Exclusive: Thune believes Trump is willing to listen on AI guardrails despite public defiance

Senate Majority Leader John Thune says President Trump is "not really dug in" against guardrails for AI, despite Trump's public campaign against restricting the technology. Why it matters: Thune told Axios he spoke privately with Trump as the AI issue was getting "pretty hot" a few weeks ago and believes some of Trump's strong pushback is against public "paranoia and noise around the subject." Thune reads Trump's position as a preference for companies coming up with ways to secure their systems,