Trump vs. DeSantis on AI: Who's Right?

President Trump and Gov. DeSantis are locking horns again… and I sure hope Gov. DeSantis wins this time.

No, they are not battling over the GOP presidential nomination, since President Trump is term-limited in 2028 and Gov. DeSantis faces strong headwinds should he decide to run against Trump’s two heir apparents – Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Actually, this intra-party squabble may turn out to be far more important than who sits behind the Resolute desk for the next four years, beginning January 2029. It has to do with artificial intelligence, how it’s used, whether it is regulated, and by whom.

President Trump fired the initial salvo by issuing a one-size-fits-all executive order that will protect the AI industry from individual state restrictions. However, Gov. DeSantis is refusing to relinquish Florida’s right to regulate this new and vastly uncharted technology, hence the standoff.

Two Type-A personalities digging in their heels. What could possibly go wrong?

While acknowledging that President Trump has the right to issue executive orders and admitting that many of the aspects of Trump’s EO are in line with Florida’s concerns, Gov. DeSantis draws the line on constitutional grounds.

“First of all, an executive order can’t block the states. You can preempt states under Article 1 powers through congressional legislation on certain issues, but you can’t do it through executive order.”

As you might expect, President Trump disagrees and has instructed Attorney General Pam Bondi to “establish an AI Litigation Task Force whose sole responsibility shall be to challenge State AI laws inconsistent with the policy set forth” in his EO, saying that such actions by a state would “unconstitutionally regulate interstate commerce.”

The goal, per Trump’s EO, is to establish “a minimally burdensome national standard — not 50 discordant State ones” to “sustain and enhance the United States’ global AI dominance.”

However, Gov. DeSantis remains unfazed.

At an AI roundtable earlier this month, Gov. DeSantis voiced his apprehension about data centers staffed by foreign workers, as well as the power usage they would require. He also expressed concerns about Chinese technology, AI mental health therapy, deepfakes and people using false images and likenesses.

Declaring the need for a statewide “AI Bill of Rights”, Gov. DeSantis is seeking strong data privacy protections for consumers as well as an enumerated list of parental rights.

“This is basically protecting against this technology running amok,” DeSantis said.

Like I said at the beginning, I sure hope Gov. DeSantis wins this battle because I don’t like the idea of Washington D.C. dictating AI policy for every American. Not only does it trample on the 10th Amendment but it sounds eerily reminiscent of George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s A Brave New World to me.

More on that later this week…