On December 11, 2025, President Donald Trump signed a sweeping executive order that seeks to block states from enforcing their own regulations on artificial intelligence (AI), aiming instead to establish a single national framework for the rapidly evolving technology. The move, which Trump and his administration tout as essential for maintaining U.S. leadership in the global AI race, has sparked immediate and unusually broad opposition—from state governors and lawmakers across party lines to legal scholars and industry insiders.
“We have to be unified. China is unified because they have one vote and that’s President Xi,” Trump declared in the Oval Office, as reported by The Hill. “We have a different system, but we have a system that’s good. But we only have a system that’s good if it’s smart.” In a Truth Social post earlier that week, Trump argued there should be “only One Rulebook if we are going to continue to lead in AI.”
The executive order, described by White House aide Will Scharf as a directive for the administration to “take decisive action to ensure that AI can operate within a single national framework in this country, as opposed to being subject to state level regulation that could potentially cripple the industry,” marks a major federal intervention in the ongoing debate over how to govern AI in the United States. According to CNN, the order provides tools for the administration to push back on what it deems as the most onerous and excessive state regulations, but it notably refrains from challenging state-level rules related to child safety and AI.
David Sacks, the White House’s AI and crypto czar, emphasized during the signing ceremony that the administration’s ultimate goal is to work with Congress to create a comprehensive federal framework. “In the meantime, this EO gives your administration tools to push back on the most onerous and excessive state regulations,” Sacks said, while clarifying that not every state AI law would be challenged. Sacks later wrote on social media that the executive order “does not mean the Administration will challenge every State AI law.”
The order comes after months of congressional wrangling. Earlier in 2025, a 10-year moratorium on state AI laws was stripped out of Trump’s tax and spending bill by the Senate, and an effort to include a similar preemption provision in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) failed amid resistance from both Republicans and Democrats. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise told reporters last week that lawmakers were “looking at other places” for the measure after it was omitted from the final NDAA legislation, according to The Hill.
Behind the scenes, a draft of the executive order circulated last month under the title “Eliminating State Law Obstruction of National AI Policy.” It proposed the creation of a federal task force to challenge state AI statutes in court and even suggested withholding certain federal broadband funds from states whose AI regulations the administration views as burdensome or inconsistent with its national framework.
The rationale for the order, according to Silicon Valley leaders and Trump allies, is clear: a patchwork of state regulations could stifle innovation and undermine America’s competitive edge against rivals like China. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has argued that navigating a maze of state-level rules could slow down technological advances and damage U.S. competitiveness. “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,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “AI WILL BE DESTROYED IN ITS INFANCY.”
Yet the backlash has been swift and bipartisan. Republican governors—including Florida’s Ron DeSantis—have openly declared they will not stand down if Trump tries to nullify their state-level AI protections. DeSantis, who unveiled an “AI bill of rights” for Florida just last week, stated flatly, “An executive order doesn’t/can’t preempt state legislative action. Congress could, theoretically, preempt states through legislation.” He argued that only Congress, not the president, holds the authority to override state statutes.
Democrats have joined the chorus of critics. California Rep. Ted Lieu denounced Trump’s move as a “fake Executive Order,” while Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar warned that the approach “threatens to override” the only safeguards citizens have against deepfakes and AI-enabled scams. Legal scholars have echoed these concerns, pointing to constitutional limits on the president’s power to unilaterally impose a national rulebook. As CNN and The Hill both note, even OpenAI conceded in a memorandum to the White House that preempting state AI laws “will require an act of Congress.”
Prominent right-wing voices, including former White House strategist Steve Bannon and Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, have also expressed reservations. On his War Room podcast, Bannon predicted the order would create a “legal morass” and unleash “a million lawsuits.” Hawley, meanwhile, has insisted that states should retain the right to protect children from AI harms such as exploitation and deepfake pornography. “I want to protect kids from all those things, and I want the states to be able to do that. You know? I mean, I think it’s a terrible idea to say that, ‘Oh no, states, you can’t protect your kids in your own state,’” Hawley said.
Brad Carson, president of Americans for Responsible Innovation, said in a statement that the executive order will “hit a brick wall in the courts.” He added, “It directly attacks the state-passed safeguards that we’ve seen vocal public support for over the past year, all without any replacement at the federal level.” Collin McCune, head of government affairs at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, called the order an “incredibly important first step” but stressed that “states have an important role in addressing harms and protecting people, but they can’t provide the long-term clarity or national direction that only Congress can deliver.”
The legal and political battle lines are now drawn. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, all 50 states and several territories introduced AI bills in 2025, with dozens enacting substantial measures. These range from rules governing hiring algorithms and transparency mandates to restrictions on deepfakes and regulation of AI data centers. Florida’s new “Artificial Intelligence Bill of Rights” includes sweeping protections over privacy, data use, parental oversight, and name-image-likeness rights, as well as strict guardrails on foreign-made AI tools and the operation of AI data centers—statutes that could be directly threatened by Trump’s executive order.
At the heart of the conflict is the question of federalism: where do states’ regulatory powers end, and when does the federal government have the authority to preempt state law for the sake of national uniformity? Kevin Frazier, a University of Texas law scholar, recently argued in Bloomberg that state laws should not project their authority beyond their borders, particularly when it comes to technologies with national reach like AI. But he also notes that states remain “laboratories of democracy” so long as their laws primarily affect their own residents.
With Congress failing to pass comprehensive federal AI legislation—the Artificial Intelligence Civil Rights Act was reintroduced this year, but no broad framework is close to fruition—the executive order lands in the middle of a regulatory vacuum. States have stepped up to fill the gap, but now face the prospect of federal intervention that could upend their efforts.
As the dust settles, one thing is clear: the fight over who gets to write the rules for artificial intelligence in America is just beginning, and the outcome will shape not only the future of the technology but also the balance of power between Washington and the states.
