Bill O'Reilly Breaks With Trump on AI, Calls for New Federal Police Agency to Target Criminals

Bill O'Reilly broke ranks with President Donald Trump on artificial intelligence, arguing that "self-policing" won't cut it for the industry and calling for a new police agency to go after criminals exploiting AI.

O'Reilly appeared with NewsNation's Katie Pavlich on Tuesday evening following Trump's meeting with AI tech leaders. At that gathering, the president had the executives sign a "morally binding" safety accord to self-police AI, which Trump is now calling "super intelligence."

Speaking with reporters, Trump brushed aside doomsday fears about AI as a Democrat-led hoax. He maintained that existing federal agencies, combined with "self-policing" by the companies, will keep the technology from spiraling out of control.

O'Reilly pushed back and said more needs to be done.

"I kind of disagree. I mean, I think you're gonna have to have a new police agency, federal, that all they do is look at AI, because there are a lot of miscreants and gangs out there, even now. Some men arrested this weekend in Holland, part of a criminal group that hacks into everybody, including the FBI. They hacked into the FBI personnel files," he said.

O'Reilly warned that "this is just going to get worse" when it comes to crimes such as extortion and theft, and even crimes involving nuclear codes or "messing around with weaponry."

"To me, I want to be as preventive as possible. Now, I understand the president knows China doesn't see it our way. So they're going to go, and they're going to develop AI to the fullest extent so they can make money. And they're gonna try to pass us in technology. But as we saw with Covid, China didn't have a very good security service at all," he said.

While urging Congress to pass new laws, O'Reilly acknowledged that America must win the AI "arms race" against China and other rivals.

"We have to be first in this arms race. We can't let China do whatever they want to do. But my thing is, there are so many criminals involved with this stuff that, inevitably, they're going to get some power over AI. They got to be punished. Congress has got to pass new laws," he said.

Some of the sharpest warnings about AI's rapid advance have come from inside the industry.

Earlier this month, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warned that we "must slow down the pace," pointing out that rogue AI agents have already hacked other companies without being instructed to as they self-develop.

That warning came after an Anthropic researcher resigned and cautioned that AI could "kill us all" within 10 years.

At the White House, Trump waved off those concerns. Asked about billionaire Bill Gates warning that AI could kill as many as a billion people, the president claimed Gates tells him the exact opposite in private.

"He actually went the opposite, but look, it's one voice. He actually went the opposite. We're looking at this for good. It's also maybe the biggest industry — they say bigger than the Industrial Revolution," Trump said.

The split highlights a growing debate on the right over how aggressively Washington should step in. Trump is betting on industry self-policing and existing agencies, while O'Reilly argues that a dedicated federal force and new laws from Congress are needed to keep criminals from gaining power over the technology.