President Trump said recently that AI and data center fears stoked by Democrats and their media pals were playing into China's hands, calling them a big "conspiracy."
The latest act in this AI fearmongering saga happened Wednesday, when Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy suffered a defeat in getting his bill on regulating the programs passed on the floor, when it was throttled. Kennedy said the plan had been to ram it through.
...[The bill] would require artificial intelligence (AI) companies to have a kill switch for rogue AI, on the Senate floor. But his attempt Wednesday night was blocked by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.
Kennedy told Fox News Digital he feared there was little desire from Republicans to do anything to regulate AI.
"There's no appetite in my caucus to do anything that I can say," Kennedy said.
And indeed, it did not get to the floor thanks to Sen. Paul's objection. Paul told media afterwards, "I think it would be crazy to get on the floor one day and regulate an entire industry."
Sen. Kennedy foreshadowed in an interview Tuesday that his bill to regulate AI would not be going anywhere because of opposition in the upper chamber, and he had his usual amusing turns of phrase to get that point across.
"I'm just saying they have to have a kill switch to turn the son of a b*tch off if it goes wrong," he said, and claimed it "doesn't put government in charge in any way. It doesn't affect innovation."
Then in the next breath, the Pelican State senator blurted out something peculiar:
It just says, 'If you're gonna sell this thing in America that has the potential to turn into an independent species, like the 'Terminator,’ you've got to have a way to shut it down immediately, as soon as you discover that.
I could be way off-base, but that sounds to me like the federal government telling a company how to make its products.
Consensus that the world is not ending has extended - incredibly - from Paul and most Republicans in the caucus to Leader John Thune (R-SD), who said there is no urgency to pass a bill, or any reason to believe the plaintive cries from leftists that Republicans are not taking AI seriously.
Why's that? Dems have chosen not to pass a bipartisan bill that has been sitting on his desk for two years.
He also believed the Left is just planning on using it as a political cudgel, he told Fox News Digital:
I think the Democrats, in my view, clearly are trying to politicize this. I mean, all the rhetoric around it and everything else, and stuff like that. But you know, the truth is, the bill, which we have, that addresses the AI issue, which we worked on for a long time, which actually passed the Commerce Committee in 2024, is available with modifications and updates. It reflects what's happened since the last time they passed it in our committee.
Thune went on, "The obstacle to getting it up and going and getting it filed is Democrat. So, if they're looking for a legislative vehicle, there is one out there."
Panic is not the answer, in other words.
Dems seem to think they can use it to their advantage in November and beyond. Consider what my colleague Kyle Becker wrote on a recent closed-door "shindig," with former President Barack Obama pressing Democrats to focus on government control of AI.
In a closed-door meeting with top Democrats, the former president went so far as to say he would make AI the "centerpiece" of his agenda if he were running for president again.
But amid a fear-based media campaign about unregulated AI threatening to end humanity, some fascinating details have emerged that sow major doubts into the credibility of "the current scare."
About the supposed AI hobgoblin being raised of late, and Trump telling media it's a hoax or conspiracy, RedState's Rusty Weiss wrote:
Trump is not treating those warnings as scientifically grounded. He is treating them as a political weapon. Part of a campaign to smear AI that, in his view, only Beijing would celebrate.
The House is not blinking over the Dems' tactic, either. Speaker Mike Johnson said earlier this week that, yeah, "we've seen this movie before" from the Left ahead of elections they are desperate to not lose:
Q: Do you agree with the president that concerns about the rise of AI are a hoax and that the only guardrails needed are a president like him?
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 15, 2026
MIKE JOHNSON: What the president is saying is you're not all gonna be dead in 10 years. That's a hoax. pic.twitter.com/oVez8bbtsa
He did not mince words about what Pres. Trump meant about the AI fervor being a "hoax":
When the president says a 'hoax,' what he's referring to is... we've all seen this movie before. We're 49 days out from an election, a catastrophe is created, the media gets spun up, social media gets spun up. They literally said we're all going to be dead in 10 years!
Johnson reminded everyone of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's (NY-14) "stupid" statement a while back that we would all die from climate change in 10 years. He added that AI is not going to cause a cataclysm destroying the world in 10 years either.
He continued that Congress and the White House are "summoning together the top leaders, the CEOs of the AI providers, the ones that run the frontier labs and others. All the big names you know, I think within the next week, we will be together at the White House for an important meeting."
Seems like a reasonable way to move forward.
I have to agree with Sens. Paul and Thune, Rep. Johnson, and Pres. Donald Trump in this case, too. AI is not going to kill humanity tomorrow — or even in 10 years. We aren't going to decide how to handle this complex issue on one day, without the necessary discussions on what needs to happen so this is in line with the Constitution. And that's what Trump and Republicans have mainly been arguing.