White House Pressures Lawmakers in Missouri, Tennessee on AI Safeguard Bills

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White House Pressures Lawmakers in Missouri, Tennessee on AI Safeguard Bills

Co-Chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology David Sacks. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell / @TheElizMitchell

Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell is the White House Correspondent for "The Daily Signal." Send her an email.

The White House called lawmakers in Missouri and Tennessee about their artificial intelligence guardrail bills in its two latest attempts to intervene in state AI legislation.

In Missouri, the White House had a call with the conservative sponsor of an AI safety bill to discuss softening it, the legislator said. The legislation would establish the harms caused by an AI system as the responsibility of its owner or operator.

In Tennessee, a state senator admitted on the Senate floor that the White House had called and asked him to strike multiple provisions from his child safety and transparency bill.

“It will happen in every state,” a source close to AI policy told The Daily Signal. 

“We are proud of the President’s National AI Framework,” a White House official told The Daily Signal. “The Trump Administration is eager to work with partners who will help us implement that policy and achieve a comprehensive AI framework that serves all Americans. This approach will protect children, prevent censorship, respect intellectual property, and safeguard communities while ensuring America remains the undisputed leader in AI and technological innovation.”

In February, the White House contacted Florida Speaker of the House Daniel Perez and his staff members about opposing Gov. Ron DeSantis’ bill to establish limits on artificial intelligence, including protections for minors, The Daily Signal first reported.

A week before that, the White House sent a letter pressuring a Utah lawmaker to kill his bill requiring tech companies to publish safety and child-protection plans.

Republican state Sen. Joe Nicola introduced the Missouri bill that would prohibit AI from having the legal status of personhood and ban harmful deepfake videos. He said he is discouraged by the White House’s intervention in his bill but said he will not give up on regulating AI.

“I’m very frustrated, to be quite honest,” he told The Daily Signal.

When Nicola presented the bill for floor debate, he said two fellow Republicans stalled the process by raising concerns about President Donald Trump’s executive order preempting state laws that place “onerous” guardrails on AI innovation. 

The senators told Nicola they were concerned about the federal government withholding almost $90 million in Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program funds, which their constituents in rural Missouri depend on for internet access, he noted.

Nicola responded that other states like Texas had passed AI protection bills without the White House withholding any funding. 

The state senator said he then called White House Intergovernmental Affairs Director Alex Meyer to advocate for his bill.

“I told him my purpose for it, and that I didn’t want to hinder innovation,” he said. “We want to leave growth, but we’ve got to start from some guardrails, and I would prefer that the U.S. government and Congress do it, but since they’re not, I’m elected to do what I can to preserve freedom and liberty for the people in Missouri,” he said.

Meyer said his bill was overly broad and that some of the penalty provisions were “a bit steep,” Nicola said, and expressed concerns that the bill would impose overly strict limits on developers, hindering innovation. 

“I disagree,” Nicola said. “I’ve had lawyers look at this. I’ve worked with some other AI organizations, told them what I wanted to do, what I wanted to accomplish, and I think we have a good piece of legislation.”

Nicola is now working on the 11th version of his bill to address the White House’s concerns. 

“I’m willing to soften it for the developers, but we still need to hold people accountable for these deepfakes,” he said. 

Nicola says he was promised a conference call with the White House AI policy shop, but a week later, the meeting has not materialized.  

“I’d take great offense that the president would threaten us by withholding federal funds from protecting our people,” the Missouri Republican said. “That’s why I was elected, it’s what I’m doing here, and to be told I can’t do that, that ‘they’re gonna threaten you,’ that makes me want to push back even harder.”

The White House appeared to follow a similar playbook in Tennessee after Republican state Sen. Ken Yager introduced a bill prohibiting misleading statements by AI developers and chatbot providers about major safety risks. His bill would also require transparent child safety plans.  

“The White House called this morning about the bill,” Yager said on the Senate floor April 7. He presented a new amendment to his bill “at the suggestion of the White House” that deleted portions of the legislation to focus instead on child safety and transparent reporting. 

The Daily Signal reached out to Yager’s office for comment, but did not hear back by publication time.

A source involved in the Tennessee legislation said he was surprised that the White House involved itself in AI policy in the home states of Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., key players in Senate negotiations over the National Framework on AI. 

“The idea that you would go into Hawley’s state and Blackburn’s state, who are critical people to get on board with the national framework, that are pretty far off now from the weaker standards in the House, this sabotaged a lot of negotiation,” he said. 

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