Sanders and Bannon set aside political rivalry to push for AI limits

Senator Bernie Sanders and conservative commentator Steve Bannon, two of the most prominent adversaries in American politics, will appear at the same Washington event on Tuesday to jointly call for tighter restrictions on artificial intelligence systems, according to event organizers.

The pairing marks an unusual alignment between the progressive Vermont senator and the former Trump White House strategist, both of whom argue that AI technology carries risks serious enough to warrant government intervention. Their shared appearance illustrates how anxiety over AI has begun to cut across traditional political lines in Washington.

The gathering comes amid growing public unease about the pace of AI development. An Anthropic researcher named Jacob Coxon announced his resignation last week, saying in part that people building the technology genuinely believe it could threaten humanity’s survival by the end of the decade. AI related stocks fell across global markets on Monday after executives at several major technology companies called for slowing the rollout of new systems.

Bannon, a longtime ally of President Donald Trump, has broken with the administration’s broader approach to AI oversight, placing responsibility for the lack of regulation on technology companies themselves rather than the White House. He said the American public will not simply defer to tech industry leaders on the issue.

Lawmakers in the Senate have separately been debating legislation that would prevent individual states from enforcing their own rules governing specific AI related risks, after an earlier attempt to limit state level AI regulation failed to advance. Trump played down the weekend warnings from technology executives on Monday, saying existing safeguards already address the risks posed by the technology.

Tuesday’s event will also feature AFL CIO President Liz Shuler and Walter Kim, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, both of whom are scheduled to speak alongside Sanders and Bannon.

The coalition reflects a broader trend in which concerns over AI safety, labor displacement and corporate accountability have begun drawing support from across the ideological spectrum, with organized labor and religious groups increasingly joining lawmakers and industry critics in pressing for stronger federal oversight of a technology still expanding faster than regulation has managed to keep pace with.