Trump ranks the China race above the slowdown the AI CEOs asked for

Trump on Sunday played down the need for his administration to check the development of artificial intelligence, saying he worried about ceding America's edge over China in a global competition and that winning would help address the risks from the technology.

Trump said the United States is leading China in the development of AI and "frankly, I want to keep it that way because whoever wins AI wins."

While acknowledging the need for some regulation, Trump provided no specifics about potential rules and attributed warnings that the technology is moving too quickly and with little oversight to "negative forces" he did not identify.

Trump spoke to reporters after watching a golfer tee off in the Irish Open at his resort in Doonbeg, during a weekend trip to Ireland.

Trump made the comments during an appearance at a golf tournament in Ireland on Sept. 13.

Jeffries criticized Republican leaders for allowing members to go back to their districts for the final part of September.

Neither Johnson nor Jeffries provided concrete steps about what Congress might do; lawmakers agree that more guardrails are needed.

Trump said in August that American communities should accept data centers unless they want to be "backwards and poor" and that "China could not be happier" about opposition to them, and wrote "Let Data Reign" in a Truth Social post.

House Speaker Mike Johnson acknowledged the need for "some guardrails, some safety measures" so AI "doesn't run away", but also wants to ensure the US does not "lose our edge in the global competition on this with China because that would be a national security threat."

Johnson said industry leaders need to be summoned for "one big meeting and work this out together in the same room", said he has discussed the issue with Trump and believes a meeting held quickly should be the "next step", and called it a "top priority for me and for the Congress."

"But we don't need everybody to panic right now," Johnson said.

Trump has kept up his support for data centers even as both Republicans and Democrats run from them and many communities try to block them.

A recent NBC News Decision Desk poll found that 69% of respondents oppose construction of AI data centers in their area, and the topic has been thrust into the center of the 2026 midterm elections.

On Sept. 10, Anthropic released a threat intelligence report covering the prior eight months that said the company "disrupted operations in which threat actors tried to use Claude for malicious activity."

AI has become a major election-year issue as some of the country's largest companies seed small towns with a national network of computing warehouses, while Americans from both parties increasingly raise alarms about less farmland and water supplies and rising electricity bills.

Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, said he expects meetings will be held this week involving administration officials who oversee cyber and science and technology policy, and that Trump could also meet members of Congress.

"I think the president wants to hear from them as well," Hassett said.

Chinese President Xi Jinping is due to visit the US later in September to meet with Trump, and AI likely will be among the items they discuss.

Obama said his party should make AI a campaign issue, saying he would be "thinking about the economic impacts in very concrete ways and understanding what does it mean if there's going to be job displacement", at an event last week with House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries.

Five days separated Coxon's Sept. 8 statement from Trump's Sept. 13 comments.

With 69% opposed, at most 31 points remain to divide between support and no opinion, so the opposed outnumber everyone else by at least 2.2 to one.