Mr. President, It’s Time to Put Kids First in AI Policy

For many years, organizations around the country have been fighting to make the digital age safer for kids. Recently, this has yielded tremendous legislative victories on both the state and federal level. But now, a new problem has arisen: AI chatbots, which, in several horrifying cases, have supported the suicide ideation of young Americans. This past weekend, 60 Minutes featured a segment on how a so-called “companion bot” on Character.AI was informed by a teen that she was suicidal 55 times. Despite that, her parents claim that it never provided her with resources to get help. They thought she was just texting with her friends. Instead, she was spiraling into the depths with an AI companion that she was also engaging with sexually. And the sexual grooming of children by AI companions is not a marginal issue: Character.AI is a project that was spun off by some of Google’s most accomplished engineers and that received investments from a16z, a storied Silicon Valley venture capital firm with powerful influence in Washington.

Stories like this explain why the Institute for Family Studies and its sister organizations have directly opposed efforts by Congress to preemptively block states from regulation of AI without a federal standard in place. That is also why we have joined a group of several dozen major child safety advocacy groups in writing a letter to the President of the United States asking him not to sign an executive order (EO) that would direct the Department of Justice and other agencies, such as the Federal Communications Commission and Federal Trade Commission, to penalize states for regulating AI. Not only would such an EO leave children and families unprotected, but it would also cut millions of American voters out of the democratic process. There is a better way. The text of our letter to the president is below.

December 5, 2025

President Donald J. Trump
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear President Trump:

We represent a coalition of child safety advocates. We have driven dozens of state laws around the country to make the internet safer for kids. We submitted amici to help secure a United States Supreme Court victory in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton and have been directly involved with the development of legislative models to address harms to kids online. We have supported important pieces of Congressional and state level legislation around the country, such as the TAKE IT DOWN Act, to make the digital age safer for kids. Over the past six months we have organized to oppose the AI moratorium and preemption in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

We were alarmed to hear—just hours after we learned that Republican Leadership agreed with us that it was unwise to include preemption in the NDAA—that the White House was considering an executive order that would seek to stop states from enacting and enforcing AI safety measures. As you know, federal preemption is deeply unpopular with the American public. A recent poll by the Institute for Family Studies and YouGov finds that Americans oppose AI preemption by a margin of 3 to 1.

While we understand your concern that a patchwork could inhibit AI innovation, we also know that our children cannot afford to have the minimal protections we have won for them stripped away while waiting for Congress to act. If we handcuff state laws without passing strong federal ones, there will be a gap in accountability and American children will suffer. This Monday, a group of grieving parents and child safety advocates gathered at the National Gallery to project messages in opposition to preemption and tell their tragic stories of Big Tech’s products killing their children. Parents who have lost their loved ones have fought for years for protections at the state level. While the federal government continually failed them, these advocates won hard-fought, basic protections in the states. Preemption—whether through legislation or executive order—turns their advocacy through suffering into a tool for industry to wield against them. Instead, the President of the United States should stand with the heartbroken and the aggrieved, as well as those who lack the power to protect their own children from a Big Tech industry that callously preys upon them.

We respectfully urge you not to sign an executive order that would threaten state level protections for America’s children. Instead, lead Congress, hear the American people, and develop a robust federal standard for child safety and AI.

As you yourself stated in a post on Truth Social, passing a federal standard on AI need not happen through legislative shortcuts or executive workarounds. It can be done by Congress through a separate bill altogether, following the regular rule of order. We agree. Careful deliberation and negotiation are the best ways to ensure that every American has a say in the era of AI, as well as a say in the future of child safety. This must happen first.

We respectfully urge you not to sign an executive order that would threaten state level protections for America’s children. Instead, lead Congress, hear the American people, and develop a robust federal standard for child safety and AI that does not tie the hands of states from legislating on future threats. We must reject Big Tech’s continued efforts to undermine our work as advocates and strip away the few protections our families have.

Mr. President, you have the power to stand with American families instead of Big Tech. Please do not sign this executive order.

Sincerely,

Institute for Family Studies

All Girls Allowed

American Psychological Association Services

Becca Schmill Foundation

Center for Arizona Policy

Common Sense Media

David’s Legacy Foundation

Digital Childhood Alliance

Digital Childhood Institute

Educate and Empower Kids

Encode AI

Fairplay

Institute for Families and Technology

Kansas Family Voice

National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE)

NH Traffick-Free Coalition

Paradigm Shift Training and Consulting

ParentsSOS

Protect Young Eyes

Scrolling 2 Death

Transparency Coalition

Young People’s Alliance