President Donald Trump wrote this week that concerns about artificial intelligence are a “hoax” and that the only thing needed to control the rapidly evolving technology is a “High IQ” president.
But on Capitol Hill, Republicans aren’t exactly buying it.
MS NOW talked to more than a dozen GOP lawmakers across the ideological divide. And many said they have serious concerns about AI, particularly after a senior researcher at Anthropic warned that there was a roughly 10% chance that AI would kill all humans in the next decade.
One senator — Kevin Cramer of North Dakota — was particularly blunt, calling the president’s stance on AI regulations “the least popular position in America.”
It was an unusually broad break with Trump. Even as Republicans struggle to come up with an answer on what exactly the GOP position on AI should be, most acknowledged that it shouldn’t be Trump’s position.
“It’s not a hoax. It’s a real thing,” Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., told reporters this week. “Anybody telling the president this is a hoax should look at some of the things that Anthropic and some of the other leaders have seen.”
But even more loyal Republicans were breaking with Trump. Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., said he didn’t think the AI concerns were “a hoax for the American people.”
Rep. Jeff Van Drew, R-N.J., told MS NOW that lawmakers should not be “cavalier” about the issue. “There are good, solid, very conservative Republicans who have concerns with it,” he said.
And Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said the president is “entitled to his opinion,” but noted that he believes the risks “are real.”
In particular, Kennedy warned of “The Terminator risk,” which he described as the potential for AI models to become “an independent species that don’t necessarily reflect human values.”
“They no longer work for us,” Kennedy said.
Other Republicans expressed more traditional concerns — Rep. Mike Flood, R-Neb., said he’s worried about the possibility of a “rogue nation” or “some terror cell” using AI, for instance — but time and again, GOP lawmakers told MS NOW that Congress does, in fact, have a role to play in regulating AI.
“We’re the lawmaking body,” Rep. Nick Langworthy, R-N.Y, told MS NOW. “I do believe that we should craft a commonsense, bipartisan path forward on AI.”
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said there was clearly “something for Congress to do here.”
“And I think we should act,” he said.
Alongside Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Hawley introduced legislation that would — among other things — set up a program within the Department of Energy to evaluate advanced AI systems.
Some Republicans noted that, even though the president could try to impose his own restrictions, presidential administrations change. Laws, of course, are more fixed.
That argument also gives Republicans a way to disagree with Trump’s argument against congressional involvement — without necessarily disagreeing with his assertion that he is “High IQ.”
“If he’s going to regulate it by executive order, that’s one thing,” Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., said. “But then you get the next president in, it’s just written in pencil.”
Still, there are few signs that lawmakers are prepared to turn their concerns into action anytime soon.
The House left town Wednesday — a day earlier than announced — and is not expected back until after the November elections. The Senate is poised to leave in the next couple of weeks.
Although the House passed a bill this week aimed at curbing increased electricity costs as a result of data centers, the legislation does nothing to tackle the existential threat whistleblowers say AI presents.
Naturally, there are some important Republicans who seem to be siding with the president that Congress should stay away from the AI issue — most notably, Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana.
Earlier this week, Johnson attempted to explain the president’s “hoax” comments by suggesting the president was merely dismissing the suggestion that AI would kill humanity in the next decade.
“We’ve all seen this movie before. We’re 49 days out from an election. A catastrophe is created. The media gets spun up,” Johnson said. “What the president is saying is you’re not all going to be dead in 10 years, okay? That’s a hoax.”
Many Republicans — even those who said they were open to Congress stepping in — echoed the president’s assertion that regulations threaten America’s “edge over China.”
“We need to take a measured approach,” Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., said. “We can’t have China controlling the narrative on this.”
Republican Rep. Troy Nehls of Texas, another steadfast supporter of the president, told MS NOW that, “We don’t want China to catch up.”
“We got to be the innovator,” he said.
The disconnect between Trump’s position and the concerns voiced by some Republicans comes as polling suggests public anxiety about AI is on the rise.
A recent Politico poll found that 63% of American adults believe AI poses at least a moderate risk of destroying humanity.
Democrats told MS NOW that the president appears to be misreading the political moment — on top of the technological threat — right before the midterms.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., said she has “never seen an issue rise to this kind of prominence and energy and anger like this one.”
“It’s really about an existential question of what are human beings worth,” she said.
Rep. Raul Ruiz, D-Calif., agreed.
“The president is definitely misreading this moment,” Ruiz said. “But his priorities have never been the affordability crisis or the well-being of working-class Americans.”
And at least one Republican told MS NOW that when it comes to AI, maybe the president should keep quiet for the moment.
“This is one I don’t think he should speak out on a lot right now until we really get into a thoughtful way of dealing with it,” Van Drew said.
And that, Van Drew said, “is not going to happen ‘til after the election.”
Lillie Boudreaux and Mychael Schnell contributed to this report.
