AI Becomes Trump’s New GOP Battlefield

Trump's MAGA civil war over artificial intelligence. President Trump is discovering there's one thing even MAGA voters don't want him to deregulate. It's artificial intelligence. According to the Washington Post, Trump has torn up Biden's AI safeguards, lifted limits on chip exports, fast tracked data centers, and even explored an executive order to stop states from writing their own AI rules. He boasts that AI money is making the US Economy the hottest in the world. But Republican governors and Senators Ron DeSantis, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Josh Hawley, Spencer Cox and others are warning that Trump is siding with tech billionaires over working families. They're pushing state laws to protect jobs, kids, mental health and household utility bills from an AI gold rush that serves investors first. Half of American adults now say they're more worried than excited about AI. Trump's problem is simple. His base hears AI boom. And thinks not of stock prices, but of their kids, their jobs, and their power bills. What's the real message here? There is a growing divide between how Trump views artificial intelligence and not regulating it, and how the Republican base all over the country wants strong AI regulation. Republican senators and governors are saying, we want the right to tell AI they can't come here and make our average citizen see their electricity bills triple. We want the right to not subject our teenage girls and boys to non stop pounding away of slime and porn and filth ruining their brains. Let's go a little bit deeper here. It's fun to say regulation is bad. The private sector is always superior. Government's always bad. That's a message that historically was the Republican message, the conservative message. And Donald Trump changed that. When he first entered the national scene, he radically changed the Republican Party position. He was no longer railing against Social Security, that was considered the welfare state among many conservatives. He kind of scrapped that. He no longer said, we got to get rid of all Medicare. He, he didn't bash that. He actually ran on the idea of having an extensive safety net in our country. He did legitimately change the ideological infrastructure of the Republican Party, and they liked that. They liked the fact that actual voters liked that. The lobbyist at libertarian think tanks in Washington didn't like it. But average voters did like that. Turns out they like government intervention to help them with big problems. And now we see this administration saying basically, whatever Elon Musk wants. You know, we get in fights with them occasionally, but whatever he wants, he gets. Whatever Jeff Bezos wants, he gets. Whatever Mark Zuckerberg wants, he gets. Because they got the money that's why they're sitting behind me at the inauguration and you aren't. That's why they are at all the black tie balls and you are. They got money. So that is seemingly what's been guiding Trump and his rollbacks of all AI regulation that happened under his predecessor. Let's look at some more of the facts. Half of us adults are more concerned than excited about artificial intelligence these days. The concern has gone up from 37% in 2021 to 50% today. DeSantis, the Republican governor of Florida, has said federal AI preemption is as bad as pandemic mask mandates. And boy, did he not like those. So there's a big divide over here with artificial intelligence. The other problem is many case. So all these AI companies and building the chips and all of it uses massive, massive energy. When I use ChatGPT, it's using lots and lots of energy. So the whole tech field is having to build these, these server farms and it's sucking up energy like crazy. Like any other supply demand situation, there's more demand for energy. The price is going up. So if you are a normal human being and let's say you work as a school teacher, let's say you're a Republican school teacher in a high school in Des Moines, Iowa, and you make $57,000 a year, and let's say your family income is $100,000 a year if you're used to having electricity bills that are $190 a month. And now a server farm comes in from big, some big tech company, no real jobs, once it's built, they come in, they're using so much electricity, and your energy bill now goes to $300 a month. You're sitting there scratching your head saying, wait a minute, why am I essentially getting taxed by this big AI company that's run by billionaires? My income didn't go up, my cost went up. So the actual rank and file, not just Republicans, but independent, centrist, non aligned Democrats around the country are in favor of more regulation of artificial intelligence. And the Trump administration isn't. So it's causing a bit of a schism. Let's look at some more of the facts in the situation. State Republicans call unchecked AI a new wild west that they want to regulate. So there's a division between local, state legislators, governors and what's happening in Washington. Some conservative strategists say it's a, quote, a small cabal of tech bros driving Trump's AI agenda. So that's not just AOC or liberals or MSNBC saying it's conservatives saying that and they are worried about it Now. A Yale study finds no clear labor disruption yet. But CEOs do worry warn of job cuts. Data firms are getting special data firms are getting fast tracked data centers and nuclear backed power deals. So if you want to just build a home, a new home in your community, quite often in the United States you have to go through months and months and months of filling out forms, appeals, showing up at hearings, some cases you got to hire a lobbyist just to build a home. And three years later you build a home. Meanwhile, boom. So Sam Altman wants to build a gigantic Data center that's 20 times bigger than a football field and that's going to be up before the next season starts, that's going to be up in 90 days, or at least it seems like that. So a lot of people, rightfully so, are resentful of how we're essentially moving into a two tiered society. There's what big tech bros want and there's what everyone else gets. And increasingly we are seeing a winner take all economy where it's not enough for Elon Musk to become a billionaire, something that was, you know, crazy a generation ago. It's not enough for him to get 50 or $100 million paydays, but now he's got to have a trillion dollars. Meanwhile, the average American is saying I got $200 in my savings account. What happens if I get a flat tire and it costs $300? And this is happening in all political parties in the United States. So we're seeing this divide. The other issue revolves around things like pornography and these creepy, creepy chatbots that are trying to lure your 18 year olds into marrying them or your 16 year olds, these relationships. There's a lot of creepy stuff going on with AI and a lot of Republicans are saying, know what? We simply don't want to hand over all the power to the executive branch who's just going to let big tech do whatever they want. So it's an interesting, interesting thing. The AI czar is the investor, David Sachs, who's a billionaire. He kind of calls the shots. I don't think David Sacks is worried and I don't know about his family. I don't think he's worried about his children losing jobs. He's already a billion. But to most other Americans, an interesting character is the Republican considers himself a conservative. Governor of Utah, Spencer Cox, he's warned tech has already destroyed our children's mental health. There's absolutely nothing preventing Congress and the executive branch from imposing harsher restrictions on the kind of filth that Facebook and all the other social media platforms are showing kids. And yet the best thing to do if you're a politician is to say, well, I don't see anything. Give me more cash. I don't see anything giving another campaign contribution. And it's causing a real divide in our country. Let's see what you say. Legan writes in Don't Care for parties. Just be nice to other humans and the world will be better. Certainly we can all be nice to better humans. And that does relate to one of the issues we're going to see in the grab bag portion of the show today, which is an administration official in charge of air flights is telling us all to be nicer on planes and not show up in our pajamas. So certainly think people being more human and being nicer is a great thing. However, you can't really organize a government around that. It does take coalitions. Whether you want to call it a party or something else, you have to. In a democracy, you have to persuade people. Here's an idea. I think it's going to be the best thing. Will you join me? And whether you call it a party or something else, there has to be a centralized way of, of getting things organized. That's why I frankly never find it particularly interesting to vote for an independent. Not because I don't like independents. I consider myself a sane, sensible centrist. But when you look at the few times independents get elected, one of two things happen. They end up being someone like a Jesse Ventura who ran as a big independent, former professional wrestler, a guy who came across really well on Larry King and talk shows. But then he got into office. What did he accomplish? Absolutely nothing. Now, other times you see people run as independents like Angus King of Maine, but they caucus with one political party and they're very active and they're a part of coalitions and they do get a lot done. But they are working within the political system. They are independent, really, in name only.