California Rep. Maxine Waters had a full-on meltdown before the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday as members questioned Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on a wide range of economic issues.
Artificial intelligence was always going to come up, but when it did, Waters showed just how detached congressional Democrats are from reality. She went after the Trump administration’s supposed “friends” in Big Tech, the same AI executives who have spent weeks warning of AI’s impending danger while asking Washington to regulate them.
Of course, the push for sweeping federal rules is regulatory capture, plain and simple: the biggest firms get to help write the rules, absorb the compliance costs and cement their dominance while smaller competitors are locked out. The administration has repeatedly made that point as it argues against a moratorium that could hand the advantage to China. But when a Democrat hears that something needs to be regulated, getting them off that track is nearly impossible.
🔥🚨 INSANE DEMOCRAT — Rep. Maxine Waters comes unglued over the new line "AI is going to kill us all."
— The Patriot Oasis™ (@ThePatriotOasis) September 15, 2026
WATERS: "Did you hear what Bill Gates had to say? Did you hear what Elon Musk had to say? Did you hear about Anthropic?"
BESSENT: “They could STOP! They could stop ANYTIME… pic.twitter.com/a2HxQBSTYY
"Did you hear what Bill Gates had to say? Did you hear what Elon Musk had to say? Did you hear about Anthropic? Did you hear about Amodei?" Rep. Waters asked. "They all said stop it, watch it, AI is dangerous, you got to be careful. Did you hear any of that? Yes or no?"
"They could stop anytime they want to," the Treasury Secretary replied.
"Did you hear any of that yes or no?" the California congresswoman pressed.
"They could stop their progress anytime they want to."
"Reclaiming my time, reclaiming my time, did you hear what your friends had to say?" Waters asked again. "What the big billionaires had to say? Did you understand that they said we're moving into a dangerous period of time? We need to watch it. We need to slow down. Did you hear that?"
"This administration has been at the forefront of examining the models," Sec. Bessent said. "We began model examination more than five or six months ago."
"Your friends said watch it, be careful that we're moving into a dangerous time on AI. If you don't admit that, it means that you're not willing to stand up to the truth because you heard it, you know they're saying it," Waters said. "These are the guys that you all work with. These are the guys that you have to be more billionaires and trillionaires. So you know what they're saying."
"These people want you to give them regulatory power," the Treasury Secretary said.
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