During a school visit in North Carolina, first lady Melania Trump tried to sidestep the recent controversy over artificial intelligence, telling reporters that the United States needs to lead on the technology but stopped short of advocating for any guardrails on it.
At Mountain View Elementary in Ashe County, North Carolina, where she highlighted the school’s use of AI and the region’s recovery from Hurricane Helene two years ago, Trump was asked by a reporter about her message to students regarding both the potential and concerns of AI.
“I think they need to learn. We need to lead as a AI, as a country, and we could see now what they’re learning and it’s very important,” Trump said. “Of course, they need to be vigilant as well. But this is our future, and we need to guide them and teach them what is available. If not, they will stay behind, and we need to be the first in the United States to lead,” she added.
The first lady did not expand on what being vigilant looked like, and when asked later by MS NOW as she headed back to Washington whether there should be guardrails on AI, the first lady did not respond. She also did not respond to another question on whether the development of AI should be slowed in light of the dire warnings from some leaders in the industry.
In a rare display of unity over the weekend, industry leaders Sam Altman and Elon Musk said they supported Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s calls to slow the advances of AI over safety concerns.
That prompted President Donald Trump to argue on social media that those warnings over AI are a “hoax,” and the only controls or guardrails needed are a “strong and smart president.”
The president has previously pushed for looser AI regulations, rescinding a Biden-era executive order that set parameters around the technology shortly after returning to office in January 2025.
As it stands, there are no federal regulations for AI. The president signed an executive order in December that would establish a federal framework to create a national standard, preventing state regulations.
The president signed another order in June directing the government to work with AI developers on a voluntary framework that would give the federal government access to new models up to 30 days before their release. While a White House official confirmed the voluntary framework was complete, the White House has not made the finalized framework public.
The first lady also announced a partnership between her Fostering the Future initiative and Nvidia, a tech company whose CEO, Jensen Huang, has close ties to the president. Nvidia will provide subscriptions to an AI-powered learning platform for 1,500 students in the Ashe County school district and 100 Jetson Nano Developer Kits to the elementary school and other Ashe county schools.
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