President Donald Trump got ripped apart on social media after giving a rambling response when asked about the warnings about the safety of AI from individuals working in the field.
In a lengthy Fox News interview that aired on Friday, Laura Ingraham asked the president about Americans’ growing concerns over AI technology and data centers, including how he can “reassure them that we are on the right course and not endangering humanity.”
“So talk about Anthropic. They did something that was very bad,” Trump replied. “Three months ago. And we shut them down. We shut ’em down fast. We have guardrails. The biggest guardrails are having people that are just as smart, because nobody understands it, except you have to be extremely high IQ. Not Joe Biden.”
The president added that China does not have guardrails on its AI development while claiming the U.S. was winning the AI race.
He then continued, “And you know, there’s an expression, whoever wins AI, wins. That’s how big it is. It’s bigger than the internet. It’s bigger probably than the Industrial Revolution. It’s the biggest thing. It could be, and we’ll know in about a year. It could be the biggest thing of all. And mostly for the good.”
See Trump and Ingraham’s discussion below:
Regarding Trump’s comments about Anthropic, he was likely referring to a dispute the administration had with the company in February after it refused to give the Pentagon unrestricted access to its advanced AI assistant, Claude.
Public concern over advanced AI models has grown significantly in recent days, after a former Anthropic employee abruptly left the company while warning the technology could “kill us all by the end of the decade.”
The Trump administration has done little to rein in the development of AI, even unsuccessfully pushing for a provision in the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” last year to forbid state and local governments from regulating AI for 10 years.
Trump’s response to Ingraham’s question quickly drew mockery and concern from critics online. Many commenters said Trump clearly does not understand the technology, while others accused him of was taking cues from AI industry leaders.