Former U.S. President Donald Trump stated in a CNBC interview on Monday that the U.S. leads China in AI, and he wants to maintain this advantage, asserting that "whoever wins, AI wins," directly refuting current calls to slow down AI development. Meanwhile, former Senator Joe Manchin called on Trump to issue an executive order to freeze initial public offerings (IPOs) of AI companies until federal safeguards are in place. This follows a call from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei to slow down AI research and propose safety standards, a view supported by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Elon Musk.