Megyn Kelly Says White House Aide 'Falsely' Cast AI Fears as Leftist

Megyn Kelly on Monday challenged the White House's characterization of artificial intelligence safety concerns as a left-wing cause, telling her audience that tech policy director Michael Kratsios was "falsely" framing an issue that polling shows cuts across party lines.

The pushback came during Kelly's AM Update, as the host walked through President Donald Trump's weekend announcement of a new "AI Force" and an appearance by Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, on Fox News Sunday. Kratsios used the interview to defend the administration's light-touch approach and to cast Democratic demands for new rules as pre-election politics.

"Kratsios also addressing the concerns throughout the industry, although falsely painting ... them as solely a leftist worry," Kelly said, before playing the clip.

What Michael Kratsios Said About AI Regulation

In the Fox News segment, Kratsios argued that congressional Democrats were manufacturing alarm ahead of November's midterm elections.

"These calls from the left on the hill are fear mongering and it's something that they're attempting to do before the election and that's just not fair to the American people," Kratsios said. "If you want to do good technology policy on AI, you're not going to run to the hill and sort it out in a couple days."

He also turned the argument on AI developers who have publicly called for government guardrails or a slowdown. "Our position is if you do believe that you're developing a technology that is unsafe or you don't want it out in the world, you can just stop it," he said. "You don't need someone to force you to do that."

Kratsios described the AI Force, which Trump announced on Truth Social on Saturday, as a coordination effort. Trump's post, as read on the show, said: "For this purpose, I am forming the AI force, much like I did Space Force, which has been a tremendous success." According to Nextgov, the president also said he would name an AI lead, though no individual was identified, and outside experts questioned what the new body would actually do.

Polling Shows Republicans Favor AI Regulation Too

Kelly did not cite data on air, but the public record supports her characterization on the narrow question of whether regulation is a partisan wish.

A Vanderbilt University Unity Poll conducted February 20 to 23 among 1,032 U.S. adults found that 61 percent of Republicans favor regulating AI, compared with 56 percent of Democrats, Axios reported in March. Support was similar across age groups.

Separately, an AI Policy Institute survey of 1,007 likely voters conducted June 10 to 11 found more than 60 percent of both Democrats and Republicans want the federal government to set AI safety standards, NBC News reported.

Concern about worst-case outcomes is also bipartisan, if unevenly distributed. A Public First poll of 2,064 U.S. adults conducted last week for Politico found about two-thirds of respondents see at least a moderate risk that advanced AI could destroy humanity, including 70 percent of 2024 Kamala Harris voters and 60 percent of Trump voters.

Where the Partisan Gap Is Real

The picture is more complicated on general attitudes toward the technology, and here the White House has a partial point.

A Pew Research Center survey of 3,488 adults conducted June 22 to 28 and published Wednesday found 56 percent of Democrats are more concerned than excited about AI's growing role in daily life, versus 49 percent of Republicans. That is a reversal from 2021, when Pew found 31 percent of Democrats and 45 percent of Republicans held that view.

The Public First survey found a similar split on whether to hit pause: 58 percent of Harris voters backed halting AI development, compared with 44 percent of Trump voters.

Still, Kratsios's specific claim concerned calls for government action, and on that question the Vanderbilt data shows Republicans slightly ahead of Democrats. The pressure is not confined to the left on Capitol Hill either. Republican Senator Kevin Cramer of North Dakota called the administration's dismissive posture "the least popular position in America," and Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina said the risks are "not a hoax," MS NOW reported.

Obama, Huang and the Wider Debate

Kelly's segment also aired competing views from outside government. Former President Barack Obama, speaking Saturday at Colgate University, said the technology was not overhyped and warned of a small but real risk from systems that begin "setting their own agendas."

"You may get a misalignment between what they want to do and what we want them to do and that gap can be dangerous," Obama said.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang took the opposite view on CBS Sunday Morning, saying "there is a 0% chance" the world ends by 2030 and calling the warnings "irresponsible."

The debate lands in a difficult political environment for the administration. PolitiKool's polling average puts Trump's approval at 38.8 percent with 58.2 percent disapproving, and Democrats lead the generic congressional ballot by 6.7 points.

What Happens Next

Trump is scheduled to host tech executives including Sam Altman, Huang, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos at the White House this week, and Kelly reported he is also planning an AI event at the United Nations in New York. Senator Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent, has proposed a one-time 50 percent tax on the largest AI companies, payable in stock, according to his office.