and Purdue University in particular has a lot of expertise there. And because the Navy's expertise, obviously, but the vision is to cut off over-reliance on extended supply chains for the inputs for more traditional carbon-based power.

7:17It takes pipelines to move natural gas. It takes trains and trucks to move coal. But not for nuclear power. And if we can sever those lines of logistics for our military, then that, of course, makes us more powerful and strong in a time of conflict and more powerful for economic security purposes. So this framework, it'll be a national framework with crane being the first test case to deploy one of these microreactors to cut yourself off of the grid beyond that. And then you'll see more military bases adopting this. But make no mistake, this also lays a predicate for our consumers enjoying the benefit of nuclear power. Who's against it? Well, I'm sure there's still some people against it, Tony.

8:19But as I've traveled around the states, really for a number of years now, I hear Republicans, Democrats, Independents, all behind nuclear power. They think it's a great answer. There used to be a lot of concerns about three-mile island. And now most people understand that these newer reactors are safer, more sophisticated, smaller in scale. And I also think people are grasping for answers to deliver more energy, a lot more of it quickly. This provides an answer for those who are concerned about carbon emissions. This can help solve that as well. Let me answer. It seems to be very little conversation about nuclear waste anymore, which is a positive thing also. But so, you know, you're point about the difference between the SMR and the microreactor is taken. I do put them in the same category. You are right that there's a difference in an output. But the real conversation is a conversation and mobility.

9:19The microreactor has this movement factor to it. So when you talk about these power needs, are you talking about power needs on the battlefield? Are you talking about power needs in bases where maybe you couldn't have a base before and being able to have forward sites for launching or over the horizon capabilities? Where do you see its application in that regard? Well, there may be some armchair clauses that have a more extended response to that probing question. I have to tell you, today's battlefield can't be confined just to places over there. When we are fighting in the Middle East, when we are fighting, as someday God forbid, we will have to do in some other geography, in the Pacific. We are also going to have to be fighting from our military bases.

10:20Many of the things we are monitoring are being monitored here at home. Many of the resupply missions are missions that are hard to reconstitute over in theaters. We do them here. You can imagine a clever adversary and there are going to be a bunch of clever adversaries in the 21st century trying to sever power lines and other ways to make those bases and those functions work. Nuclear provides an answer. Makes us more resilient. There is a theme here. It certainly rhymes with the resiliency play of the semi-conductor work I have done in recent years. We can't be too dependent on any given country, especially adversary countries. It applies to power as well. We are going to have to find ways to be more resilient and not just allow investors and innovators and big businesses to figure out where they can get a decent bang for the

11:22buck, but instead we are going to have to be thinking about national and economic security. Most of us, let's be honest, we are just going to celebrate the fact that our electric rates are going up and frankly they are going to go down if we play our cards right and that Indiana is going to lead the way. But some of us, ideally people who elect a federal office like the president or members of the US Senate should be thinking about these resiliency implications as well and fortunately President Trump is thinking about that as a mine. So talking to Senator Todd Young of Indiana, we have a military application but you don't want to be finding yourself in league with Prussian generals when you bring up Clausewitz and we have the residential application of these things as well which leads us of course into the SMR data center place.

12:23Really quick before I let you go because I know you have a hard out. The data centers have been a huge conversation everywhere. You now have this guy who was with anthropic and chat GPT making the claim that AI can kill us in 10 years and to me a lot of fear mongering is this is Congress as you see it as the Senate use as you see it preparing to help move forward on the data center or are they going the way of the Ed Marquis the Bernie Sanders the Elizabeth Warren's not only interested in moratoriums quite literally interested in the stopping of AI altogether. You know I don't I almost don't care what the poll numbers say on this somebody can type me poll numbers and say whatever a large percent of them of Americans don't like AI or don't want any data centers in America you know sort of things like that. When it comes right down to it I give the American people more credit than that.

13:24They know AI is here they know we need AI to fight wars to be productive citizens to enjoy you know things like cures to cancer they understand all of that they just want us to not be ideologues and Washington DC and some rules are of course going to be needed but as it relates to data center deployment my sort of guiding light here is and I tell this I told this to the CEO of a major tech company just a number of days ago your job guys is to make these investments worth it for local communities. I cannot blame a Hoosier or Hoosier community says we don't want one of these things in our vicinity it's ugly we don't see any value proposition. So it's their job to solve that problem they got a lot of money to help solve that problem they have a lot of real estate across the country and they have willing policy makers at every level of

14:30government. That's why I think about this problem set but do we need data centers of course our nation needs data centers that doesn't mean they have to be located in particular counties in my state or others. Senator Todd Young of Indiana I appreciate you taking the time I appreciate the update from the convention safe travels back and we will speak to you soon more to get to keep it right here I'm Tony cats and this is Tony cats today.