Staff Reports
Christopher Phelan, President Trump’s pick to chair the White House Council of Economic Advisers, delivered a message Americans should hear: artificial intelligence should be a tool that empowers workers, not a cudgel to crush them. Phelan told Breitbart that history shows transformative technologies free people from rote toil and create new opportunities, and he argued the data do not show firms using AI are shedding jobs en masse. That reassurance from a leading conservative economist matters at a moment when worry about automation runs wild in the press.
In his Breitbart interview Phelan walked through the familiar arc — from 80 percent of people working farms to the mechanization that raised living standards — and applied that lesson to AI today. He pointed out that companies adopting AI are, in fact, hiring more, not less, and called AI “another tool that complements people.” Those are not the hollow reassurances of a tech utopian; they are the sober words of an economist who understands both history and the data.
This administration has been clear-eyed about AI’s promise and the need to clear out Washington red tape so American firms can win the global race in innovation. The White House’s approach is to accelerate AI development here at home, not strangle it with precautionary rules that cede leadership to China. That pro-growth, pro-worker posture is exactly what conservative governance should look like in the 21st century.
Republican lawmakers are already engaging to make sure policy actually helps Main Street and small businesses benefit from open and competitive AI ecosystems. Senator Jim Banks recently urged Phelan to study the benefits of American open-source models and to identify incentives that keep this technology in free-market hands rather than in the hands of foreign adversaries. That kind of oversight and conservative vigilance — marrying national security with worker opportunity — is the right instinct.
If conservatives are serious about defending workers, we should back policies that boost retraining, expand apprenticeships, and remove regulatory burdens that punish employers for innovating and hiring. Phelan’s testimony and the Senate hearings make plain that the choice is not between technology and labor but between smart policy that channels AI toward shared prosperity and the kind of nanny-state meddling that hands advantage to global competitors. Washington’s job is to clear obstacles, not to stand in the way of American ingenuity.
Hardworking Americans deserve to know their leaders see them as partners, not casualties, in the next industrial revolution. Conservatives should champion an agenda that protects jobs, rewards skill-building, and keeps cutting-edge technology in American hands so Main Street prospers. Let the left keep scaring people with dystopian tech fantasies — real patriots will harness AI to lift up families, defend our economy, and secure American advantage for generations to come.
