Only 23% approve of Trump's handling of AI as he calls risk warnings a 'hoax'

Only 23% approve of Trump's handling of AI as he calls risk warnings a 'hoax'

President Donald Trump has dismissed warnings about AI risk as a "hoax" on Truth Social, days after leading industry figures urged slowing development. A new poll from the University of Massachusetts Amherst shows only 23 percent of Americans believe Trump is handling the AI issue well — and even among Republicans, support is soft.

What happened

In a Truth Social post on Monday, Trump wrote that fears of AI "taking over the World, destroying Humanity" are a "HOAX," comparing them to earlier controversies: "NO different than RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA – UKRAINE, UKRAINE, UKRAINE – IMPEACHMENT HOAX #1 – IMPEACHMENT HOAX #2 – and all of the other HOAXES and SCAMS America was forced to endure," he wrote, according to Newsweek.

The posts came days after a wave of warnings from the industry itself. Jacob Coxon, a former researcher at both Anthropic and OpenAI, warned that the world may soon see "superhuman systems that can hack anything, revolutionize any field overnight, and acquire real power and resources," according to Newsweek. On the Saturday after those warnings, Elon Musk, owner of xAI, and OpenAI chief Sam Altman backed a call from Anthropic chief Dario Amodei to slow the pace of development "to reduce the risk that something goes seriously wrong." Amodei added a caveat: any slowdown would have to be limited so that China did not pull ahead (republished analysis via MSN).

The polling: AI as a standalone issue

A poll from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, conducted August 21–26, 2026, among 1,000 Americans (margin of error plus/minus 3.5 percentage points), measures, according to Newsweek, Americans' views of Trump's handling of AI as a standalone issue. The results are stark:

• 23 percent say he has handled AI "very well" or "somewhat well."
• 57 percent say he has handled it "not too well" or "not well at all."
• 20 percent say they have no opinion.

The partisan split may be the most striking finding: only 5 percent of Democrats and 7 percent of independents believe he is handling the issue well. Among Republicans — a group where approval is usually far higher — just 51 percent say he has done well, while 24 percent answer "not well."

An important caveat: the poll was fielded August 21–26, meaning before Coxon's warnings, the slowdown call, and Trump's "hoax" posts. In other words, it does not show how the past week's events have affected public opinion — only how low the starting point was.

Trump's counter-case: a race, not a risk

Trump has met the warnings with a competitive framing. During a visit to Ireland, he told reporters: "We're leading China in AI. We're the most sophisticated country in the world, and frankly I want to keep it that way, because whoever wins AI wins" (U.S. News). In the same setting, he dismissed the warnings as the product of "very negative forces" who are "bringing up things that won't happen."

On Truth Social, Trump further claimed that the administration already holds "tremendous CRIMINAL and REGULATORY power over these companies," and that it has stopped AI actors from doing anything wrong, "like Dario (Anthropic!), who is now pretending to be a 'perfect little angel.'" These are Trump's own claims, not verified facts — the source material contains no independent confirmation of which specific legal or regulatory tools the administration is referring to, and the claim should be read as a political attack on Amodei.

Congress is moving

The reaction on Capitol Hill is coming from both sides of the aisle. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called Trump's conduct irresponsible: "Donald Trump continues to be irresponsible as it relates to artificial intelligence and the threats presented to the American people, as evidenced by comments from people within the industry itself," he told Newsweek. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has demanded a briefing for all senators on unchecked AI development.

On the Republican side, Speaker Mike Johnson has announced a meeting with AI leaders, but without committing to new regulation. The meeting will come "either end of this week or early next week. But wait and see," he said, according to Politico, as reported in Newsweek. At the same time, he warned against "hyperregulation," citing competitiveness and national security — the same framework as Trump's: speed and China first.

What the meeting and Schumer's briefing might actually lead to is open. None of the sources document concrete legislative proposals or outcomes yet.

How low is he, really?

The AI numbers should be seen against Trump's overall approval, but figures from different pollsters should not be merged into a single value — they were taken at different times and with different methods:

• The UMass Amherst poll put Trump's overall approval at 33 percent, the lowest of his second term, with 62 percent disapproval. CNN's poll tracker shows most major fall surveys clustering between 32 and 40 percent.
• A Reuters/Ipsos poll released Monday (August 21–24, 1,215 respondents, margin of error ±3) found 33 percent approval and a record-high 65 percent disapproval, according to Newsweek.

What is remarkable is that the AI figure (23 percent) sits lower than Trump's overall numbers from the same pollster. His AI positioning, in other words, does not appear to be a strength relative to the rest of his performance — and it is weakest within his own party.

What remains open

Three questions remain. First, whether Congress actually does anything: Schumer's briefing and Johnson's promised meeting with industry leaders have not yet produced documented results, and Johnson has not signaled support for regulation beyond the "hyperregulation" warning. Second, whether the past week's events move public opinion: the UMass poll was fielded before Coxon's warnings, the industry slowdown call, and Trump's posts, so their effect is unknown. Third, whether the contradiction between Trump's "race with China" framework and a growing share of the industry's own warnings becomes a lasting political dividing line — or just a snapshot of a hectic week in the AI debate.

The only certainty is that AI is now being measured as a standalone political issue in the United States — and that the numbers for the president's handling of it are, so far, exceptionally weak.