Topline
President Donald Trump’s new government website powered by artificial intelligence was widely mocked on social media Tuesday for addressing topics Trump avoids and taking an objective stance to others he often weaponizes or fabricates.
President Donald Trump applauds on stage during the America.gov launch event at Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium on September 29, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
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Key Facts
A new America.gov website to navigate government services using artificial intelligence went live on Tuesday and uses a chatbot to answer questions about government services—such as benefits, enrollments or renewals—by scraping more than 29,000 government websites, Joe Gebbia, the co-founder of Airbnb and head of the White House National Design Studio said while announcing the new site.
The website, powered by Google’s Gemini and SpaceXAI’s Grok, says Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election, citing the National Archives 2020 Electoral College results, and it states that Trump was in office when U.S. retail diesel hit its highest record nominal price.
America.gov says total aid to Ukraine during the Biden administration is “far below” the $350 billion figure Trump has repeatedly cited and it disputes his claim that 25 million people crossed the border during the Biden administration.
When asked what the Trump administration’s stance is on communism and the Democratic Party—as Trump and his allies increasingly link the two—it said “America[.gov] does not describe political stances, parties or ideologies. America is for official government services, benefits, and how-to-steps—not commentary on the administration or political parties.”
When asked if there is evidence that noncitizens frequently vote in elections—as Trump pushes legislation requiring proof-of-citizenship to register—it provided an overview of laws prohibiting non-citizens from voting and voter registration information and said “America does not judge how often noncitizens vote . . . that is evidence-weighing and debate, not a government-service question.”
Tangent
Trump hosted AI executives including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, OpenAI President Greg Brockman, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Palantir CEO Alex Karp and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang for lunch at the White House with House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., on Tuesday. The meeting comes as Trump has resisted calls for stricter regulations on the industry amid warnings that AI could soon become dangerous, potentially lethal to human civilization, if development isn’t slowed, and several cases of AI agents going rogue. Trump said the executives agreed to sign a “constitution” of sorts that is “morally binding” and “really a form of protection,” adding that he sees a lot of “self-policing” in AI. Trump said “we have people who love our country and the world” when asked why there shouldn’t be more formal guardrails and said “no” when a reporter asked him if it requires more than love to protect humans from AI.
Crucial Quote
“For our entire lives we have become used to a government so big, it makes the citizen feel very, very small, but with America.gov the entire U.S. government will fit . . . in the palm of your hand instead of forcing citizens to search through the endless maze of tens of thousands of terrible government websites and rules and more than 10,000 forms,” Trump said.
Key Background
The recent panic about AI was prompted earlier this month when Anthropic whistleblower Jacob Coxon resigned from the company and warned that if development isn’t slowed, AI could “kill us all by the end of the decade.” Others in the industry echoed Coxon’s concerns. Amodei then formally penned a letter calling for new risk prevention. The letter was co-signed by OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Elon Musk and Google Deepmind’s Dennis Hassabis. Trump has downplayed the concerns and resisted calls for new regulations, citing fears the U.S. could fall behind China. “Whoever wins super intelligence, wins,” Trump said at his speech at the United Nations General Assembly last week. “We’re leading now over China by a lot and everyone else, and we’re going to keep it that way.” Trump claimed after his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping last week that he and Xi agreed to “leave [AI] exactly where it is.” Xi seemed more cautious, however, and said, “we both have the capability and responsibility to develop and manage AI for good, and ensure that the development of AI is always under human control and serves the well-being of the people.”
further reading
Trump Hosting Billionaires At AI Lunch: Zuckerberg, Amodei, Huang Among These Attendees (Forbes)
Bill Gates Says AI Safety Concerns Are ‘Not A Hoax,’ Contradicting Trump (Forbes)
Trump Vows To Launch ‘AI Force’ To Safeguard U.S. Dominance (Forbes)
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