President Donald Trump is considering an executive order to preempt state AI laws, instructing the Justice Department to challenge them in court and conditioning some federal funds on compliance, according to a draft order reviewed by Reuters.
The draft would direct Attorney General Pam Bondi to create an “AI Litigation Task Force” to sue states on grounds including interstate-commerce preemption, and tells Commerce to review state AI statutes and issue guidance that could restrict broadband funding, Reuters reported. A White House official said discussion of potential executive orders is speculation until officially announced.
The move follows a 99–1 U.S. Senate vote to strip a moratorium on state AI regulation from a GOP bill, a bipartisan rebuke of federal preemption efforts.
Recent state measures include California’s SB 53 (the Transparency in Frontier AI Act) and Colorado’s SB 24-205 on algorithmic discrimination (since narrowed/rewritten in 2025 sessions).