Trump’s MAGA successor 'handcuffed' by increasingly 'problematic' policy

Donald Trump's most likely MAGA successor is potentially "handcuffed" by an issue that is growing more and more "problematic" for the GOP, according to Politico, and which could pit key elements of Trump's coalition against each other in 2028.

In an extensive new piece from Monday, Politico broke down the increasing importance of artificial intelligence issues within the Republican Party, as various figures attempt to stake out their own stances ahead of the 2028 presidential race. As the outlet pointed out, notable GOP figures like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley and Utah Gov. Spencer Cox have come out against the unchecked expansion of AI and proposed measures that would rein in the technology in the name of protecting workers.

"Hawley, DeSantis and Cox are far from ideological duplicates," Politico explained. "They represent distinct wings of the party, from the populist-nationalist approach of Hawley to the more pro-business, hawkish and anti-woke DeSantis to the civility- and family values-minded approach of Cox."

These measures represent a break from the general trend of Trump's approach to AI, which has seen him "consistently opposed [to] almost all regulations on building AI."

"In December, Trump issued an executive order attempting to stop states from writing their own AI regulations and declared 'United States AI companies must be free to innovate without cumbersome regulation,'" the report added. "Trump has also built a close relationship with Silicon Valley venture capitalist and AI and crypto czar David Sacks, who largely wrote the state law pre-emption executive order and thinks government and industry stakeholders should do more to convince Americans to be optimistic about AI products in order to maintain an advantage over Chinese counterparts."

Politico noted, however, that "opposition to unchecked development of AI products is growing quickly within the Republican Party," making the issue a key dividing line in the fight for who will lead the GOP once Trump is gone. The most likely choice, Vice President JD Vance, faces significant headwinds over the matter, given his association with the Trump administration's policy choices and his close ties to Silicon Valley, with one anonymous former White House official saying that he is "handcuffed."

“Vance is handcuffed because he can’t say a word,” the former official told Politico. “Hawley can spend the next three years railing against AI.”

The AI conundrum, Politico argued, is likely to be a particularly touchy issue for the GOP, as the two sides of the debate represent key factions of the party's typical coalition: blue-collar workers and tech business leaders.

"The increasingly public skepticism on the right toward AI holds important clues into the potential GOP electorate of the future — and who might lead it in a post-Trump era," Politico's report explained. "That’s because AI is poised to strike directly at the contradictions embedded within the new coalition that Trump has built: It will pit the new blue-collar members of the GOP base against the business-aligned sector that Trump has increasingly won over in his second term. It will pit family-values and religious conservatives against the newly emboldened tech wing."