AI, Autopen, and American Delusion: Trump’s Techno-Tirade in DC

At his so-called AI Summit, Donald Trump delivered 90 minutes of unfiltered nonsense,ranging from tariff fiction and anti-woke crusades to energy rants and a surreal detour into gender politics

What we just witnessed at the so-called AI Summit was less a presidential address and more a supercut of Trumpian delusion, tech-bro pandering, economic illiteracy, and barely restrained authoritarianism, all delivered in a stream-of-consciousness torrent that makes “word salad” look like a gourmet entrée.

Let’s begin with the basics: Trump’s speech had no discernible structure, no coherent throughline, and only a passing acquaintance with reality. It began with a fantasy about a $550 billion “signing bonus” from Japan, something that has not happened and, in the context of international trade, makes about as much sense as claiming you’ve monetized respect. He rambled about opening countries “like Japan” to trade as if Japan hadn’t been a global economic player for decades, and insisted the U.S. “pays zero” while other countries “pay 15%”, a flat-out misunderstanding of how tariffs actually work.

From there, it veered into a parade of name-drops and shout outs to his loyal sycophants and favored donors: David Sacks, Jason Calacanis, Howard Lutnick, Lisa Su, Jensen Huang.

Trump glowingly praised the very people he briefly pretended to want to break up until he realized how hard it would be or how much he liked their flattery. Nvidia, he claimed, has “100% of the market,” and he learned that it would take a decade of incompetence from Jensen Huang for anyone else to catch up. You could practically hear former FTC chair Lina Khan’s blood pressure rising from across the Potomac.

Then came the wordplay section of the program: “Artificial intelligence” is apparently a term he doesn’t like because “nothing artificial is good.” He suggested changing the name of the entire field because, in his expert opinion, it’s “pure genius.” The man who once said he “loves the poorly educated” now claims to be leading the global race in advanced computational technologies.

There were long detours into climate denial, cheap shots at Obama’s golf trips, and the usual border fearmongering. He bragged that the U.S. had “zero people enter illegally” last month, which is not just false, it’s dimensionally false. He then segued into praising “clean, beautiful coal” and ordered his energy officials to never say the word “coal” without using that full adjective-noun combo, like it’s Beetlejuice for fossil fuel barons.

On regulation, Trump promised to slash everything standing in the way of AI dominance, saying that for every new rule, 10 must be eliminated. He even took credit for “zoning delays” in Manhattan that, in his mind, once saved him from building during a market crash. He believes the market saved him from his own real estate instincts, and that’s apparently a win.

And then there’s the truly dystopian part: Trump declared that AI trained on data involving diversity, equity, and inclusion, what he called “woke AI”, would be banned for federal procurement. He signed an executive order on the spot to make that happen. He also attacked what he called “toxic Marxist lunacy,” “critical race theory,” and unnamed “communists” in New York (a clear jab at Zohran Mamdani, despite Mamdani being a state assemblymember with no jurisdiction over AI policy). Oh, and he took a moment to promise that “men will not be allowed in women’s sports,” based on anecdotes he fabricated or exaggerated to grotesque comedic effect.

By the end, he’d claimed that every global leader he met told him America was “dead” under Biden and “the hottest country in the world” under him. He declared the birth of “a golden age” for America, crowed that the country invented everything from the internet to GPS to “basically everything,” and pledged to personally sign executive orders without an autopen, because that’s apparently the peak of statesmanship.

Less a tech summit, and more a deranged campaign rally dressed up in jargon. Trump offered no real understanding of AI, no serious policy on safety, misinformation, or global competition, only empty deregulation promises, a war on “woke,” and the same cult-of-personality chaos he’s been peddling since 2015.