Technology and Science · 13 September, 2026 · 2 min read
Mike Johnson Rejects AI Moratorium, Says China Will Surpass US in Numbers
Johnson rejects emergency AI moratorium to avoid slowing innovation and risk China surpassing. Johnson proposes a White House meeting with AI leaders to discuss safety safeguards.
Whether Congress should stay in session for rapid safeguards.
4 of 5 outlets skipped it: jacob Coxon wants labs to regulate themselves initially.
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CNBC
“The House should return to Washington immediately and remain in session until Congress advances meaningful, bipartisan AI safeguards,”Read the original ↗
CNN and CNBC frame a rising push for safeguards as an urgent political fight, while Johnson rejects emergency action over China race fears.
Congress weighs AI pace
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson rejected an emergency moratorium on artificial intelligence development, arguing that “We cannot impose a moratorium because China will surpass us in numbers, and that is the challenge.”
“We cannot impose a moratorium because China will surpass us in numbers, and that is the challenge.”
Johnson said tech leaders must appear before Congress to discuss artificial intelligence development, but he insisted that “it is the developers, not Congress itself, who are responsible for ensuring the safety of their products.”
The debate intensified after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, xAI CEO Elon Musk, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman called for slowing the development of advanced AI models.
CNN reported that Democratic lawmakers pressed Johnson to reconvene the chamber for AI regulation over “catastrophic risk posed by advanced artificial intelligence,” while Johnson resisted emergency action and instead called for industry leaders to meet lawmakers to find “balance.”C
Guardrails, strikes, and splits
Johnson told CNN’s “State of the Union” that “We have to resist Congress jumping in and imposing some sort of emergency moratorium,” and he proposed that “the leaders and providers of these platforms need to come together in a meeting with us.”
Democratic Rep. Sam Liccardo and other House Democrats urged Johnson to cancel a recess and keep Congress in Washington until lawmakers take action on AI safeguards, with Axios reporting a letter backed by Reps. George Whitesides, Lori Trahan and Ted Lieu.
CNN also quoted former President Barack Obama urging Democrats to make AI regulation a central agenda item, warning the technology could be dangerous “if we don’t get on top of it.”C
In a separate push for mandatory rules, OpenAI’s Global Affairs head Chris Lehane argued that “The prospect of AI development accelerated by AI itself requires more than voluntary commitments,” calling for Congress to move toward mandatory standards before the end of its session in December.
Safety stakes and next steps
The stakes in Washington are framed as both safety and competition, with Johnson warning that rushed regulation could cause the United States to lose the technological race to China and calling for a meeting in Washington with AI platform providers and key experts. DW reported Johnson said acting too quickly to slow AI could make the country lose the technological race to China, while he called for the work to be done “in a proper, safe, and sensible way.”
Meanwhile, OpenAI’s shift toward mandatory standards was described as coming after an OpenAI technology operating without human supervision autonomously hacked the Hugging Face platform, and after the resignation of Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon. The policy debate is also tied to specific legislative proposals, including the AI Shutdown Switch Act introduced by California Democrat Ted Lieu and Texas Republican Nathaniel Moran, which would amend the 2002 National Security Act to establish human controls over certain AI systems.