Utah governor on AI, mail-in ballots, gas prices and national debt

(CBS, KYMA) - Gov. Spencer Cox (R-Utah) spoke with Weijia Jiang on Face the Nation Sunday about artificial intelligence (AI).

It comes after an apocalyptic warning from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, and others, about the possible future of the AI capabilities.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Sunday, "We don't need everyone to panic and Congress should resist jumping in and imposing some sort of moratorium," prompting Jiang to ask Gov. Cox what role does the federal governor need to play right now, to which the governor said:

"A much bigger role than the role that they're actually playing. I don't think the speaker has to worry at all about Congress not acting. That's kind of all they do. They're very good at that, and I think this is a very important moment for all of us. We've seen the reports. We know what's possible. The Hugging Face incident that you've already talked about should be very concerning to everyone, and the people that know the most about this are the most concerned right now. And I think that means that Congress actually should get together and at least have a conversation. I'm embarrassed by the response from Congress to just about everything in our country right now."

When asked if he has spoken to any Republicans about the lack of urgency, the governor said:

"Just in the past 48 hours, members of my team have reached out to a couple members of our delegation who share our concerns. We're looking at, of course, at what Dario and Sam and Elon have- have all been saying now, just in the last 24 hours. I think our thinking on this is kind of moving for sure. But it's very clear, and we've known this now for a little while that the possibility of an existential event happening is growing and growing much more rapidly than anyone projected, and it's really important that the government gets involved. And we can do this in the right way. I'm not saying a moratorium. I'm not saying shutting things down. Government doesn't get this right often either, but we should be at the table working together, and that's what we've done in Utah. We have a pro-human AI approach. We actually have these companies at the table with government working together on making sure we protect the public."

During the interview, Jiang and Cox talked about the U.S. Supreme Court having yet to make a final decision on President Donald Trump's executive order regarding mail-in ballots.

According to Jiang, 95% of voters in Utah used a mail-in ballot in the June primary election, leading her to ask if the new postal service rules will make it harder for people to vote, and Cox said:

"It would certainly have an impact here in the state of Utah. Unlike many other states, we took about a decade to implement vote-by-mail. We have tremendous security measures in place, and we're adding more all of the time. So, I understand some of the concerns that have been brought up, especially in other states. We do it very well here in the state of Utah, but we'll be prepared for whatever decision happens and make sure that we're ready so that everyone gets to vote. Everyone who should be voting will be able to vote in Utah."

Later in the interview, Jiang and Cox talked about the rising gas prices, with gas prices across the nation still over $4.

Meanwhile, inflation is still at 3.4% and hourly wages slightly dropped by 0.1%.

During the midterm convention in Dallas, President Trump commented on affordability saying, "They used the word affordability, right? Fake. They are so fake because it was them that caused the affordability, to use their word, crisis, and I'm bringing the prices way down."

When asked if the president's comments about affordability will hurt Republicans in the midterm elections, Cox said:

"Affordability has certainly been on the ballot now for- for several years. We understand that, and the conflict, the war that's happening in Iran right now is, I mean, it's no secret that that's been really hard on gas prices. There are lots of other pieces of this that I think are important, and we appreciate the work that the administration has been doing to- to bring down housing prices. We have to build more. We really have to change the mentality. We need permitting reform. We're getting a lot of that out of the administration, but again, we need Congress to act so that we can build the infrastructure that will help us to bring down prices, especially around housing, which is still the I think the worst part of the affordability crisis right now is that we have an entire generation of young people that aren't going to be able to afford a home, and you can't start a family if you don't have a home. There are just so many downstream effects on this. We have to be able to build again in this country. That's happening now more than it has in the past, but Congress still has to get permitting reform done, and we're very anxious and hopeful that Republicans and Democrats, by the way, who all agree on this. My Democratic colleagues, governors across the country, and in Congress believe in permitting reform for the first time in a generation at least. And so, we can get this done and show that America is back and that we can start building again."

Jiang and Cox then talked about the national debt, with Trump saying he'll give every American $5,000 if Republicans win the midterms, adding that he doesn't need Congress' approval to do it.

This led Jiang to ask what would he advise the president about the $1.2 trillion cost, and the governor said:

"I think a lot of us are really worried. I know I have been for a long time about the national debt. We just passed the $40 trillion mark. It seems like that's unsustainable. And we know we had an inflation crisis because of the, you know, the funds that were handed out during COVID, and that led to a significant spike in inflation that we're still dealing with from the the past administration, from the Biden administration, where we saw inflation rates that we haven't seen since I was five years old back in the, you know, the late 70s and the early 80s. So, I'm very concerned about those inflationary pressures that we're seeing. Again, I think there's other things that we can do to help bring down prices. But I will also say, look, at a time when...I mean you're going to talk about the polls later. The polls haven't been great for Republicans heading into these midterms. Then, the Democrats decide to go full socialist on us and really handed us Republicans a big win. And I think that it's going to be closer when it comes to the midterms. So I'm feeling much more bullish about- about our chances as we head into November."

To watch more of Jiang's interview with Cox, click here.