The Trump White House has a “really good template” for how lawmakers can write the “rules of the road” and create a national policy framework for AI, Build American AI’s executive director Nathan Leamer told Breitbart News during a recent policy event.
Leamer, who leads the group focused on advocating for American leadership in AI, spoke about the importance of a national policy framework and why it is necessary, explaining that lawmakers must look to the past when crafting policy for the future.
“The future of AI, [the] success of AI in America, depends on learning lessons from the past,” Leamer said during Breitbart News’s “Energy Dominance and AI” policy event in Washington, DC, which also featured Interior Secretary and Chairman of the National Energy Dominance Council Doug Burgum and Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA).
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The Build American AI chief used internet policy as a prime example.
“Inherently, internet policy is interstate. Because the value of the Commerce Clause, you can’t just have one state do one thing, another state do the other,” Leamer said, pointing to his background in the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) world.
“You can’t have different rules of the road. You need a Federal Communications Commission, right? You need internet policy at a national level – whether it’s the Communications Decency Act or Telecommunications Act from 1996,” he said, contending that these policies are necessary to lay out the “rules of the road.” Similarly, he said, America needs a national policy framework for AI to prevent an awkward patchwork of rules that change from state to state.
Nathan Leamer, Executive Director of Build American AI, speaks with Breitbart News Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle at Breitbart News’s “Energy Dominance and AI” policy event in Washington, DC, on Monday, May 11, 2026. (Matthew Perdie/Breitbart News)
Such a patchy framework would lead to an avalanche of issues.
“You need these national policies to kind of like lay the rules of the road,” Leamer said, providing some examples. “In lieu of that, you have these states who are creating their own approaches. Colorado has their approach, which, by the way, is driving companies from Colorado. Right now, there’s people who can’t deal with the compliance costs and small AI startups, so they’ll flee that state,” he said. “California, in the same way — it’s also red states too — are tempted to pass laws that look good, but they also have these compliance costs that are actually driving up problems for small businesses and driving them away from certain states.”
President Donald Trump’s White House, he continued, has provided such a framework, giving lawmakers a guide on how to approach AI in a way that enables innovation but also mitigates potential harms.
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“How do we protect kids? And there’s a lot of good ideas at the federal level about how we can write the rules of the road in a way that makes sense to protect children but also enable innovation,” Leamer said. “And I think the White House has a really good template for how Congress can do that.”
A national policy framework is important, he added, as it ensures AI policy is “not dictated by California or Rhode Island or Colorado.”
President Trump signed an executive order in December calling for precisely what Leamer is advocating. The framework emphasizes several points made by Leamer, stressing that AI services and platforms “must take measures to protect children, while empowering parents to control their children’s digital environment and upbringing.” It also explicitly states that the federal government “must establish a federal AI policy framework to protect American rights, support innovation, and prevent a fragmented patchwork of state regulations that would hinder our national competitiveness, while respecting federalism and State rights.”
That national standard, it continues, “should respect key principles of federalism.”
After Trump signed the executive order, Leamer told Breitbart News the move made “clear that creating a coherent AI national framework is a top priority.”
The national policy framework offered by the Trump White House also emphasized the importance of America leading the world in AI – another point driven home by Leamer.
“American leadership is needed. Otherwise, China is going to lead the way, and that’s going to put us at a disadvantage,” he said.
WATCH the entire event here: Breitbart News Speaks with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum: