President Donald Trump's most recent executive order on artificial intelligence has added a new chapter to the long-running battle between federal authority, state power, and technology that is changing quickly. The White House says the directive is important to defend innovation and keep the US competitive with China. It aims to restrict or punish state-level AI regulations that the administration thinks could slow down technological advancement. But legal experts were skeptical right away, states were against it, and even Republicans were uneasy about it.

The Trump order tells federal agencies to take state AI laws to court and lets the federal government stop giving money to states whose rules are overly harsh. People in the tech industry who support this see it as a long-awaited effort to replace a patchwork of rules with a more unified national approach. From their point of view, following dozens of various state guidelines about how to use data, hold algorithms accountable, and safeguard consumers makes things unclear, which makes people less likely to invest and come up with new ideas.

However, the legal underpinning of the order appears far from strong. Experts in administrative law have wondered if the federal government really has the power to do this and ignore state AI rules. Joel Thayer, chairman of the Digital Progress Institute, captured this fear succinctly when he remarked, “There is not a lot of legal authority that the administration can rely on to enforce a significant portion of the order.” That conclusion is true for the larger picture: AI regulation is still a new field of law, and Congress hasn't given the executive branch explicit powers to oversee how states use the technology.

A high-stakes financial lever is at the center of the argument. The directive tells the Commerce Department to keep states with "onerous" AI laws from getting to the $42 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment initiative, or BEAD. The goal of this program is to make high-speed internet more widely available, especially in rural and underserved areas. The administration is combining two policy areas that have not been linked before by tying internet spending to AI policy.

That connection could turn into a big political problem. BEAD financing is very important for rural areas to bridge long-standing digital gaps. These areas are also very important to Trump's political base. He did much better with rural voters in the 2024 election than he did in 2016 and 2020. If states that approve AI laws lose internet funding, Republican governors and legislators may have to choose between meeting local infrastructure requirements and staying in line with the White House.

Dean Ball, a former White House official who helped create the administration's AI Action Plan earlier this year, has publicly questioned whether this way of getting money will hold up in court. Ball says that judges will probably look at how closely AI regulation is tied to the aim of the broadband law itself. They would also think about how many states have already been given permission to use BEAD monies. What Congress meant is another question that hasn't been answered. Did lawmakers mean to give the executive branch more power over state AI policy when they approved the broadband program? Ball says that question could be very important. He said, "I think the administration has a 30 to 35% chance of this working legally," which shows how unsure he was.

The order might also hurt Republican unity on technology policy outside of the courtroom. Some Republican leaders have already fought against federal efforts to overrule state laws, especially when such laws represent the beliefs of the people who live there or the concerns of voters. Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders has spoken out against Washington stopping state laws from going into effect, stressing the significance of states being able to make their own decisions. Her position is in line with a larger conservative tradition of being skeptical of federal overreach, even when the same party is in charge of the federal government.

Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida has been very outspoken. He said last month that a congressional proposal to stop states from regulating AI was a "subsidy to Big Tech." DeSantis has gone a different way by suggesting a state-level AI bill of rights. His paradigm focuses on protecting consumer rights, parental controls, and data privacy. He says that innovation shouldn't come at the expense of people's rights. Governors like DeSantis don't see state-level AI regulations as roadblocks to advancement; instead, they see them as ways to make sure that technology is good for the public.

This split highlights a deeper strain within the Republican Party. Some people think that less rules will speed up innovation and that the country should be more competitive with and in line with big tech businesses. On the other hand, there are leaders who think that uncontrolled AI growth is a threat to privacy, children's safety, and consumer trust. They also think that states should be able to deal with those threats however they see proper.

From a wider point of view, the executive order shows how unstable AI governance is in the US. AI doesn't yet have a complete federal framework like environmental regulation or labor law does. In that space, states have stepped in to fill the void by making laws that are specific to their needs. Trying to suddenly stop or change those initiatives will only make things worse, not only for Democratic-led states but also for Republicans who care about state sovereignty.

There is also the issue of how people see things. Many Americans are in favor of new technologies, but they are becoming more conscious of the dangers of AI, such as data misuse and biased algorithms. State legislation that deal with these problems frequently show real public concern instead of a dislike of new ideas. A federal plan that seems to favor big tech corporations too much might be regarded as ignoring those worries.