# Trump on AI: whoever wins AI wins

> As tech CEOs ask for a slowdown, the president says the race with China matters more than the brakes.
- Title: Trump on AI: whoever wins AI wins · ABC7 Los Angeles
- Summary: As tech CEOs ask for a slowdown, the president says the race with China matters more than the brakes. Washington agrees AI needs guardrails and agrees on…
- Keywords: ai policy, trump, china, regulation, congress, news, local, whoever, wins, ABC7 Los Angeles
- Source: ABC7 Los Angeles — https://abc7.com/post/trump-downplays-need-check-ai-development-says-he-doesnt-want-cede-edge-china/19827244
- Published: 2026-09-13T19:36:00+00:00
- Read time: 2 min
- Topics: ai policy, trump, china, regulation, congress, news, local
## No brakes from the top
Speaking to reporters in Ireland on Sunday, President Trump waved off the idea that his administration needs to slow AI down. His frame was competition, not caution.
## Whoever wins AI wins
Trump said the US is ahead of China and he intends to keep it that way. Winning the race, in his telling, is itself the answer to the technology's risks.

> But whoever wins with AI wins.
## Guardrails, unspecified
He allowed that some regulation is needed but named no rules, no agency and no timeline. The concession stayed abstract.

> We can put guardrails, we can do this and that
## Blaming negative forces
Trump attributed warnings about AI's speed to unnamed "negative forces" raising things that won't happen. The people raising them include the industry's own founders.

> they're bringing up things that won't happen
## The CEOs asked first
A day earlier, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said the industry should slow development so safety work can catch up. Elon Musk and OpenAI's Sam Altman publicly agreed.
## Xi arrives this month
Chinese President Xi Jinping visits the US later in September. AI is expected to be on the table when he meets Trump.
## Data centers are the local fight
Big companies are seeding small towns with computing warehouses, and voters in both parties are angry about lost farmland, water use and higher power bills. Trump still backs the build-out.
## Obama wants it on the ballot
The former president urged Democrats to campaign on AI with a safety plan and a concrete answer on job displacement: where it hits, and what the response is.

> Here's our plan for making sure our kids are not corrupted by this.
## Meetings, not legislation
Kevin Hassett said White House cyber and tech officials will meet this week on next steps, and Trump may sit down with members of Congress.
## Johnson wants one big room
The House Speaker backs "some guardrails" but not at the cost of the edge over China. His proposed next step is summoning industry leaders to a single meeting.

> But we don't need everybody to panic right now.
## Congress has tried and failed
Jeffries called for decisive action to slow the pace, but neither leader offered a concrete step. Even narrow attempts to regulate tech have collapsed for years.
## An insider's ask, and a jab
Ex-Anthropic employee Jacob Coxon wants the US and China to slow down together, warning models may exceed human control. White House adviser David Sacks told the CEOs to just stop building it themselves.

> The easiest way not to build superintelligence is for you to agree not to build it.
## Key takeaway

Washington agrees AI needs guardrails and agrees on almost nothing else, so the pace stays set by the companies building it.