Last week, President Donald Trump once again demonstrated his dedication to the artificial intelligence industry. signing of the decree whose goal is to prevent states from regulating AI.
The artificial intelligence industry has long pushed for these kinds of measures because they worry that patchy state laws will make it harder for them to do business. Many leaders of the left are fiercely against order, calling it an abuse of power and warning that it would lead to the spread of AI harm.
But Trump is also facing significant backlash from some conservative leaders who believe in states' rights and want to protect their constituents. Governor of Florida Ron DeSantisGovernor of Utah Spencer CoxRepublican state legislators across the country have expressed concerns about the executive order and signaled their intention to support state artificial intelligence laws. Other conservative leaders fear the battle will spill into next year's midterm elections, forcing Republicans to take sides in an increasingly bitter domestic political battle.
“For red states, being sued by the administration in the midterms seems like a terrible prospect,” says Wesley Hodges, who directs tech policy at the Heritage Foundation, a prominent conservative think tank. “This reinforces the rift between populists and pro-tech people in the conservative movement right now.”
“Destroyed in its infancy”
Voting this year showed that most Americans want guardrails around AI. But Congress was slow to act, so dozens of states moved forward and passed more than 100 AI-related laws covering security, deepfakes, mental health and more.
AI advocates hate this deluge of laws because they say it creates a huge headache having to figure out how to comply with them all at once. That's why there have been several attempts in Congress this year to preempt state AI laws. A moratorium on government AI laws was included in Trump's Big Beautiful Bill, but failed 99-1 after some jokes in the last hour. AI advocates then tried to include a clause in the annual defense spending bill that would override state AI laws, but the measure was deeply unpopular even among Trump voters, according to recent surveyand was removed from the count.
In July, TIME spoke with Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin, who strongly opposed the moratorium proposal. “I'm sensitive to those in the industry and government who say we need to make sure we don't kill the goose that laid the golden egg,” he said. “But we also need to make sure that the goose doesn't attack us. And we need to make sure that the golden egg is actually golden.”
On Thursday, Trump went further and signed an executive order that attempts to do what Congress could not. In his article on Truth Social, Trump said: “If we are going to have 50 states, many of them will be bad actors involved in the RULES and APPROVAL PROCESS. ABOUT THIS THERE CAN BE NO DOUBT! AI WILL BE DESTROYED IN INFANTRY!” As he signed the order in the Oval Office, he was joined by AI and cryptocurrency czar David Sachs, who has been doggedly pushing for preemption all year.
Read more: Persons of 2025: Artificial Intelligence Architects
The executive order directs the Department of Justice to create an “AI Litigation Task Force” that will sue states over AI-related laws. He's asking the Commerce Department to explore whether it can deny federal broadband funding to those states. Notably, the order excludes from its scope “child safety protections” that many Republican legislators have established in states across the country.
States to Watch
It is unclear whether the actions proposed by the EO are constitutional. “The type of preemption that has been applied is ahistorical: We can't point to a single example that demonstrates such a broad and sweeping ban on laws without a replacement standard,” says Hodges, who is acting director of the Heritage Foundation's Center for Technology and Human Personality.
On December 8, Governor DeSantis questioned the relevance of the EO. by Xarguing that such an order would not limit the power of states to enact their own laws. (States' powers are protected by the Tenth Amendment.) Last week, DeSantis released a proposal containing consumer protections from harm caused by AI.
So now states must determine whether they want to pass and enforce AI laws, which could trigger a Justice Department lawsuit and then a legal battle over whether that lawsuit is valid. Many blue states are likely to press ahead with AI legislation despite the risk, perhaps in part to score political points.
But for red states, the calculations are more complicated. Passing and enforcing government AI laws could lead to a head-on war with the president. The mere threat of this situation could have a chilling effect, causing state legislators to refrain from writing AI legislation.
Brendan Steinhauser, a GOP strategist and CEO of the Alliance for Secure Artificial Intelligence, says he spoke with several leaders last week about the possibility of fighting back. “People are trying to figure out at the government level, 'What if we call their bluff?' – he says. “I encourage all attorneys general to defend existing laws and protect their states from potential DOJ lawsuits related to AI laws.”
One potential battleground could be Utah, which has passed a law requiring companies to disclose their use of AI in industries such as finance and mental health. Republican state Rep. Doug Fifia called Trump's order “an overreaching act that fundamentally ignores the Tenth Amendment” KSL.com.
Another state to watch is Texas, where several AI-related bills have been passed. including around AI-generated child pornography. One of the most vocal state lawmakers on AI has been state Sen. Angela Paxton, who told TIME she intends to continue working on AI legislation at the state level. “I don’t think we should stop pursuing our policies to protect our children, consumers, privacy and infrastructure the way we see fit in Texas until meaningful federal legislation is passed,” she says. “The federal government cannot handcuff us.”
Paxton appreciates that the executive order exempts child safety laws from attack. And Sachs has marked that the administration will review cases only selectively, with a particular focus on curbing “ideological interference” in artificial intelligence systems by progressives. Still, Paxton is wary of the power the executive order gives the executive branch to overturn laws simply because they “don't like your state's law,” she says.
A brewing political battle
The defiant message from Paxton and others could foreshadow an even bigger divide in the Republican Party over AI that could extend into the midterm elections. Steve Bannon, the leader of MAGA, devoted several segments to this topic on his Bannon's War Room podcast. described order when “techies do their best” [sic] to turn the POTUS-MAGA base away from him while they line their pockets.”
Brad Littlejohn, program director and policy adviser at American Compass, says the order could backfire among Trump's base, especially among traditional social conservatives concerned about the impact of technology on the family, as well as some working-class populists. “I think the administration is taking a serious political risk by positioning itself this way,” he says.
Littlejohn points to the dot-com boom, in which the bubble burst before the Internet became a major driver of productivity. “Even if the gamble pays off economically in the long run, the average American will see the downsides long before they see the benefits,” he says.
Matt Pancus, a small business owner in Austin, Texas, who voted for Trump in the last three elections, says he doesn't support any measures that try to limit states' ability to regulate themselves. “This country was created so that states could do different things to see what worked and what didn’t,” he says. “I don't like the idea of the federal government saying, 'You can't protect your state.' This is crazy.”
