Trump Signed an Executive Order to Block State AI Laws. Here’s What We Know So Far.

To regulate or not to regulate artificial intelligence? That is the question President Donald Trump has been grappling with in his second term. And this time, he has finally taken matters into his own hands, signing an executive order that seeks to limit do away with state-level laws in favor of a single, “minimally burdensome national policy framework.” 

“[AI companies] want to be in the United States, and they want to do it here, and we have big investment coming,” Trump said at the signing ceremony. “But if they had to get 50 different approvals from 50 different states, you could forget it.”

Replacing state AI regulations with one federal rule has been at the top of the president’s to-do list for a while now. In July, he pushed for his “Big Beautiful Bill” to contain a provision banning state regulations on AI, but it was removed by the Senate. Less than a month later, he released an AI Action Plan to accelerate AI development in America, including a similar provision that called for federal funding to be redirected away from states with “burdensome AI regulations.” 

Trump also flirted with the idea of signing an executive order to block state AI regulations in November, but he eventually backed off after facing fierce backlash from both ends of the political spectrum. Then, just days before the signing, he posted on Truth Social that he planned to establish a “ONE RULE Executive Order,” with the goal of bringing all AI regulation in the United States under a single federal framework. 

Now that Trump has followed through on his promise, he must walk the fine line of reassuring his Big Tech allies while trying to avoid alienating the very workers who helped him return to power. 

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What’s the State of AI Regulation in the U.S. Right Now? 

To date, there is no federal law regulating AI in the United States. While Biden passed an executive order that laid the groundwork for nationwide AI regulation, Trump revoked the act shortly after starting his second term without offering a replacement. 

In response, a growing number of states have stepped up to fill this void. For instance, New York enacted legislation making safety plans mandatory for frontier AI models; California approved a law to regulate companion chatbots; and Colorado passed a bill requiring any “high-risk system” to defend users against “algorithmic discrimination.” Trump’s longtime frenemy and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has even proposed an “AI Bill of Rights” in his state to address data privacy concerns, deepfakes and mental health chatbots, to name a few.  

The result has been an increasingly complex web of state regulations that Trump worries could impede AI innovation. Trump recently called on Congress to add a provision to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would strike down state regulations — a move House Majority Leader Steve Scalise has also considered — but Republicans ultimately held off on the measure. Out of options and out of patience, Trump may resort to his boldest maneuver yet and move forward with an executive order. 

What Will Trump’s Executive Order Do? 

The overarching aim of the order is to “sustain and enhance the United States’ global AI dominance through a minimally burdensome, uniform national policy framework for AI.” 

First, the order targets state laws, which the order deems “cumbersome regulation” that’s holding back AI companies. The following steps would be taken to eliminate any state law related to AI: 

• Establishing a task force to bring lawsuits against state AI laws in coordination with several advisors, including the Special Advisor for AI and Crypto. 
• Requiring the Secretary of Commerce to evaluate all state laws and identify the ones that could impede American AI dominance. This includes laws that “require AI models to alter their truthful outputs,” echoing earlier attempts from the Trump administration to prevent what it calls “woke AI.”
• Limiting funding to states with laws that violate this act and listing the conditions to regain funding under the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment Program. 
• Requiring the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission to decide whether a federal standard is necessary for reporting when state AI laws violate the act.
• Requiring the Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission to detail when state AI laws violate the FTC Act’s “prohibition on unfair and deceptive acts or practices.” 

The order also calls for the Special Advisor for AI and Crypto and the Director of the Office of Legislative Affairs to draft a “legislative recommendation” that would create a “uniform Federal regulatory framework for AI” that “preempts” any conflicting state AI laws, unless those laws pertain to matters like child safety protections, AI infrastructure or government procurement or use of AI. Of course, Trump would review this act and decide whether to give it his final stamp of approval.

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What’s Been the Response to a Possible Executive Order So Far? 

Not surprisingly, Trump’s executive order has received harsh criticism from Democrats. Ed Markey (D-MA), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Cory Booker (D-NJ) are just a few politicians who have spoken out against the order, blasting the president for disregarding demands for AI guardrails while neglecting more meaningful AI initiatives, including funding for AI research. 

What is surprising is the resistance the president has faced from his own party. U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) and former U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) have decried Trump’s attempts to block state AI regulations, citing states’ rights. Governor DeSantis has added his own critiques as well, arguing that only Congress has the power to pass a federal regulation that overrides state laws, and that an executive order would undermine states’ ability to uphold children’s online safety, intellectual property rights and data center security. 

Perhaps even more alarming for Trump is the scathing takes delivered by Steve Bannon, his former chief political strategist and a key thinker in the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement. On his podcast, Bannon has openly criticized attempts to add a provision to the NDAA banning state AI regulations, even summarizing broader efforts to accelerate American AI development as “corporatism.” 

This conservative pushback reveals that there are not just disagreements among Republicans, but also possible fissures forming within Trump’s MAGA coalition — a problem that couldn’t come at a worse time for Trump as the 2026 midterms near.

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How Could an AI Executive Order Affect the Midterms?

AI is set to be a hot-button issue in this next round of midterms, with concerns over the technology’s economic effects dominating the discussion. Hawley is one of the main Republicans who have painted AI as a major threat to job prospects, going so far as to introduce a bipartisan bill that would require companies and government agencies to share data on how AI has impacted their workforces. 

Regardless, Trump has warmed up to tech leaders and established more formal ties between the federal government and tech companies, resulting in numerous policies that have favored Big Tech’s agenda. These relationships point to Trump maintaining his position on ending state AI regulations, mirroring demands for fewer regulations made by some of the biggest names in tech, including Sam Altman, Sundar Pichai, Jensen Huang and Mark Zuckerberg. 

Trump aligning himself with these technocrats rather than his working-class base has sown division among the MAGA ranks and damaged his relationships with former allies. If this keeps up, Trump could very well back himself into a corner where it’s him and the tech elite against everyone else — a new divide that the upcoming midterms could expose.

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