President Donald Trump will meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing next week, where official talks on the AI race could be on the docket. The White House and the Chinese government are weighing the launch of official discussions about AI amid concerns about the competition becoming the newest arms race, the Wall Street Journal first reported. If held, the talks between the two countries on AI would be the first of Trump’s second term. “The competition with China is fierce. China is a significant competitor in AI,” former AI czar David Sacks said on Fox News last year. “But China is doing their best to innovate, to work around the restrictions we try to place on them,” he added. “And so they are a significant competitor, and we, basically, can’t get complacent here.” Both sides are considering a recurring set of conversations to manage risks such as AI models behaving unexpectedly, autonomous military systems, or attacks by nonstate actors through open-source tools, according to the WSJ. This comes amid reports of one or more executive orders on AI safety regulation coming in the next two weeks. The White House has worked on several draft executive orders, but the matter of which proposals make it to the president’s desk is still being debated, sources familiar with the matter told The Daily Signal. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will lead the American delegation in the conversations, according to the WSJ. Bessent said on Fox News this week that the Trump administration is “determined to work with our AI companies to allow them to continue to innovate, but our charge in the U.S. government is maintaining safety.” “And there is a very important calculus here between innovation and safety,” he said. “And the U.S. government, we’re going to make sure that things stay safe.” After National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett suggested an FDA-like approval regime for frontier AI models, some AI innovation advocates said they fear this regulation will threaten the United States’ ability to beat China in the AI race. “I find the idea of any kind of pre-approval process distasteful, but to deliberately invoke the shamefully anti-innovation FDA process as a model to emulate — China must be cheering,” Neil Chilson, head of AI policy of the Abundance Institute, said on X. “This would be a complete rejection of Trump’s current AI approach.” “It would be more precautionary and innovation-chilling than anything the Biden admin ever proposed,” he added. I find the idea of any kind of pre-approval process distasteful, but to deliberately invoke the shamefully anti-innovation FDA process as a model to emulate — China must be cheering. This would be a complete rejection of Trump's current AI approach. It would be more…— Neil Chilson (@neil_chilson) May 6, 2026

The Trump administration scored a legal victory in combating illegal immigration when a federal judge cleared the way for Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to operate near schools, for now.  The lawsuit brought by Minnesota public school districts sought a temporary injunction against immigration enforcement agents having a presence near schools, claiming it increased absenteeism and disrupted learning.  U.S. District Judge Laura Provinzino of the District of Minnesota denied the schools’ request for a preliminary injunction while the case moves forward and said the plaintiffs likely lacked standing. Provinzino is a Biden appointee.  “Accordingly, because the Court concludes that Plaintiffs have not shown they are likely to establish standing, the Court also must conclude that Plaintiffs are unlikely to prevail on the merits,” the judge wrote in a 38-page opinion released Wednesday.  The plaintiffs include the Fridley and Duluth public school districts, as well as the Education Minnesota union. They are represented by Democracy Forward, a liberal litigation group chaired by veteran Democratic election lawyer Marc Elias.  In January 2025, the Department of Homeland Security rescinded restrictions on immigration enforcement actions in or near “sensitive locations,” such as schools and school bus stops. The guidance directed agents to use discretion in these situations. The Trump administration’s Operation Metro Surge increased the number of federal agents in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. According to plaintiffs, the operation included immigration enforcement actions on or near school grounds; the school districts sued in February.  But the judge was skeptical that agents’ proximity to schools was the cause of decreased student attendance.  “It is not clear, however, that this decreased attendance and the potential loss of enrollment-based funding is traceable to the 2025 Guidance rather than the more generalized fears of the school districts’ students and their families about broader immigration enforcement policy changes and activity, specifically during Operation Metro Surge,” she wrote.  Further, she ruled the department had latitude to change such policies.  “The 2025 Guidance, in short, did not change DHS’s ability or authority to engage in enforcement activity at or near protected areas,” the judge wrote. “What has changed, evidently, is DHS’s willingness—not its authority—to conduct immigration enforcement activity at or near protected areas like schools. But such immigration enforcement has always been subject to DHS’s judgment and discretion, even under the 2021 guidance.”  The plaintiffs, in a joint statement, asserted that before the 2025 update to DHS policy, “schools have been recognized as places where students can learn and grow without fear.”  “The Trump-Vance administration’s decision to allow immigration enforcement at and around schools has disrupted classrooms, driven families away, and created an environment of fear that no child should have to endure,” the plaintiffs’ joint statement says. “While the court declined to immediately stop that activity, this is not the end of our fight.”   “We brought this case because every student deserves access to education in a safe and stable environment, and we will continue fighting to restore those protections and ensure that schools remain places of learning, not fear.” 

Massachusetts Democrat Sen. Ed Markey is narrowly leading his primary challenger Rep. Seth Moulton in a Bay State brawl over the future of the party, new polling suggests. A May poll from Emerson College shows Markey leading Moulton 37% to 32% among likely Democratic primary voters. The survey, which sampled 451 voters on May 3-4, has a 4.6% margin of error. Some 29% of Democrats are undecided. There is a wide age gap between Markey, 79, and Moulton, 47.  Moulton has emphasized Markey’s age throughout his campaign, saying, “With everything we learned last election, I just don’t believe Sen. Markey should be running for another six-year term at 80 years old,” in his announcement video. It's times like these that bring out the Massachusetts in me.We're in the fight of our lives. I'm down in DC, making the enemies you would make, and standing for the values you stand for every day. pic.twitter.com/NfEnXxmvfH— Ed Markey (@EdMarkey) April 15, 2026 However, per the new polling, Markey beats Moulton among younger Democrats. “Voters under 50 break for Senator Markey by seven points, 33% to 26%, while voters over 50 are split: 40% support Markey and 38% support Moulton,” Emerson reports. It is not the first time Markey has faced a young primary challenger. In 2020, Markey defeated 39-year-old Rep. Joe Kennedy III, D-Mass., by over ten points in the state’s Senate primary. Markey, who has been in Congress since 1976, has honed his liberal reputation in recent years as a principal champion of the “Green New Deal” agenda alongside Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.  Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) answered questions on his decision to return money from a pro-Israel lobbying group, his comments about trans athletes and his stance on ICE.With the 2026 elections underway, Post reporter Anna Liss-Roy is grilling candidates: pic.twitter.com/LR4V5PFLG2— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) April 9, 2026 Moulton has long had a rebellious edge. He successfully challenged a Democrat incumbent of almost two decades in his first House primary.  In 2018, the Salem congressman was a leading figure in an ultimately unsuccessful effort to block Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., from being Speaker of the House when Democrats won control of the chamber. Marky and Moulton have been vocal opponents of President Donald Trump’s military action against Iran and his deportation policies.  Moulton has also pledged to vote for new Democrat leadership in the Senate if elected. Markey and Moulton’s campaigns did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

A top House Democrat is being accused of breaking federal law after she admitted to meeting with foreign ambassadors about getting oil to Cuba’s communist regime despite U.S. sanctions, defending the outreach as “literally our right and responsibility.” Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D‑Wash., made the remarks during a recent briefing in Seattle following a congressional delegation trip to Cuba, where she discussed the island’s worsening fuel shortages and U.S. policy toward the communist regime. “I was in conversations with ambassadors from Mexico and some other places … trying to figure out how to get oil there,” Jayapal said during the briefing, describing conditions on the island as “a crisis beyond imagination.” Jayapal said the comments were part of a broader discussion on the humanitarian situation in Cuba following her visit last month. “As many of you know, I traveled to Cuba as part of a congressional delegation last month,” she said. “It is part of my role to see how U.S. foreign policy is actually affecting the people in the countries where that policy is being implemented.” During the trip, Jayapal said she met with Cuban President Miguel Díaz‑Canel, senior government officials, political dissidents, civil society groups, and foreign diplomats. Jayapal’s remarks drew sharp criticism from Republican lawmakers, who accused her of attempting to undermine U.S. sanctions and foreign policy. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, wrote on X that “there’s something wrong with a member of Congress actively working to undermine the application of U.S. law against a foreign adversary.” Sen. Ted Cruz, R‑Texas, called the move “shameful,” describing them as an example of “Democrats openly supporting our communist enemies.” Rep. Clay Fuller, R‑Ga., said there is “something deeply un‑American about coordinating with a foreign adversary against the president of the United States.” Lee and Fuller both suggested Jayapal’s actions could violate the Logan Act, a rarely enforced 1799 federal law that prohibits unauthorized U.S. citizens from negotiating with foreign governments in disputes with the United States. The Logan Act has produced no successful prosecutions in modern history, though it is periodically cited in political disputes involving foreign contacts by U.S. officials or private citizens. “If she violated the Logan Act, she should be prosecuted,” Rep. Randy Fine, R-Fla., told The Daily Signal. Fine added that she was openly admitting and boasting about circumventing U.S. foreign policy because she is “likely a dual citizen” who doesn’t “share American values.” “She is not loyal to this country, we shouldn’t be surprised when she works with our enemies,,” Fine added. Cuba is designated by the United States as a state sponsor of terrorism and has long faced criticism from human rights organizations for suppressing political dissent, restricting free speech, and imprisoning political opponents. Cuban dissidents and community leaders, such as Florida legislative aide Miguel Granda, Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., and Trump-endorsed Florida State Representative David Borrero have described Cuba’s communist regime as “murderers,” an abuser of “egregious human rights violations,” and a “regime of dictators, narco-terrorists, and communists.” Additionally, a study from Florida International University found that a majority of the 2.4 million Cubans in the United States oppose the island’s communist regime and want to see an end to nearly seven decades of dictatorship.

President Donald Trump’s usual naysayers and the foreign policy class are already trying to sell his pause of Project Freedom in the Strait of Hormuz as a retreat. That is wrong. A real retreat would mean lifting the blockade and giving Tehran relief up front. Instead, Trump did the opposite. He paused one operational phase while preserving the full architecture of pressure. Trump is keeping his hand on the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important energy chokepoint, and forcing Tehran to prove whether it can respond with compliance instead of its usual cycle of stalling, cheating, threats, and attacks. “Assuming Iran agrees to give what has been agreed to, which is, perhaps, a big assumption, the already legendary Epic Fury will be at an end… If they don’t agree, the bombing starts, and it will be, sadly, at a much higher level and intensity than it was before.” – President… pic.twitter.com/WawLkequWU— The White House (@WhiteHouse) May 6, 2026 Trump has already proven he can pressure Iran. That alone is a win for America. The real question now is whether Tehran can answer from a position of coherence, given that its leadership is divided and still unable to produce a unified response. A regime that once projected terror across the Middle East is now financially cornered, dependent on intermediaries such as Pakistan, and facing a narrow deadline to respond to a memorandum of understanding. That is the real shift. Trump is negotiating with a weakened regime that can no longer credibly pretend time is on its side. But pressure is not the same thing as achievement, and Trump understands that distinction better than Washington’s failed foreign-policy class. They mistake process for progress, as if a pause means weakness or a memorandum means peace. Trump is doing something very different. He is testing whether Iran is serious before handing over a single ounce of real relief. That is the difference between a president who understands leverage and a political class that has spent decades surrendering it. Reopening the Strait of Hormuz may be one step toward success, but it is not victory if Iran keeps its nuclear ambitions, its coercive tools, and the ability to use a temporary pause to buy time with false promises. A pause is not peace, and a conversation is not surrender. The only negotiation worth having with Iran is one shaped by enough pressure to make Tehran fear the cost of refusing. Trump’s pause is a test. If Iran is serious, it can respond to the terms of the memorandum of understanding within the timeline. If not, Trump still controls the pressure points that forced Tehran to the table. The clearest historical example of this is the 1987-1988 Tanker War. Under Ronald Reagan, America won by protecting shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, keeping it open and firing back when Tehran tested the U.S. until it could no longer use the Gulf as leverage. Trump has proven that same blueprint still works. When Iran challenged U.S. operations in Hormuz with fast boats, missiles, and drones on May 4, America fired back, destroyed six Iranian vessels, and sent the same message Reagan sent decades ago: Iran will not impose pressure on the U.S. or the global shipping lanes without paying a heavier price than it can afford. The anti-Trump crowd will keep insisting Tehran will use this pause to stall. That only proves why Trump’s approach is stronger than the failed strategy they pushed for years. If Iran moves seriously toward an agreement, Trump turns pressure into progress without handing Tehran relief up front. If Iran stalls, he can show Americans and the world that he gave diplomacy another chance and Tehran still chose deceit, delay, and coercion. And that is the point. Trump paused the operation, but he never lifted the pressure. If Tehran still cannot answer seriously, then it will prove that this regime remains what it has always been: a terrorist state that reads every pause as weakness and every opening as an opportunity to cheat. At that point, the diplomatic niceties should be finished. America will have no reason to keep negotiating with a regime that only moves when it is forced to. The only language Tehran has ever respected is strength — and Trump has put America back in the position to use it. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.