Melania Trump Tours Mountain View Elementary School in Jefferson, North Carolina on AI Leadership

First lady Melania Trump visited Mountain View Elementary School in rural Jefferson, North Carolina, telling students, teachers and staff that the U.S. must lead on artificial intelligence as tech and political leaders debate how to regulate AI.

““I think they need to learn we need to lead,””

WRAL

Asked by a reporter about the potential of AI and the growing warnings about it, Trump said, “I think they need to learn we need to lead,” adding, “Of course they need to be vigilant as well.”

EL PAÍS

During the visit, students used tablets to generate a video of an AI experiment, and Trump later watched them build chatbots and use 3D printers in the school’s media center.

Trump also announced her Be Best initiative would provide 1,500 students in Ashe County with subscriptions to StudyFetch and that Mountain View Elementary and other schools in the district would receive 100 Jetson Nano Developer Kits.

The trip came as President Donald Trump on Monday angrily dismissed the idea that more limits are needed, calling it a “hoax.”

In Washington, progressive U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders and right-wing firebrand Steve Bannon were scheduled to speak together at a gathering focused on protecting voting rights, but they used the platform to call for restrictions on AI systems.

Sanders warned that “AI has the potential to eliminate tens of millions of jobs, wiping out entire professions and making it harder for our young people to enter the labor market,” and he said the technology could escape human control with “potentially catastrophic consequences.”

MarketScreener España

Bannon criticized Trump’s approach to AI oversight, saying Congress should not pass laws that prohibit states from enforcing their own rules for the technology.

Reuters reported that the two political adversaries were uniting around concerns that AI will harm humans, with the debate spreading beyond Washington and Silicon Valley.

The Times of Israel, citing Reuters, said the pair would speak “together on Tuesday” as concern about AI’s risks spreads, and it highlighted a Reuters/Ipsos poll showing 77 percent of Americans worry AI-driven data centers will raise electricity costs.

The AI debate is playing out alongside disputes over whether Congress should impose new rules, with Reuters noting that lawmakers were holding closed-door discussions after Trump said new laws were unnecessary.

““the people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.””

The Times of Israel

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson supported Trump’s position, saying, “They can regulate themselves. They don’t need the government to tell them to slow down.”

In contrast, Reuters reported that Sanders and Bannon called for restrictions while residents in several states challenged proposals for new data centers, a critical component of the AI boom.

The Times of Israel said Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon resigned in part because “the people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.”

Meanwhile, WRAL reported that Melania Trump told students, “Of course they need to be vigilant as well,” as she announced 1,500 StudyFetch subscriptions and 100 Jetson Nano Developer Kits for Ashe County schools.