President Donald Trump returned to office after campaigning on inflation, immigration, crime, trade, energy independence and foreign wars. Yet several prominent features of his second-term agenda — prediction markets, cryptocurrency derivatives and massive artificial-intelligence data centers — were scarcely discussed during the campaign and remain unpopular with many Americans, including his own supporters.

The disconnect deserves scrutiny.

Prediction-market companies such as Kalshi and Polymarket allow customers to buy contracts tied to elections, sporting events and government actions. The companies call this trading. Most Americans call it gambling. An Ipsos survey found that 61% of adults viewed prediction markets as closer to gambling, while only 8% considered them investing.

Nevertheless, the Trump administration has supported exclusive federal regulation of these platforms through the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, potentially limiting the authority of states to enforce their own gambling laws. The CFTC even invoked emergency authority after a Michigan court ordered Kalshi to stop offering sports contracts and unwind certain transactions involving state residents.

Was a dispute between one company and one state truly a national market emergency? Or did a politically connected business receive extraordinary protection from Washington?

That question is unavoidable because Donald Trump Jr. advises both Kalshi and Polymarket. Kalshi reportedly granted him equity when he joined its advisory board. His venture-capital firm later invested in Polymarket, after which he joined that company’s advisory board.

These relationships do not, by themselves, prove wrongdoing. But they create an appearance of overlapping political authority, family access and private financial benefit that demands complete transparency.

The administration’s support for AI data centers presents a different but equally consequential problem.

America must expand its technological capacity to compete with China. Data centers can create construction jobs, generate tax revenue and support innovation. They can also consume enormous amounts of electricity and water while increasing utility costs and disrupting surrounding communities.

Polls show roughly 7 in 10 Americans oppose having an AI data center built near them. Opposition includes majorities of Republicans, while fewer than half of self-described MAGA supporters favor local construction.

Trump recently warned that communities rejecting data centers risk becoming “backwards and poor.” That response dismisses legitimate concerns about electricity bills, water consumption, noise and land use. Vice President JD Vance offered a more realistic assessment, acknowledging that most resistance arises where residents expect higher utility costs.

Technology companies should be required to generate or finance the additional energy they consume, disclose their expected demands on local resources and demonstrate that existing customers will not subsidize their expansion.

Innovation matters, but it is not an exemption from accountability. Nor should competition with China become a phrase used to silence citizens asking reasonable questions.

Who requested these priorities? Who benefits financially? Who assumes the risks? And why is Washington moving so quickly when voters are demanding caution?

Those are not partisan questions. They are questions of public trust, and Republicans ignore them at their peril as the midterm elections approach.

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