Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) let slip a startling admission on Sunday during an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union."
Tapper asked Johnson about Congress' efforts to regulate artificial intelligence, which some experts have said is shaping up to be one of the most economically disruptive technologies in history. The question came a day after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called for AI leaders to slow the rate of progress to allow safety measures to catch up.
"The problem is ... the guys who are raising the alarms all have very different ideas about what the guardrails should be," Johnson said. "There's no consensus among them, and Congress is obviously less qualified than the people who are pushing this frontier."
Johnson's admission infuriated several political analysts.
"This is literally an argument against representative government itself," Rep. Sarah McBride (D-DE) posted on X. "He's arguing for an autocracy of elites rather than a republic where a legislative body will inevitably have a range of backgrounds and expertise as they craft overarching policy."
"Beyond that, it's not like members of Congress are food inspectors, FDA scientists, or doing enforcement at the SEC. This is just the dumbest possible excuse to not do anything as a Congress," McBride added. "Do your job as a legislator or get out."
"Why did this man become a congressman, let alone Speaker? He literally never wants Congress to do anything about anything," Mehdi Hasan, founder of Zeteo News, posted on X.
"Dr. Frankenstein is telling us the monster has escaped," Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) posted on X. "Congress needs to do its job and provide oversight to protect the American people."
Mike Johnson punts on oversight of AI companies: "Congress is obviously less qualified than the people who are pushing this frontier to know the ins and outs of it" pic.twitter.com/EXU1raDExB
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 13, 2026