“In 2025, amid all the talk about A.I. threats, ‘slop’ set a tone that’s less fearful, more mocking. The word sends a little message to A.I.: When it comes to replacing human creativity, sometimes you don’t seem too superintelligent.” —Merriam-Webster’s (slightly defensive-sounding) editors on why they selected “slop” as their 2025 Word of the Year.

And now for the main event…

Last week, President Trump applied his bold Sharpie signature to a new, highly anticipated executive order—one that attempts to establish a “national policy framework” for artificial intelligence. (I reported on the leaked draft several weeks ago.) The order, of course, is only the latest salvo in the administration’s ongoing campaign to prevent states from passing their own A.I.-related legislation—a move that Congress rejected earlier this year. As Trump put it: “We have the big investment coming, but if they had to get 50 different approvals from 50 different states, you can forget it because it’s impossible to do.”

In my conversations with industry sources across the political spectrum, many were uncertain about how impactful the E.O. will be—but almost everyone agreed that it represents a huge win for Silicon Valley. After all, the E.O. largely echoes the arguments made by the likes of OpenAI and Andreessen Horowitz in previous policy briefs submitted to the administration, calling for a federal preemption of state laws. “December 11, 2025, was a great day for Silicon Valley billionaires and a sad day for the rest of Americans,” Dr. Hamid Ekbia, the director of Syracuse University’s Autonomous Systems Policy Institute, told me. Others were less convinced the order was all that meaningful. “It’s not nothing. [But] it’s definitely not preemption,” Charlie Bullock, a senior research fellow at Law AI, told me. “To really preempt state A.I. laws, you would need legislation, so they’re doing the best they can with what they’ve got.”

Indeed, Trump’s order basically attempts to get around Congress by kicking the issue to the courts. First, it instructs the attorney general to establish an A.I. litigation task force focused on identifying and suing states that implement A.I. laws that contradict the president’s “framework.” Second, it asks the Commerce secretary and a few White House folks to evaluate state A.I. laws for referral to the aforementioned task force. Third, the order directs the Commerce secretary to establish a new policy limiting BEAD funding for states with “onerous” legislation. And finally, it asks federal agencies to assess their discretionary grant programs to see what additional restrictions they can impose on these states, and tasks Trump’s A.I. advisor, David Sacks, with crafting an A.I. policy proposal for Congress.

As for the details of those directives, Bullock doesn’t think the litigation taskforce is the “biggest deal.” In part, that’s because the legal arguments underpinning these efforts seem weak and somewhat easily contestable by the states. As Margaret Hu, a law professor at William & Mary, told me, “The White House appears to argue that the state A.I. laws interfere with interstate commerce,” which the administration itself cannot regulate. The order “seems to be an example of executive overreach,” she said. Sen. Amy Klobuchar was more blunt: The E.O., she said, is “most likely illegal.”

Bullock, for his part, is more concerned with the order’s directive to withhold BEAD funding from states—a multibillion-dollar, carrot-shaped stick that could genuinely discourage state A.I. legislation. “It seems more plausible that they could do that,” Bullock said. “States would probably sue over it. But it’s a bit unclear whether they would win that legal battle, and even if they did win, it’s still months and years that you’re not getting the billions of dollars your government wants. That chilling effect might be a bigger deal.”

At least this much is clear: We’re looking at the onset of a yearslong legal battle, with some amount of federal grant funding held hostage as leverage while states and the federal government figure out whether—or how—to play ball. For states interested in complying, for example, it wouldn’t be the simplest procedure to strike existing laws; they could choose not to enforce them, but it’s unclear whether that would suffice in the eyes of the administration.

Either way, state responses to the White House’s directives—particularly around BEAD and other grant funding—are likely to split somewhat along partisan lines. As tech policy researcher Daniel Cochrane and legal fellow Jack Fitzhenry wrote in June, “Smaller conservative states with limited budgets and large rural populations need these funds. But wealthy progressive states like California and New York can afford to take a pass and just keep enforcing their tech laws.”

Even so, larger states—especially those with A.I. laws already on the books—haven’t yet said how they plan to respond. California Gov. Gavin Newsom blasted the order in a statement, saying that Trump and Sacks, who also happens to be a very successful V.C., “aren’t making policy—they’re running a con.” I followed up with Newsom about whether California intends to fight the order, but a spokesperson told me only that “the E.O. signals the first step in the preemption of state laws, but no state laws are currently impacted.”

I put the same question to Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, who said in an emailed statement that he is “very frustrated by the lack of action in Congress on this important issue,” and that lawmakers ought to “pass a comprehensive, nationwide regulatory structure that provides important consumer protections while fostering innovation.” (Polis has delayed the implementation of a broad statewide A.I. bill after initially signing one in 2024.) He also noted that he’s putting together an “A.I. policy working group,” which is “working to find consensus on a new bill that can be introduced in 2026,” to avoid BEAD funding issues.

Intriguingly, at least a few Republican governors also seem to be charting their own course on A.I. regulations. Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, whose state has passed A.I. laws, wrote on X that “an alternative A.I. executive order focused on human flourishing would strike the balance we need.” And a spokesperson for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who recently pushed back against Trump’s preemption crusade, encouraged me to “stay tuned” for more on that front. During a roundtable on A.I. that he hosted on Monday, DeSantis questioned whether “we should just turn over our destiny to these Big Tech companies, or whether we, the people, should have a say in how this develops.”

While Silicon Valley’s lobbyists score their win at the White House, a countermeasure is quietly winding through the New York legislature. Several months ago, lawmakers in Albany passed the RAISE Act, short for Responsible A.I. Safety and Education—precisely the kind of state-level A.I. regulation effort that Trump is trying to preempt. But Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul never signed it. Now, sources familiar with the situation told me, Hochul has proposed a near-total rewrite that would make the RAISE Act closely resemble California’s weaker A.I. law, SB 53, which had been similarly watered down shortly before being signed. In effect, those sources said, the new legislation would establish SB 53 as a de facto nationwide regulatory ceiling rather than a floor—a holiday gift to industry groups like Tech:NYC, which have sought greater alignment between New York and California. (Indeed, according to a document I reviewed, some of the language in the two bills is practically identical.)

The bill is currently under discussion in Albany, although people familiar with the legislation said the governor is not interested in negotiating. (Not long ago, Leading the Future, the Andreessen Horowitz–backed super PAC, published their first ads against New York Assemblyman Alex Bores, one of the authors of the bill.) A spokesperson for Hochul said in a statement that the governor “remains committed to advancing A.I. responsibly as she reviews the legislation.” Hundreds of New York parents have called on her to sign the bill as it was originally written.

In any event, it seems this war is just beginning, even as the White House tries to declare it over. “The E.O. rests on the same flawed premise as the failed state-law moratorium—that innovation requires squashing protections rather than governing responsibly,” Asad Ramzanali, the director of tech policy at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator, told me. “States are acting as laboratories of democracy to address real harms, protect competition, and safeguard consumers where federal law has lagged. I’ve seen no evidence state A.I. laws are slowing innovation.”

That’s all for today. I’ll see you on Thursday.
Ian

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