Trump Signs Order Seeking to Block State Artificial Intelligence Laws

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday aimed at limiting states’ ability to regulate artificial intelligence, arguing that a patchwork of state rules would stifle the industry in its race with China, according to CBS News and NBC News.

“If they had to get 50 different approvals from 50 different states, you can forget it because it’s impossible to do,” Trump said in the Oval Office. The order says its goal is to “sustain and enhance the United States’ global AI dominance through a minimally burdensome national policy framework for AI,” NBC reported, quoting the text posted by the White House.

It directs Attorney General Pam Bondi to create an “AI Litigation Task Force” within 30 days whose “sole responsibility shall be to challenge State AI laws.” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is to identify state laws that “require AI models to alter their truthful outputs,” which NBC said echoes earlier efforts against what the administration calls “woke AI,” and states with “onerous” laws could be asked to agree not to enforce them to receive some discretionary federal funding. CBS noted the order also threatens money from a broadband deployment program. NBC said the order directs White House AI adviser David Sacks and science office director Michael Kratsios to prepare recommendations for a federal law that would preempt state rules; the recommendations are not to affect state laws on child safety, data center infrastructure or state procurement of AI.

Sacks said the administration would push back only on “the most onerous examples of state regulation” and not on “kid safety” measures, CBS reported. He had argued that 50 sets of rules would give a “regulatory morass worse than Europe,” harm startups and let China “race ahead.” Supporters of preemption, including some Republican lawmakers and Sacks, argue that varied or contradictory rules would hurt the industry, CBS reported.

Resistance crosses party lines. CBS said members of both parties, along with civil liberties and consumer groups, have pushed for more AI oversight. Four states, Colorado, California, Utah and Texas, have passed laws setting broad rules for the private sector, according to the International Association of Privacy Professionals, including limits on collecting personal data and transparency requirements; many other states regulate pieces of AI such as election deepfakes and government use. The order follows failed attempts to put a federal preemption in law, including a provision House Republicans tried to add to the defense authorization bill in late November, which was removed after backlash, NBC reported.

Brad Carson, a former congressman who heads the bipartisan group Americans for Responsible Innovation, told NBC News that “Big Tech has failed twice to jam an AI amnesty into legislation” and predicted the order will be blocked in court. NBC reported that Sen. Ed Markey called the order “an assault on states’ ability to safeguard their constituents,” while Sacks argued that interstate commerce is the type of economic activity the Framers intended to reserve for the federal government to regulate.