Technology

The Big Story

Trump calls on Congress to rein in state AI regulations

President Trump on Tuesday took aim at state laws seeking to regulate AI, calling for a nationwide standard and urging lawmakers to limit the moves by state legislatures.

"Investment in AI is helping to make the U.S. Economy the 'HOTTEST' in the World, but overregulation by the States is threatening to undermine this Major Growth 'Engine,'" Trump wrote on Truth Social.

"Some States are even trying to embed DEI ideology into AI models, producing 'Woke AI' (Remember Black George Washington?)," he continued. "We MUST have one Federal Standard instead of a patchwork of 50 State Regulatory Regimes. If we don't, then China will easily catch us in the AI race."

He suggested lawmakers place a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act or pass a separate bill addressing these concerns.

The president's comments come after Punchbowl News reported Monday that House GOP leaders were considering including language in the must-pass defense bill that would effectively ban state AI regulation.

The report prompted pushback from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) called the potential provision a "poison pill" and vowed to block it, while Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) suggested it "shows what money can do."

This marks the latest push by GOP lawmakers to pass a moratorium on state AI laws, which they argue risk weighing down innovation at a crucial moment in the AI race.

A 10-year moratorium was initially included in Trump's tax and spending bill earlier this year but was stripped out in a 99-1 Senate vote.

Welcome to The Hill's Technology newsletter, I'm Julia Shapero — tracking the latest moves from Capitol Hill to Silicon Valley.

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Oz touts agentic AI for health care

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Mehmet Oz touted artificial intelligence as a potential solution to address both doctor burnout and health care fraud.

"AI is really good at fraud — making it and catching it," Oz said at the General Catalyst Institute's Summit on U.S. Resilience in Washington on Monday night.

Oz pointed to agentic AI as the thing he's most optimistic about to help with tackling inefficiencies and fraud in health care but argued it could also help with physician burnout.

"The main reason doctors leave is they burn out. They don't like the job anymore, because when everyone goes home, they're doing paperwork for three more hours and don't feel respected in that process," he said.

As AI becomes more sophisticated, he said it could reach a point where it's used to gather and screen basic medical information before handing it off to a doctor to deliver the diagnosis.

"Our biggest enemy without question is nihilism. People not thinking we can fix the system. And I am confident, speaking as the person who's in the organization who probably sees most of it, at least at a holistic level, Secretary Kennedy believes this is the case, Jay Bhattacharya, running NIH, Marty Makary running FDA, and most importantly, the president believes deep in our hearts we can fix the problems."

— Jesse Byrnes

The Refresh

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Microsoft, Nvidia to invest in Anthropic as Claude maker commits $30 billion to Azure (Reuters)
U.S. plans to approve sale of chips to Saudi AI venture Humain (Bloomberg)

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