A second draft executive order would create a national AI regulatory standard with an emphasis on human flourishing, NR has learned.
The Trump administration is weighing two executive orders to address AI policy on the state and national level, with one of them focused on challenging state laws that impose left-wing ideology onto AI systems.
The Office of Science and Technology Policy and the vice president’s office are circulating executive orders to create a national AI regulatory standard with an emphasis on human flourishing and to combat blue state AI laws that embed diversity, equity, and inclusion into AI systems, National Review has learned.
National Review has obtained copies of the draft executive orders. A White House official told NR that discussions about potential executive orders is speculative until the administration makes a formal announcement.
“Until officially announced by the WH, discussion about potential executive orders is purely speculation,” the White House official said. The official did not dispute the authenticity of the drafts.
A spokesperson for the Vice President said his office has not circulated any draft executive orders and referred National Review to the White House for any further questions.
The draft executive order on “woke” AI tackles a longstanding tech industry concern about political bias in AI models. The directive asks Attorney General Pam Bondi, in consultation with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and OSTP director Michael Kratsios, to identify state and local laws that “impose unconstitutional disparate-impact requirements on artificial intelligence systems.”
If states fail to repeal the progressive AI laws, Bondi would take legal action to combat them or intervene in private litigation already challenging the laws.
Additionally, the executive order tells cabinet officials to review federal funds for jurisdictions with progressive AI regulations. Agencies could suspend or terminate federal funds, including grants and contracts related to technology.
The draft executive order on human flourishing instructs agencies to create AI policy councils tasked with developing specific federal standards in their respective domains. The directive tells agencies to prioritize human flourishing in creating standards that “will inform new laws, relaxation or obsolescence of existing laws, regulatory rule making, and funding priorities.”
Agencies would be empowered to address concerns including child safety, job displacement, and AI-induced psychosis. Non-industry stakeholders such as faith leaders, family policy experts, and labor organizations would have representation on the agency councils. For the sake of transparency, the agency recommendations would undergo a public review process to allow stakeholders to weigh in.
Moreover, the draft executive order articulates four pillars for embedding human flourishing into a national AI standard: mitigating social risk, preventing catastrophic risk, devolution of power, and design for flourishing.
The executive orders balance industry concerns about navigating a patchwork of state regulations with conservative fears about the negative impacts of AI on child safety, jobs, and mental health. Social conservatives and MAGA populists have embraced AI safety, putting them at odds with the tech industry and its allies in the Trump administration. Vance is typically an ally of MAGA populists and social conservatives.
President Trump said earlier this week he will be signing an executive order to create a single AI rulebook to ensure the U.S. remains at the forefront of AI innovation.
“There must be only One Rulebook if we are going to continue to lead in AI. 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 posted on Truth Social Monday.
“THERE CAN BE NO DOUBT ABOUT THIS! AI WILL BE DESTROYED IN ITS INFANCY! I will be doing a ONE RULE Executive Order this week. You can’t expect a company to get 50 Approvals every time they want to do something. THAT WILL NEVER WORK!”
Trump’s AI and crypto czar David Sacks, an industry ally, addressed conservative concerns about an AI pre-emption in an X post building off Trump’s statement.
“The attempts of Red States to protect conservatives from bias and discrimination (a worthy goal) will have limited effectiveness when Blue States like California have the most market power and nexus to AI development,” Sacks said.
“At best, we’ll end up with 50 different AI models for 50 different states – a regulatory morass worse than Europe. This will stymie innovation, especially by small startups who can’t afford the compliance burden. Meanwhile, China will race ahead.”
The tech industry and Trump backed an unsuccessful congressional push in recent weeks to insert an AI regulatory pre-emption into the annual defense policy bill. The pre-emption would create federal AI guidelines and overrule specific state regulations. It failed to gain traction after Democratic and Republican lawmakers on a state and federal level voiced opposition to the pre-emption.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated after publication with comment from a Vance spokesperson.