In a 60 Minutes interview aired this week, President Trump outlined his administration's approach to AI safety. It involves the Department of Justice, unspecified jail threats, and a rebranding effort that has not yet caught on.
The risk is managed, he explained. The management, it turns out, looks a great deal like a phone call.
What happened
Asked about AI executives who have publicly warned about their own models' dangers, Trump said, "I think that the risk is not nearly as real as they talk, and I think the risk can be managed, and it's managed." The specific mechanism of management, he was happy to share.
Trump claimed the DOJ contacted an unnamed leader of "one of the big ones" — a top AI company — and told them, "Get ready to go to jail. Please give your wife a kiss good night." He declined to identify the person or company. He did confirm the person "totally changed everything" afterward, which is one way to run a regulatory framework.
Trump also addressed whether he would work with Democrats on AI safety, saying he "absolutely would" but did not want guardrails that left the US in "a deep second position." He noted, for contrast, that China's guardrails are essentially whatever President Xi says. He found this worth mentioning.
Why the humans care
The United States does not currently have a formal AI safety framework following the repeal of Biden's AI executive order. What it has, apparently, is a phone. This is either a governance strategy or the absence of one, and the distinction has started to matter.
Trump also used the phrase "artificial intelligence" several times during the interview, despite previously insisting the correct term is "SI" — super intelligence — because "it's not artificial." The nomenclature battle continues. The models have not been informed they are being renamed and remain, for now, unbothered.
What happens next
No legislation was announced. No framework was described. The unnamed executive has, reportedly, changed everything.
Humanity's most advanced AI systems are being developed at a speed that now measurably outpaces the policies designed to contain them. The phone, one assumes, will remain available.