President Donald Trump said he is open to guardrails on artificial intelligence, provided they do not cost the United States its lead over China, in a post-midterm interview broadcast on CBS's 60 Minutes on November 8, 2026. CBS published a transcript of the interview.
Asked whether he would work with Democrats on AI safety, Trump said: "I don't mind guardrails. But I don't wanna put us in a deep second position." When it was put to him that he is an AI bull, he agreed: "I am."
Trump framed his position around competition with Beijing. He said Chinese President Xi Jinping is "all in" on what Trump called "SI," for superintelligence, and argued: "So if we don't have it, China's gonna have it. That would put us at an unbelievable disadvantage."
He also played down the risks that safety advocates raise. "I think that the risk is not nearly as real as it-- as they talk," Trump said, according to the transcript. Responding to a point that China has few guardrails, he described his own approach as "pretty strong, but it's not quite that strong."
The remarks do not announce any policy, executive order or legislation. They matter because they set the terms for any AI safety deal with a Congress reshaped by the midterms: openness to rules, conditioned on not slowing US labs relative to Chinese competitors. Companies building on frontier models should read them as a signal that federal AI requirements, if they come, are likely to be framed around national competitiveness rather than precaution.