By President Donald Trump is treating artificial intelligence like the next great battlefield of American power — and he is making clear that Washington will not sit on the sidelines if tech companies cross the line.
In a wide-ranging interview with Axios, Trump said the United States is far ahead of China in the race for AI dominance, credited his administration’s energy policy for helping fuel that advantage, and said he would consider using the Defense Production Act to regulate or control AI companies if national security required it.
“It is big,” Trump said. “Nobody’s. I mean, bigger than the internet.”
Trump framed AI as a world-changing technology that could deliver enormous benefits, particularly in medicine, while warning that the same power could become dangerous if misused.
“You’re going to have medical cures coming up 25 years early because of it,” Trump said. “You’re going to have other things happening, but you have to watch.”
.@POTUS on Artificial Intelligence: "If improperly used, it could be [dangerous]… It's unbelievable for good. You're going to have medical cures coming up 25 years early because of it… But you have to watch." pic.twitter.com/LNiK77Ej9q
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) June 19, 2026
That warning was not theoretical. Trump specifically pointed to Anthropic and its CEO, Dario Amodei, saying the company had recently drawn the administration’s attention over national security concerns.
Asked whether he considered Anthropic or Amodei a threat to national security, Trump replied: “Well, not now, but a week ago, maybe.”
Not anymore: Trump on whether he sees Anthropic threatening national security
Axios' Marc Caputo asked Trump: "Do you view Anthropic, and to a degree its CEO Dario Amodei, as a threat to national security?"
President Trump: "Well, not now, but a week ago, maybe….We were in… https://t.co/tC0YgkvNiV pic.twitter.com/PXZ5JPKYF4
— Rohan Paul (@rohanpaul_ai) June 20, 2026
Trump said he had seen Amodei at the G7 and described him as “a nice guy, smart guy.” But the president also made clear that the company responded quickly only after the administration raised the stakes.
“He responded to us very quickly, because you know it’s tremendous liability,” Trump said. “People get put in prison immediately for that. You know, you can’t play games with that.”
Asked whether he had the power and inclination to shut down or take over the company, Trump said he did not want to go that far because America was winning the global AI race.
“Well I don’t want to do that because I’m somebody that, you know, we’re beating China by a lot on AI,” Trump said.
Trump said one reason the United States is leading is that his administration allowed AI companies to build their own power plants, bypassing the strain that massive data centers would otherwise place on the existing grid.
“I came up with an idea. I thought of it myself,” Trump said. “I let them build their own electric plants when they’re building their factories. That way we don’t have to use an old grid.”
The scale of the energy demand, Trump said, is almost hard to comprehend.
“They need double the amount of electricity that this country produces for everything to run it,” Trump said.
Axios reporter Marc Caputo pressed Trump on whether he would use the Defense Production Act to regulate or control AI.
“I would, but I’m not sure I have to do that,” Trump said. “I think so far it’s been very responsible.”
That is the Trump doctrine on AI in a nutshell: let American companies run, beat China, build the power plants, keep Europe at arm’s length — but make sure they know the federal government can come down hard if national security is put at risk.
Trump also pushed back on international efforts to create a broader AI framework if that means weakening America’s advantage. Asked whether “power shared” is “power lost,” Trump said the problem is simple: the United States is far ahead.
“The problem we have is that we are leading everybody by a lot,” Trump said.
He’s not wrong. Europe is falling badly behind American and Chinese firms, arguing that the continent is “losing their way” on entrepreneurship and energy policy.
The message was unmistakable. In Trump’s view, AI is not just another tech boom. It is an economic weapon, a military asset, and a test of whether America intends to lead the next century or hand the future to China.
“The good far outweighs the bad,” Trump said. “We are going to find the bad and we’re going to stop it.”
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