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Trump Plans Executive Order This Week to Squelch State AI Regulations

By  |  December 8, 2025
AI regulations, legislation, education

President Donald Trump said Monday he will sign an executive order (EO) this week to prevent states from imposing regulations on artificial intelligence and AI companies. “There must be only One Rulebook if we are going to continue to lead in AI,” Trump he said in a post on Truth Social. “We are beating ALL COUNTRIES at this point in the race, but that won’t last long if we are going to have 50 States, many of them bad actors, involved in RULES and the APPROVAL PROCESS…AI WILL BE DESTROYED IN ITS INFANCY!” [sic].

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    The statement by Trump comes days after Republican leadership on Capitol Hill agreed to remove a provision from the National Defense Authorization Act bill that would ban states from enacting or enforcing laws affecting AI for 10 years. The same measure had been removed at the last minute from the One Big Beautiful budget bill passed earlier this year.

    The executive order, a draft of which leaked last week, would create an “AI Litigation Task Force” with the Department of Justice to challenge state laws in court, direct federal agencies to evaluate state laws deemed “onerous,” and push the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) toward national standards that override state rules.

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    Federal preemption of state laws has become a top policy priority for the AI industry and investors. States lawmakers have introduced over 1,000 related to AI, and California, New York, Colorado and Tennessee, among others, have enacted statutes to regulate various uses of the technology. Former Silicon Valley VC David Sacks, who now serves as White House “AI czar,” has also been a strong supporter of federal preemption.

    Last month, per CNBC, a new industry super PAC named New York State Assemblyman Alex Bores, author of the state’s RAISE Act and who is now running for the Manhattan Congressional seat being vacated by the retiring Jerry Nadler, as the first target of a $10 million advertising campaign aimed at defeating candidates that oppose their agenda.

    Related: State AI Moratorium Dropped From Defense Authorization Bill

    Although backing for preemption has generally come from Republicans, not all in the GOP support the idea. Florida governor Ron DeSantis, a potential 2028 presidential candidate, said in a post on X last week, “I oppose stripping Florida of our ability to legislate in the best interest of the people.” He also released a package of legislative proposals last week aimed at protecting Floridians’ personal data from misuse by AI systems and restricting development of data centers.

    Sens. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) have also strongly opposed federal preemption.

    Last month, coalition of 36 state attorneys general, including Republicans as well as Democrats,  sent a letter to the bipartisan leaders of the House and Senate opposing federal preemption. “States must be empowered to apply existing laws and formulate new approaches to meet the range of challenges associated with AI,” the letter said.

    What effect Trump’s EO will have is uncertain. “The executive branch is limited in what it can do,” Mackenzie Arnold, director of US policy at the think tank LawAI, told the Financial Times. “Agencies can only pre-empt state law insofar as Congress has given them the power to, and in this case, neither the Federal Communications Commission nor the Federal Trade Commission has that power.”