Jeffries: Congress must act urgently to slow AI development

13 Sep 2026: On ABC’s This Week, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said lawmakers must act urgently on AI, cited a Democratic AI commission’s coming “aggressive framework,” and said decisive action should slow the pace of development to protect the public — with AI a high priority at Tuesday’s Democratic caucus.

13 Sep 2026: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) appeared Sunday on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos. He said lawmakers “certainly need to begin to act urgently to address the challenges that exist.” The ABC News rush transcript of that airing is the filing event. These are Sunday-show remarks — not a bill passed, a recess restored, a published framework, a ban enacted, or a kill switch mandated.

Jeffries blamed Republicans for abandoning responsibility. He said Speaker Mike Johnson “killed a bipartisan task force this Congress” that was prepared to erect guardrails to protect the health, safety, and well-being of the American people.

On the Democratic side, he said Democrats began last December a commission on artificial intelligence and the innovation economy to evaluate next steps and “present an aggressive framework which we are in the process of doing, so that Congress can act on behalf of the American people.” File the commission and the promised framework as his account — not as a published bill text.

Quoted line, from the ABC rush transcript: “We should take decisive action now so that we can slow down, as the CEOs have recently acknowledged, slow down the pace of development in order to protect the American people and ensure that A.I. is proceeding safely.” The “CEOs have recently acknowledged” clause is his attribution — not a new lab statement in this filing.

On the calendar: House Republicans “effectively canceled the last two weeks of the legislative session scheduled for this month.” The Democratic caucus meets Tuesday morning; “a high priority will be action on artificial intelligence.” Asked about Senator Bernie Sanders’s superintelligence ban and Rep. Ted Lieu’s kill-switch proposal, Jeffries said “we’ll have that conversation this week upon our return.” He did not endorse a ban or a kill switch on the air.

Same-show context only: former Anthropic and OpenAI researcher Jacob Coxon also appeared on This Week, warning about AI takeover risk if development does not slow. His Sunday television appearance is secondary context here — not a re-file of his earlier X resignation.

Counterpoint already on the wire: Speaker Johnson the same day said Congress will not lead an emergency AI-safety moratorium and wants labs to own product safety first (johnson-congress-wont-lead-ai-safety).

CONFIRMED here: the attributed Sunday-show remarks as reported by the ABC This Week rush transcript and the same-day ABC News story. NOT claimed: a bill passed, the House recess restored, the Democratic framework published, a ban enacted, or a kill switch mandated. Distinct from the already-filed johnson-congress-wont-lead-ai-safety, trump-dismisses-ai-slowdown-ireland, david-sacks-pace-frontier-no-permission, altman-musk-hassabis-back-amodei-pacing, and amodei-pace-the-frontier.

Same-day House Democratic leadership primary puts the minority leader on the “slow the pace / Congress act now” side of the Amodei pacing fight — opposite Speaker Johnson’s same-day “Congress won’t lead an emergency push.” Desk files Jeffries’s words and the Tuesday caucus priority, not a legislative outcome.