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One year ago, an act of senseless violence carried out with a weapon of war took the lives of 18 loved ones and injured 13 others in Lewiston, Maine. Doug and I join all Mainers in remembering those who lost their lives on that fall night, standing with their families, and thinking of the survivors of this horrific mass shooting.
 
In the 12 months since this tragedy took place at a local restaurant and a bowling alley, the Lewiston community has shown incredible unity, resilience, and strength. They have responded by reminding the nation of the unacceptable fact that far too many families have experienced the tremendous pain and trauma caused by the epidemic of gun violence. This is exactly why I have worked to take action to address this issue with the urgency it demands and keep our loved ones safe.
 
With the help of gun violence survivors, families of those who have lost loved ones, young leaders, and local advocates, our administration fought to enact the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act — the first major gun safety law in nearly 30 years. We expanded background checks, closed the gun show loophole, made the largest investment in youth mental health in history, supported the implementation of red flag laws across the country, and invested in community violence intervention. Additionally, we launched the first-ever White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, an office that I am proud to oversee. Following the tragic shooting in Lewiston, this office coordinated the first-ever federal interagency response – listening to survivors’ needs and ensuring victim services are tailored to meet them.
 
While we have made critical progress, there is still work to do to keep our kids and communities safe. I continue to call on Congress to pass universal background checks, red flag and safe storage laws, a ban on bump stocks, and a renewal of the assault weapons ban. In the meantime, I will continue our work to save lives and ensure that every person in our nation can live free from violence, fear, and hate.

# # #

The post Statement from Vice President Kamala Harris One Year After the Lewiston Shootings appeared first on The White House.

One year ago, an act of senseless violence carried out with a weapon of war took the lives of 18 loved ones and injured 13 others in Lewiston, Maine. Doug and I join all Mainers in remembering those who lost their lives on that fall night, standing with their families, and thinking of the survivors of this horrific mass shooting.
 
In the 12 months since this tragedy took place at a local restaurant and a bowling alley, the Lewiston community has shown incredible unity, resilience, and strength. They have responded by reminding the nation of the unacceptable fact that far too many families have experienced the tremendous pain and trauma caused by the epidemic of gun violence. This is exactly why I have worked to take action to address this issue with the urgency it demands and keep our loved ones safe.
 
With the help of gun violence survivors, families of those who have lost loved ones, young leaders, and local advocates, our administration fought to enact the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act — the first major gun safety law in nearly 30 years. We expanded background checks, closed the gun show loophole, made the largest investment in youth mental health in history, supported the implementation of red flag laws across the country, and invested in community violence intervention. Additionally, we launched the first-ever White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, an office that I am proud to oversee. Following the tragic shooting in Lewiston, this office coordinated the first-ever federal interagency response – listening to survivors’ needs and ensuring victim services are tailored to meet them.
 
While we have made critical progress, there is still work to do to keep our kids and communities safe. I continue to call on Congress to pass universal background checks, red flag and safe storage laws, a ban on bump stocks, and a renewal of the assault weapons ban. In the meantime, I will continue our work to save lives and ensure that every person in our nation can live free from violence, fear, and hate.

# # #

The post Statement from Vice President Kamala Harris One Year After the Lewiston Shootings appeared first on The White House.

James Hallford Stadium
Clarkston, Georgia

7:53 P.M. EDT

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Good evening, Georgia!  (Applause.)  Good evening. 

Can we please hear it for my friend, our 44th president, Barack Obama?  (Applause.) 

     Oh, it’s good to be back in Atlanta.  (Laughs.) 

     All right.  All right.  So —

     AUDIENCE MEMBER:  (Inaudible.)

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  I love you too.  (Applause.)  I love you too.  (Laughs.)

So — so, you all may know it was over — it was 17 years ago — it was over 17 years ago when I took a trip to Springfield, Illinois.  It was a cold February day, and I went there to support this brilliant young senator who was running for president of the United States.  (Applause.)  And millions of Americans were energized and inspired not only by Barack Obama’s message but by how he leads, seeking to unite rather than separate us. 

And that is why in 20- — ‘07, 2007, I went New Year’s Eve to Iowa to knock on doors in the snow.  And all these years later, Barack Obama, I say to you: Your friendship and your faith in me and in our campaign means the world.  Thank you, Mr. President.  (Applause.)  Thank you, Mr. President.

And we have some extraordinary leaders with us tonight, and I thank everybody who’s here for taking time out of your busy lives to spend this evening together. 

I want to thank Georgia’s congressional delegation — (applause) — all the local and community leaders who are here with us.  Let’s please give it up for Samuel L. Jackson — (applause); Spike Lee — (applause); Tyler Perry — (applause); and the great American poet, Bruce Springsteen.  (Applause.)

So, Atlanta, before I was vice president of the United States, before I was a United States senator, and before that, a two-term attorney general for the state of California, and before that, a district attorney and a courtroom prosecutor — and in those roles, I took on perpetrators of all kinds: predators, fraudsters, and repeat offenders.  I took them on, and I won. 

Well, Georgia, in 12 days, it’s Donald Trump’s turn.  (Applause.)  (Laughs.)  It’s his turn. 

Just 12 days left in one of the most consequential elections of our lifetime.  And I don’t need to tell you, voting has already started.  And everybody here knows it’s going to be a tight race until the very end, so we have a lot of work ahead of us.  But we like hard work.  Hard work is good work.  (Applause.)  Hard work is joyful work.  (Applause.) 

And make no mistake, we will win.  (Applause.)  We will win.  We will win. 

     AUDIENCE:  We will win!  We will win!  We will win!

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Or as a certain former president would say, “Yes, we can.”  (Applause.) 

AUDIENCE:  Yes, we can!  Yes, we can!  Yes, we can!

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Yes, we will, and, yes, we can.  And here’s — here’s why we’re going to win.  We are going to win because we, together, are fighting for the future.  (Applause.)  We are fighting for the future.  We here understand we have an opportunity before us to turn the page on the fear and divisiveness that have characterized our politics for a decade because of Donald Trump. 

We have the opportunity to turn the page and chart a new way and a joyful way forward — (applause) — a way that taps into the ambitions, the aspirations, the dreams of the American people. 

And I will tell you, as I travel our country, there is an overwhelming call for a fresh start, for a new generation of leadership that is optimistic and excited about what we can do together.  There is a yearning for a president of the United States who will see you, who gets you, and who will fight for you.  (Applause.) 

And my whole career, I have put the people before partisanship.  I never once asked somebody, “Are you a Democrat, or are you a Republican?”  Instead, I always asked, “How can I help you?”  (Applause.) 

And that is a major difference between Donald Trump and me and between the two very different — extremely different visions that he and I have for our nation: one, his, focused on the past and himself; the other, ours, focused on the future and you. 

Together, we will build a future where we bring down the cost of living, and that will be my focus every single day as president of the United States.  (Applause.)  Because, look, while inflation is down and wages are up, prices are still too high.  You know it, and I know it. 

And unlike Donald Trump, who had $400 million served to him on a silver platter and still minag- — managed to file for bankruptcy six times — he talks about being a good businessman.  Come on.  (Laughter.)  Unlike him, I grew up in a middle-class neighborhood with a working mother who kept a strict budget and did everything she could to make sure my sister and I had all that we needed.  I come from the middle class, and I will never forget where I come from.  (Applause.)  I will never forget where I come from. 

Which is why my commonsense plan will lower the prices you pay on everything from prescription drugs to groceries to housing.  On the other hand, Donald Trump will raise costs on you and your families. 

In fact, independent economists have analyzed our plans and found that mine will cut your costs and strengthen our economy; his will increase inflation and lead to a recession by the middle of next year.  These are independent economists — Nobel laureate, prize-winning economists who have reviewed our plans and are very clear.

And his agenda is all laid out in Project 2025, a detailed and dangerous blueprint for what he will do if he is elected president. 

And, look, Donald Trump intends to impose a 20 percent Trump national sales tax on everyday basic necessities —

AUDIENCE:  Booo —

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  — which will cost the average family nearly $4,000 a year. 

On the other hand, I will take on price gouging — corporate price gouging.  I’ve done it before, and I will do it again.  (Applause.)

Donald Trump will give massive tax cuts to billionaires and the biggest corporations, exactly like he did the last time he was president. 

     AUDIENCE:  Booo —

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  I will give middle-class tax cuts to 100 million Americans, including $6,000 during the first year of a child’s life that will also lift — that will also lift America’s children out of poverty.  (Applause.)

Donald Trump will get rid of the $35 cap on insulin for seniors.  He will cut Medicare and Social Security.  In fact, economists have reported he will bankrupt Social Security in just six years. 

My plan is a plan to support our seniors so that they can grow older with dignity and so their families — you — are not overwhelmed by the cost of home health care.  (Applause.) 

And on top of that, my plan will bring down the cost of housing, cut taxes for small businesses — where are the small businesses in the house? — (applause) — you are the backbone of America’s economy, all of you — and we will lower health care costs because I believe health care should be a right and not just the privilege of those who can afford it.  (Applause.)

Donald Trump, on the other hand, intends to end the Affordable Care Act — or, like we like to call it, Obamacare.  (Applause.)  And he wants to take us back to when insurance companies had the power to deny people with preexisting conditions. 

     Well, we are —

     AUDIENCE:  Not going back!

     THE VICE PRESIDENT:  — not going back.  We are not going back. 

AUDIENCE:  We’re not going back!  We’re not going back!  We’re not going back!

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  We’re not going back. 

AUDIENCE:  We’re not going back!  We’re not going back!  We’re not going back!

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  We’re not going back.  We’re not going back.  No, we are not, because we will move forward, and it is time to turn the page.  (Applause.) 

Ours is a fight for the future, and it is a fight for freedom — for freedom, like the fundamental freedom of a woman to make decisions about her own body and not have her government tell her what to do.  (Applause.)

And we — we remember how we got here.  Donald Trump hand-selected three members of the United States Supreme Court with the intention that they would undo the protections of Roe v. Wade, and they did as he intended.  And now, in America, one in three women lives in a state with a Trump abortion ban. 

I don’t need to tell the folks here: Except for Virginia, in every state in the South, including Georgia, there is a Trump abortion ban, many with no exceptions even for rape and incest. 

And let me tell you, the idea that someone who survives a crime of a violation to their body would be told they don’t have the authority to make a decision about what happens to their body next — that is immoral.  It is immoral.  It is immoral.  (Applause.) 

And everybody here knows, one does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree the government should not be telling her what to do.  (Applause.)  Not the government.  If she chooses, she will talk with her pastor, her priest, her rabbi, her imam, but not the government, not some folks up in a state capitol telling her what to do with her own body. 

And notice, Donald Trump still refuses to even acknowledge the pain and the suffering he has caused. 

He insists that, quote, “everybody” wanted for Roe v. Wade to be overturned —

     AUDIENCE:  Booo —

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  — which is just a further example of how out of touch the man is.  Everybody wanted this?  Women are being denied care during miscarriages, some only being treated once they develop sepsis.  They didn’t want this. 

Couples just trying to grow their family have been cut off in the middle of IVF treatments.  They didn’t want this. 

Women have died because of these bans, including a young mother of a six-year-old son right here in Georgia.  Her family is here with us tonight, and we speak her name: Amber Nicole Thurman.  (Applause.)

And you all have heard me say, look, I do believe Donald Trump to be an unserious man, and the consequences of him ever being president again are brutally serious. 

These are just some of the consequences of the Trump abortion bans and what he does and what he’s likely to do. 

And I pledge to you, when Congress passes a bill to restore reproductive freedom nationwide, as president of the United States, I will proudly sign it into law.  (Applause.)  Proudly.

And across our nation, we are witnessing a full-on assault on other hard-fought, hard-won freedoms and rights — fundamental freedoms and rights — like, Georgia knows, attacks on the freedom to vote, attacks on the freedom to be safe from gun violence, the freedom to breathe clean air and drink clean water, the freedom to love who you love openly and with pride.  (Applause.) 

And as Atlanta knows well, generations of Americans before us led the fight for freedom, and now the baton is in our hands.  It is in our hands.  (Applause.) 

And so, I’d like to speak in particular to all the young leaders that I see here this evening.  (Applause.)  I see you.  I see you.  I see you.  And to you, I say, you all have grabbed the baton.  I’ve seen what you do, and I see how you are doing it, because you are rightly impatient for change. 

You, who have only known the climate crisis, are leading the charge to protect our planet and our future.  (Applause.) 

You, young leaders who grew up with active-shooter drills, are fighting to keep our schools safe.  (Applause.) 

You, who know now fewer rights than your mothers and grandmothers, are standing up for reproductive freedom.  (Applause.)

 And I know it is because for you — I say to our young leaders — this is not theoretical, this is not political, this is your lived experience.  And what I love about you is you are not waiting for other people to figure this out.  (Applause.)

So, I see you, and I see your power.  And I know so many of you are voting for the first time and know that our future is so good with you all at the helm.  (Applause.)  And I’m so proud of you. 

Can we hear it for our young leaders and first-time voters?  (Applause.)

So, listen, so much is on the line in this election, and this is not 2016 or 2020.  The stakes are even higher, because over the last years — and, in particular, the last eight years — Donald Trump has become more confused, more unstable, and more angry.  You see it every day.  He has become increasingly unhinged. 

But last time, at least there were people around him who could control him.  But do notice, in this election, they’re not with him this time. 

In fact, just this week, America heard from John Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general, who was Trump’s White House chief of staff, who said that, as president, Trump praised Hitler — take a moment to think about what that means — that Trump said, quote, “Hitler did some good things” —

AUDIENCE:  Booo —

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  — and that Trump wished he had generals like Hitler’s, who would be loyal to Trump and not to America’s Constitution. 

This is not 2016 and it is not 2020, including because just a few months ago, the United States Supreme Court told the former president that he is effectively immune no matter what he does in the White House. 

Now, just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails — he who will claim unchecked and extreme power if he is reelected, who has vowed that he will be a dictator on day one, who calls Americans who disagree with him — I’m going to quote — “the enemy from within.”  You know what that harkens back to?  He’s calling Americans “the enemy within.” 

Who says that he would use the military to go after them.  And he who has called for the, quote, “termination” of the Constitution of the United States.

Let us be very clear.  Someone who suggests we should terminate the Constitution of the United States of America should never again stand behind the seal of the president of the United States of America.  (Applause.)  Never again.  Never again. 

AUDIENCE:  We’re not going back!  We’re not going back!  We’re not going back!

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  So, America, there is a huge contrast in this election.  Just imagine — just imagine the Oval Office in three months.  Picture it in your mind. 

AUDIENCE MEMBER:  You’re going to be there!  (Applause.)

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  It is either — so — but there’s a choice that everybody has.  So, let’s imagine it for a moment. 

It’s either Donald Trump in there, stewing — stewing over his enemies list, or me — (applause) — working for you, checking off my to-do list. 

You have the power to make that decision.  It is your power.  It is your power. 

AUDIENCE:  (Inaudible.)

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  So, 12 — 12 days.

AUDIENCE:  (Inaudible.)

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  All right.  So — okay, we got work to do.  We got work to do. 

Okay.  So, Georgia, listen, it all comes down to this.  We are here together because we know what is at stake.  We are here together because we love our country.  We love our country.  And I do believe it is one of the highest forms of patriotism to fight, then, for the ideals of our country and to fight to realize the promise of America.  That’s why we are here. 

And as the great Congressman John Lewis reminded us, democracy is not a state; it is an act. 

So, Georgia, now is our time to act.  And together, we will win.  We will win.  (Applause.)  We will win.

AUDIENCE:  We will win!  We will win!  We will win!

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  So, Election Day —

AUDIENCE:  We will win!  We will win!  We will win!

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  So, Election Day is in 12 days, okay?  Twelve days.  And early voting has already started. 

So, Georgia, we need you to vote early.  Please vote early.  Go to IWillVote.com to get all the information you might need, because, folks, the election is here.  It is here.  It is upon us, and the choice is truly in your hands. 

Your vote is your voice, and your voice is your power.  (Applause.)

So, Georgia, I ask you: Are you ready to make your voices heard?  (Applause.)

Do we believe in freedom?  (Applause.)

Do we believe in opportunity?  (Applause.)

Do we believe in the promise of America?  (Applause.)

And are we ready to fight for it?  (Applause.)

And when we fight —

AUDIENCE:  We win!

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  — we win.

God bless you.  And God bless the United States of America.  (Applause.) END                 8:19 P.M. EDT

The post Remarks by Vice President Harris at a Campaign Event | Clarkston, GA appeared first on The White House.

James Hallford Stadium
Clarkston, Georgia

7:53 P.M. EDT

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Good evening, Georgia!  (Applause.)  Good evening. 

Can we please hear it for my friend, our 44th president, Barack Obama?  (Applause.) 

     Oh, it’s good to be back in Atlanta.  (Laughs.) 

     All right.  All right.  So —

     AUDIENCE MEMBER:  (Inaudible.)

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  I love you too.  (Applause.)  I love you too.  (Laughs.)

So — so, you all may know it was over — it was 17 years ago — it was over 17 years ago when I took a trip to Springfield, Illinois.  It was a cold February day, and I went there to support this brilliant young senator who was running for president of the United States.  (Applause.)  And millions of Americans were energized and inspired not only by Barack Obama’s message but by how he leads, seeking to unite rather than separate us. 

And that is why in 20- — ‘07, 2007, I went New Year’s Eve to Iowa to knock on doors in the snow.  And all these years later, Barack Obama, I say to you: Your friendship and your faith in me and in our campaign means the world.  Thank you, Mr. President.  (Applause.)  Thank you, Mr. President.

And we have some extraordinary leaders with us tonight, and I thank everybody who’s here for taking time out of your busy lives to spend this evening together. 

I want to thank Georgia’s congressional delegation — (applause) — all the local and community leaders who are here with us.  Let’s please give it up for Samuel L. Jackson — (applause); Spike Lee — (applause); Tyler Perry — (applause); and the great American poet, Bruce Springsteen.  (Applause.)

So, Atlanta, before I was vice president of the United States, before I was a United States senator, and before that, a two-term attorney general for the state of California, and before that, a district attorney and a courtroom prosecutor — and in those roles, I took on perpetrators of all kinds: predators, fraudsters, and repeat offenders.  I took them on, and I won. 

Well, Georgia, in 12 days, it’s Donald Trump’s turn.  (Applause.)  (Laughs.)  It’s his turn. 

Just 12 days left in one of the most consequential elections of our lifetime.  And I don’t need to tell you, voting has already started.  And everybody here knows it’s going to be a tight race until the very end, so we have a lot of work ahead of us.  But we like hard work.  Hard work is good work.  (Applause.)  Hard work is joyful work.  (Applause.) 

And make no mistake, we will win.  (Applause.)  We will win.  We will win. 

     AUDIENCE:  We will win!  We will win!  We will win!

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Or as a certain former president would say, “Yes, we can.”  (Applause.) 

AUDIENCE:  Yes, we can!  Yes, we can!  Yes, we can!

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Yes, we will, and, yes, we can.  And here’s — here’s why we’re going to win.  We are going to win because we, together, are fighting for the future.  (Applause.)  We are fighting for the future.  We here understand we have an opportunity before us to turn the page on the fear and divisiveness that have characterized our politics for a decade because of Donald Trump. 

We have the opportunity to turn the page and chart a new way and a joyful way forward — (applause) — a way that taps into the ambitions, the aspirations, the dreams of the American people. 

And I will tell you, as I travel our country, there is an overwhelming call for a fresh start, for a new generation of leadership that is optimistic and excited about what we can do together.  There is a yearning for a president of the United States who will see you, who gets you, and who will fight for you.  (Applause.) 

And my whole career, I have put the people before partisanship.  I never once asked somebody, “Are you a Democrat, or are you a Republican?”  Instead, I always asked, “How can I help you?”  (Applause.) 

And that is a major difference between Donald Trump and me and between the two very different — extremely different visions that he and I have for our nation: one, his, focused on the past and himself; the other, ours, focused on the future and you. 

Together, we will build a future where we bring down the cost of living, and that will be my focus every single day as president of the United States.  (Applause.)  Because, look, while inflation is down and wages are up, prices are still too high.  You know it, and I know it. 

And unlike Donald Trump, who had $400 million served to him on a silver platter and still minag- — managed to file for bankruptcy six times — he talks about being a good businessman.  Come on.  (Laughter.)  Unlike him, I grew up in a middle-class neighborhood with a working mother who kept a strict budget and did everything she could to make sure my sister and I had all that we needed.  I come from the middle class, and I will never forget where I come from.  (Applause.)  I will never forget where I come from. 

Which is why my commonsense plan will lower the prices you pay on everything from prescription drugs to groceries to housing.  On the other hand, Donald Trump will raise costs on you and your families. 

In fact, independent economists have analyzed our plans and found that mine will cut your costs and strengthen our economy; his will increase inflation and lead to a recession by the middle of next year.  These are independent economists — Nobel laureate, prize-winning economists who have reviewed our plans and are very clear.

And his agenda is all laid out in Project 2025, a detailed and dangerous blueprint for what he will do if he is elected president. 

And, look, Donald Trump intends to impose a 20 percent Trump national sales tax on everyday basic necessities —

AUDIENCE:  Booo —

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  — which will cost the average family nearly $4,000 a year. 

On the other hand, I will take on price gouging — corporate price gouging.  I’ve done it before, and I will do it again.  (Applause.)

Donald Trump will give massive tax cuts to billionaires and the biggest corporations, exactly like he did the last time he was president. 

     AUDIENCE:  Booo —

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  I will give middle-class tax cuts to 100 million Americans, including $6,000 during the first year of a child’s life that will also lift — that will also lift America’s children out of poverty.  (Applause.)

Donald Trump will get rid of the $35 cap on insulin for seniors.  He will cut Medicare and Social Security.  In fact, economists have reported he will bankrupt Social Security in just six years. 

My plan is a plan to support our seniors so that they can grow older with dignity and so their families — you — are not overwhelmed by the cost of home health care.  (Applause.) 

And on top of that, my plan will bring down the cost of housing, cut taxes for small businesses — where are the small businesses in the house? — (applause) — you are the backbone of America’s economy, all of you — and we will lower health care costs because I believe health care should be a right and not just the privilege of those who can afford it.  (Applause.)

Donald Trump, on the other hand, intends to end the Affordable Care Act — or, like we like to call it, Obamacare.  (Applause.)  And he wants to take us back to when insurance companies had the power to deny people with preexisting conditions. 

     Well, we are —

     AUDIENCE:  Not going back!

     THE VICE PRESIDENT:  — not going back.  We are not going back. 

AUDIENCE:  We’re not going back!  We’re not going back!  We’re not going back!

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  We’re not going back. 

AUDIENCE:  We’re not going back!  We’re not going back!  We’re not going back!

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  We’re not going back.  We’re not going back.  No, we are not, because we will move forward, and it is time to turn the page.  (Applause.) 

Ours is a fight for the future, and it is a fight for freedom — for freedom, like the fundamental freedom of a woman to make decisions about her own body and not have her government tell her what to do.  (Applause.)

And we — we remember how we got here.  Donald Trump hand-selected three members of the United States Supreme Court with the intention that they would undo the protections of Roe v. Wade, and they did as he intended.  And now, in America, one in three women lives in a state with a Trump abortion ban. 

I don’t need to tell the folks here: Except for Virginia, in every state in the South, including Georgia, there is a Trump abortion ban, many with no exceptions even for rape and incest. 

And let me tell you, the idea that someone who survives a crime of a violation to their body would be told they don’t have the authority to make a decision about what happens to their body next — that is immoral.  It is immoral.  It is immoral.  (Applause.) 

And everybody here knows, one does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree the government should not be telling her what to do.  (Applause.)  Not the government.  If she chooses, she will talk with her pastor, her priest, her rabbi, her imam, but not the government, not some folks up in a state capitol telling her what to do with her own body. 

And notice, Donald Trump still refuses to even acknowledge the pain and the suffering he has caused. 

He insists that, quote, “everybody” wanted for Roe v. Wade to be overturned —

     AUDIENCE:  Booo —

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  — which is just a further example of how out of touch the man is.  Everybody wanted this?  Women are being denied care during miscarriages, some only being treated once they develop sepsis.  They didn’t want this. 

Couples just trying to grow their family have been cut off in the middle of IVF treatments.  They didn’t want this. 

Women have died because of these bans, including a young mother of a six-year-old son right here in Georgia.  Her family is here with us tonight, and we speak her name: Amber Nicole Thurman.  (Applause.)

And you all have heard me say, look, I do believe Donald Trump to be an unserious man, and the consequences of him ever being president again are brutally serious. 

These are just some of the consequences of the Trump abortion bans and what he does and what he’s likely to do. 

And I pledge to you, when Congress passes a bill to restore reproductive freedom nationwide, as president of the United States, I will proudly sign it into law.  (Applause.)  Proudly.

And across our nation, we are witnessing a full-on assault on other hard-fought, hard-won freedoms and rights — fundamental freedoms and rights — like, Georgia knows, attacks on the freedom to vote, attacks on the freedom to be safe from gun violence, the freedom to breathe clean air and drink clean water, the freedom to love who you love openly and with pride.  (Applause.) 

And as Atlanta knows well, generations of Americans before us led the fight for freedom, and now the baton is in our hands.  It is in our hands.  (Applause.) 

And so, I’d like to speak in particular to all the young leaders that I see here this evening.  (Applause.)  I see you.  I see you.  I see you.  And to you, I say, you all have grabbed the baton.  I’ve seen what you do, and I see how you are doing it, because you are rightly impatient for change. 

You, who have only known the climate crisis, are leading the charge to protect our planet and our future.  (Applause.) 

You, young leaders who grew up with active-shooter drills, are fighting to keep our schools safe.  (Applause.) 

You, who know now fewer rights than your mothers and grandmothers, are standing up for reproductive freedom.  (Applause.)

 And I know it is because for you — I say to our young leaders — this is not theoretical, this is not political, this is your lived experience.  And what I love about you is you are not waiting for other people to figure this out.  (Applause.)

So, I see you, and I see your power.  And I know so many of you are voting for the first time and know that our future is so good with you all at the helm.  (Applause.)  And I’m so proud of you. 

Can we hear it for our young leaders and first-time voters?  (Applause.)

So, listen, so much is on the line in this election, and this is not 2016 or 2020.  The stakes are even higher, because over the last years — and, in particular, the last eight years — Donald Trump has become more confused, more unstable, and more angry.  You see it every day.  He has become increasingly unhinged. 

But last time, at least there were people around him who could control him.  But do notice, in this election, they’re not with him this time. 

In fact, just this week, America heard from John Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general, who was Trump’s White House chief of staff, who said that, as president, Trump praised Hitler — take a moment to think about what that means — that Trump said, quote, “Hitler did some good things” —

AUDIENCE:  Booo —

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  — and that Trump wished he had generals like Hitler’s, who would be loyal to Trump and not to America’s Constitution. 

This is not 2016 and it is not 2020, including because just a few months ago, the United States Supreme Court told the former president that he is effectively immune no matter what he does in the White House. 

Now, just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails — he who will claim unchecked and extreme power if he is reelected, who has vowed that he will be a dictator on day one, who calls Americans who disagree with him — I’m going to quote — “the enemy from within.”  You know what that harkens back to?  He’s calling Americans “the enemy within.” 

Who says that he would use the military to go after them.  And he who has called for the, quote, “termination” of the Constitution of the United States.

Let us be very clear.  Someone who suggests we should terminate the Constitution of the United States of America should never again stand behind the seal of the president of the United States of America.  (Applause.)  Never again.  Never again. 

AUDIENCE:  We’re not going back!  We’re not going back!  We’re not going back!

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  So, America, there is a huge contrast in this election.  Just imagine — just imagine the Oval Office in three months.  Picture it in your mind. 

AUDIENCE MEMBER:  You’re going to be there!  (Applause.)

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  It is either — so — but there’s a choice that everybody has.  So, let’s imagine it for a moment. 

It’s either Donald Trump in there, stewing — stewing over his enemies list, or me — (applause) — working for you, checking off my to-do list. 

You have the power to make that decision.  It is your power.  It is your power. 

AUDIENCE:  (Inaudible.)

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  So, 12 — 12 days.

AUDIENCE:  (Inaudible.)

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  All right.  So — okay, we got work to do.  We got work to do. 

Okay.  So, Georgia, listen, it all comes down to this.  We are here together because we know what is at stake.  We are here together because we love our country.  We love our country.  And I do believe it is one of the highest forms of patriotism to fight, then, for the ideals of our country and to fight to realize the promise of America.  That’s why we are here. 

And as the great Congressman John Lewis reminded us, democracy is not a state; it is an act. 

So, Georgia, now is our time to act.  And together, we will win.  We will win.  (Applause.)  We will win.

AUDIENCE:  We will win!  We will win!  We will win!

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  So, Election Day —

AUDIENCE:  We will win!  We will win!  We will win!

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  So, Election Day is in 12 days, okay?  Twelve days.  And early voting has already started. 

So, Georgia, we need you to vote early.  Please vote early.  Go to IWillVote.com to get all the information you might need, because, folks, the election is here.  It is here.  It is upon us, and the choice is truly in your hands. 

Your vote is your voice, and your voice is your power.  (Applause.)

So, Georgia, I ask you: Are you ready to make your voices heard?  (Applause.)

Do we believe in freedom?  (Applause.)

Do we believe in opportunity?  (Applause.)

Do we believe in the promise of America?  (Applause.)

And are we ready to fight for it?  (Applause.)

And when we fight —

AUDIENCE:  We win!

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  — we win.

God bless you.  And God bless the United States of America.  (Applause.) END                 8:19 P.M. EDT

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Aboard Air Force One
En Route Phoenix, Arizona

5:07 P.M. EDT

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Hi, everybody. Hello, hello.

Okay. Very excited about this trip. It’s going to be a fantastic trip. As you know, we are headed to Phoenix, Arizona, where the president will visit the Gila River Indian Community. This historic visit delivers on the president’s promise to visit Indian Country and builds on actions the president and the vice president has taken to support Tribal Nations.

Under President Biden, we saw the largest direct federal investment in Tribal Nations in history, with $32 billion provided by the American Rescue Plan and $13 billion through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to build high-speed Internet, roads, bridges, public transit, clean water, and improve sanitation in Tribal communities.

In particular, the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona received $84 million to build a pipeline that will help irrigate its community’s crops while conserving water to help al- — alleviate ongoing drought conditions.

The first lady has also been a champion for Native communities, visiting Indian Country 10 times to highlight the Biden-Harris administration’s historic investments in youth mental health, Native language revitalization, and infrastructure and economic development. And she has worked tirelessly to improve access to cancer screening and cancer care for Native communities.

Tomorrow, the president will take a critical step in order to usher in the next era of the federal-Tribal relationships by fully acknowledging the harms of the past. This historic presidential apology for the Federal Indian Boarding School era will acknowledge that i- — if we truly love our country, we must remember and teach our full history, even when it is painful, and we must learn from that history so that it never repeated — it is never repeated.

With that, I will turn it over to the Interior secretary, Deb Haaland, to provide further details on this historic visit and this administration’s continued efforts to support Indian Country.

SECRETARY HAALAND: Thank you, Karine.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Secretary.

SECRETARY HAALAND: Thank you, Karine. Thank you.

Hello, everyone. It’s an honor to be here. I’m accompanied by my assistant secretary for Indian Affairs, Bryan Newland. Really happy and proud to — to be here.

Twenty years ago, I never would have believed that I would be gaggling with the White House Press Corps on Air Force One, flying with the president to his first visit to Indian Country. President Biden has been the best president for Indian Country in my lifetime. This is a president and an administration that truly sees Indigenous people and has worked tirelessly to address the issues in Indian Country that have long been underfunded or outright ignored.

From infrastructure to education to the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous peoples, Joe Biden has directed historic resources into the hands of Tribal leaders who know best how to strengthen their communities. Across the Investing in America agenda, a historic $45 billion, more than 15 years’ worth of the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ annual budget, has gone into Indian Country during this administration. With that, comes transformational change.

“Once in a generation” means — means generational change for the people in those communities: electricity on the Hopi Reservation in Arizona for homes that have never had electricity; protecting cultural resources, like salmon, which Pacific Northwest Tribes have depended on for thousands of years; new transportation infrastructure for the Mescalero Apache Nation in New Mexico that will provide a safer travel route and boost their economic development, their local economy; addressing toxic legacy pollution and abandoned oil and gas infrastructure that pollutes our air and water for the Osage Nation in Oklahoma; providing clean drinking water for Fort Peck in Montana.

I could go on and on. This is a once-in-a-generation funding that is empowering Tribes and making up for significant systemic underfunding of Tribal communities for a very long time.

And, look, we know that the need is incredibly high. That’s what decades of a lack of investment looks like. But what we have done here will have lasting and enduring results.

Before we take your questions, I want to talk about the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative. For more than a century, tens of thousands of Indigenous children, as young as four years old, were taken from their families and communities and forced into boarding schools run by the U.S. government and religious institutions. This includes my own family.

For decades, this terrible chapter was hidden from our history books, but now our administration’s work will ensure that no one will ever forget. I’m happy to talk more about our investigative report; the year-long effort across Indian Country that we called the “Road to Healing,” where we went to 12 different communities and heard directly from survivors and descendants; and the work ahead.

But I just want to say that foundational to this work has been the idea, far-fetched as it might have been, that the federal government would acknowledge and apologize for the trauma and intergenerational impacts that these boarding schools — these places of horror — caused. That the president is taking that step tomorrow is so historic.

I’m not sure I could adequately put its impact into words, but I’m honored to have been on this journey with him, to have him support everything that we did with respect to the boarding schools in Indian Country, and, of course, to celebrate what I truly believe is a new era for not only Indian Country but for America.

Thank you.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Thank you so much.

Okay. With that, Aamer, go ahead.

Q Thanks. So, one, is an apology enough? What is next? Should this be followed by some sort of reparations?

And then, second, something that the president said to our colleagues as he was leaving the White House today is, “I should have done” — “this is something I should have done a long time ago.” Why didn’t he do it a long time ago? Why is he waiting for 11 days before a big election to announce this in a big swing state?

SECRETARY HAALAND: So, first of all, of course, I can’t comment on the president’s schedule. (Laughs.) I’m sure there’s a lot of things he would have liked to have done, but th- — you know, things come up.

What I will say is that it’s almost — you know, he’s — he’s doing this apology after he’s invested — after his leadership to invest $45 billion, the generational change that I talked about in my remarks. He’s done it after he has made Tribal consultation and — and an all-of-government approach to Indian Country a priority for this administration. The day he was sworn into office, he made commitments to Indian Country, and he has followed through on every single one of those commitments.

So, the timing, I couldn’t speak to that. To me, that’s not important. To me, what’s important is that the president, as the leader of our country, is taking this step that has never been taken, that he is seeing people — or helping them to know that they are seen and heard when perhaps they never thought they have ever been seen and heard.

Q So, I’m having — and I’m sorry. Is — is the commitment that he’s already made — is that the reparations, you’re saying? Is he already —

SECRETARY HAALAND: So, I — I want to just be clear about the word “reparations.” I don’t — you will never hear me using that term because we have a government-to-government relationship with our nation’s 574 federally recognized Tribes. The — the United States, the federal government has obligations to uphold the trust and treaty obligations to those Tribes.

If the federal government does that, then that’s what — that’s the promises that they need to keep. And I will tell you that during this administration, President Biden, as I mentioned in my remarks, has been the best president in my lifetime for Indian Country.

I have been out on — on the ground for decades — right? — advocating for Indian Country. I was a Tribal administrator in New Mexico for a Tribe. I have been out there working hard to make sure that we are seen. And this president sees us.

Q Could you draw back the curtain a little on this apology? Was it requested from you, from other Tribal leaders across the nation? Or did Biden — you know, was it his initiative?

SECRETARY HAALAND: So, if you will look at the second invest- — the second volume of the investigative Boarding School Initiative report, we had a list of recommendations. I believe there are eight recommendations. And the first recommendation — there’s links to it; you’ll find it on our website — the first recommendation was an acknowledgement and an apology.

We also have asked for other things — right? — like a national monument to honor the — the kids who never came home, for example. And then we also are asking for sustained investments in Indian Country for certain things.

One of the things that we heard most in our “Road to Healing” and from Tribal leaders was that their Native languages were stolen from them. And so, the president and Dr. Biden, even, have been incredibly supportive on Native language revitalization, and — and the budget that the president has asked for shows it. It’s gone from $2 million up to $41 million that the president has request for Native language revitalization. And I think that says — that says so much.

So, I mean, I — I don’t want to get into this, you know, “You owe u- — the federal government owes us.” This is our home. We love this country. We have fought for this country, even before we were citizens, even before we could vote. And so, I want to make clear that Indian Country are proud Americans, and this apology — it means more than words can even say.

Q Can you — can you give a little bit of a preview on the event tomorrow? I know that we’re visiting the school. What — who is he going to meet? Who else is going to be there? Who is invited?

SECRETARY HAALAND: So, I — I couldn’t be specific on that, and I’m sure there’s some staff who can fill you in on all the details.

But it’s my understanding that they invited Tribal leaders. There are some Tribal leaders today on Air Force One who — who are accompanying us to the event — and, you know, peop- — survivors, descendants, people who have advocated for this for a long time. Deborah Parker, the executive director of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, is with us today.

And so, I — I imagine, with Governor Lewis as our host, that it will be a really lovely event.

Q (Inaudible) on why this particular community as opposed to any of the others?

SECRETARY HAALAND: Well, I mean, I — you know, I mean, it’s hard, right? It’s hard to think, “Which one of 574 tribes should we visit?” Arizona, that’s my home — my home state. I was born in Winslow. I’m always happy to go to Arizona.

Governor Lewis, as — as Karine said, has worked hard to use the funding that they have been given to uplift his community. And I think that, along with this, the president wanted to just make contact there, knowing that they have done so much with their irrigation system and so forth.

Q On — on the boarding schools and repatriation of remains. Do you have, I guess, a better idea, any clarity that you can give on the number of remains on federal land associated with the boarding schools that remain — that the DO- — DOI still needs to repatriate?

SECRETARY HAALAND: You know, I think — you know, I’m not — I’m not clear on all those numbers, but what I will say is that with respect to any remains that are repat- — repatriated, it’s up to the Tribe. It’s completely up to the Tribe. That’s what Tribal consultation is all about. If that’s what the Tribe wants, then we will find a way to help them achieve that.

But we’re not out there saying, you know, we’re demanding all these things to be done. It’s really important for the Tribes to have a voice in how they see this moving forward, and we will com- — be completely respectful of — of that.

But I couldn’t tell you the number of children who were deceased. You know, in some cases, children got sick at boarding school, and they knew they were sick, so they sent them home, and then they died at home. This happened a lot. And so, you know, it’s hard to — to essentially assess the — the number of actual children who died as a result of being in those schools.

Q I just have one question.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah.

Q The election is right around the corner, and you mentioned, you know, requesting a potential monument. You talked about all of the investment from the Biden administration.

Assuming, if — if former President Trump, you know, comes back to the White House, you know, how do you see maybe some of that investment that has been done under the Biden admin- — administration maybe continuing, you know, down the road to keep building on what you’ve been working on in the administration?

SECRETARY HAALAND: Of course, I can’t comment on — on any election, but we have 90 days left in this administration. We’re going to use every minute of that 90 days to move this work forward.

I — what I will also say is that Tribal leaders are experiencing a new era. They’re at the table. They’re being consulted. In fact, we had a consultation about how they wanted to be — have consultation, right? We have — they have been at the table. I started my secretary’s advis- — advisory committee, Secretary’s Tribal Advisory Co- — we started the White House Council on Native Amer- — American Affairs. We’ve had the Tribal Nations Summit every year that the president has been here.

It’s my guess that Tribal leaders will not go back to the way things were before. So, I hope that regardless of what happens in the future, that Tribal leaders are dead set about what the relationship between the federal government and them is and that they will — they will ensure that they have a seat at the table.

Q What are those 90-day priorities for Indian Country for you?

SECRETARY HAALAND: Oh, gosh. Well — (laughter) — I mean, the — there is a whole lot — right? — that — you could look at the list of recommendations that we have. We made a visit — with respect to the monument, it’d be nice if we got that across the finish line, right? We have our oral history project that is in — in the works right now.

So — and then, I — I mean, I have Bryan Newland here, if you wanted to ask him what his priorities are for Indian Country, or you can just give him a call later on.

But I can rest assured — everyone is super tired, but for some reason, we got this, you know, energy to keep — to run across the finish line.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: All right.

Q More broadly, can you speak to — are you doing anything to sort of “Trump-proof,” you know, federal lands, if the election goes in that direction?

SECRETARY HAALAND: You know, I’m — I — I can’t comment on that really. All I can say is that everyone’s doing their jobs, and —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah, we’re not going to get into hypotheticals.

SECRETARY HAALAND: Yeah.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah. But, let — are you — you have one more, or you’re done?

Q Oh, I — we’ve got some for you, I’m sure.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: No, no, I know. Are we good for the secretary?

Q Thank you, Secretary.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Thank you so much.

Q Thank you, Secretary.

SECRETARY HAALAND: Thank you so much. Thank you —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Thank you.

SECRETARY HAALAND: — for caring about this. Thank you.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Thank you. Thank you so much. We appreciate you.

Okay. What you all got? Aamer, you want to reset us?

Q Yeah. I wanted to ask about the bombings by Israel of the Hezbollah-aligned banks. Those banks are also used by regular people. There’s bank tellers that work there.
It’s been called by human rights group “war crimes.”

How does the administration see this? Usually, this administration, when it goes after terror fi- — banks that are financing terrorism, they do it with sanctions. Is this the appropriate way to go after this?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: So, look — and — and my NSC colleagues spoke to — spoke — has spoken to this as well. So, look, we’re not going to comment on every — on — on every individual strike. That’s just not something that we going to — going back and forth on.

But broadly speaking — and you’ve heard us say this before. And, look, we understand that Israel is conducting operations to go after high-value targets or to destroy Hezbollah opera- — infrastructure, which is what we understand, what we — the conversations that we had. And — and let’s not forget, these are — are — when you think about the Hezbollah infrastructure, these are used to be — used to — to threaten Israeli citizens.

And so, we have told Israel directly — we’ve had direct conversations; as you know, we speak to them pretty regularly, and — that we oppose a campaign of nearly daily strikes in densely populated areas in Be- — in Beirut. And so, we’ll continue to support Israel’s — Israel’s self-defense against Hezbollah as we work towards a diplomatic resolution that sures — that ensures Israel’s security and allows it- — citizens to — on both sides to live in peace and — and — in peace.

And that’s what we want to do. That’s what we’re going to — we want to see. And so, we’ll continue to have those diplomatic conversations, but we’re not going to go back and forth on each individual strike. But more broadly speaking, we understand what they’re trying to do, and — and we’re obviously going to continue to have those dail- — those regular conversation with Israel as how — how they move forward.

Q This came up yesterday in the briefing, but I’m going to ask it again. Do we know if he’s going to vote this weekend?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Look, I know there’s a lot of questions on the scheduling. Obviously, we’re getting closer to an Election Day. The president certainly is looking forward to casting his ballot. I tell you he will be voting and —

Q Will he be early voting?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I — I don’t want to get ahead of that. We’re trying to — certainly trying to figure that out. As soon as we have that information, we will share that with all of you. But he is definitely looking forward, as he does every time — it is — he is — he has an opportunity to vote, he’s looking forward to casting th- — his ballot.

Q Karine, I wanted to ask about the Boeing —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah.

Q — negotiations. You know, I’m sure you saw, but they re- — the factory workers rejected the latest contract proposal. Is President Biden — has he spoken to anyone from — from the union, with anyone at Boeing? How concerned is he? They’ve been on strike now for quite a bit so —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: So, a couple of things. I don’t have anything to read out for you on any conversation that the president has had. Look, he directed his team — right? — to — to make sure that — to encourage parties to continue working to achieve an agreement that works, certainly, for all parties. And so, we’re going to continue to monitor those negotiations and — and continue to make sure that we encourage that.

Look, the — the reality is — and this is something that the president understands — that ultimately, when it comes to these types of negotiation, the decisions on a contract is going to be made by the union — union themselves. And so, that is for their decision to be made. But obviously, we’re going to continue to encourage both sides to continue to have these conversations in good faith. And collective bargaining is something that this president believes in. And so, we’re going to continue to monitor.

Q And — and just one more question. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Russia provided targeting data for the assault on global shipping. And I was just wondering if this is something that, you know, the president is aware of and if — if this has been brought to his attention or is this something you all are monitoring or —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: So, look, I would have to take that back. I have not talked to the president about this. So, I just need to talk to the team and get a sense of what his thinking is and where we are on that particular question. I just don’t have anything for you at this time.

Q Going off of the Boeing point.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah.

Q Are you able to say when the last time was that the labor secretary spoke to both parties?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: So, look, I don’t have any specific timeline on when — the last time they spoke. Obviously, they’ve been in direct communication and have continued to encourage both parties to come — to come together on this. At the end of the day, this is a decision that is made by the unions, right? And we’re going to continue to encourage collective bargaining, good faith — good faith participation by all parties.

I don’t have anything specific to tell you on the last time that that conversation happened.

Q Switching a little bit. The administration struck a note of optimism when Sinwar was killed that maybe this opened the opportunity for ceasefire talks with Gaz- — in Gaza. And Secretary Blinken is in the region. Can you speak to whether or not the administration is still optimistic that there is renewed hope for —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah.

Q — a ceasefire?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: It’s a good question, and I would just go back to what the secretary — Secretary Blinken said himself — said himself. We’re — they’re cont- — we’re continuing to try to find a way to get to a proposal that both sides can agree to. That is something that he said when he was in the region or is still in the region, because that’s how — or that’s how we can get — get the — the fighting to stop, we can get the hostages home, we can surge humanitarian assistance in Gaza for the people that are suffering and in such dire, dire need of it.

We do anticipate that the negotiations will be getting together in the upcoming days. That’s something that the secretary spoke about and the Qu- — Qatar prime minister when they were together.

But what real- — what — what we really have to determine is whether Hamas is prepared to engage. That’s the reality that we’re in. So, this is something that the president and his team remains — remains really steadfast on. We know in order to — again, for the — for the war to stop, we need to get to this ty- — this — this ceasefire in — in order to get this hostage deal. So, that is — continues to be our focus.

Q Karine, given that you’re — the vice president says she’s running against a candidate she considers to be a fascist. The president of the United States this week, only two weeks before an election, is doing no campaign events, at least through Friday. Is that odd? How should we interpret that?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I wouldn’t interpret it as odd at all. Look, the president has been out there. He has campaigned. He’s campaigned with her. And I think if you look at what he’s doing tomorrow, it’s critical. It’s important to the American people. What you heard, I think, even the secretary lay out just moments ago was emotional, was important to the Indian Country, what they’ve been through. And what the president is going to do tomorrow is historic.

We will have more to share. I’m — I’m — I am telling you, we will have more to share on what the president is going to do, whether it’s — including casting his ballot. The president is going to continue to be out there to — to deliver for the American people, like he is tomorrow for the Indian — Indian Country to — to offer up a federal apology. That’s historic. That’s historic.

And we will have more to share on the schedule. We
will.

Q I’m not — I’m not saying that’s not a story, but I’m just wondering —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: No, but (inaudible) —

Q — like, is he —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: — we have to look at both things.

Q Yeah.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: He’s doing things that are important to the American people. That’s actually his number one job, is to continue to deliver what’s important for the American people as president of the United States.

Q But is he leaving — is he leaving it all on the field if — if he goes two weeks before the — two weeks out before the election —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: (Inaudible.)

Q — there’s really nothing on the calendar at all on the —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: What I’m saying: You’re assuming there’s nothing on the calendar.

Q Up through Friday.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Well, there’s — there’s a lot more days to go. Obviously, I don’t want to get into the politics of this, into his political schedule. But what I am saying is stay tuned. There will be more to share.

Q Karine, I’m sorry. Just to follow on Peter’s question.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah, yeah.

Q You guys have already advised on Saturday that he’s going to Pittsburgh, right? So, who — who is he campaigning with in Pittsburgh?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: We’ll have more to share. We’ll have more to share.

Q (Inaudible.)

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: We will have more to share.

Q It’s my — my understanding that it’s with labor unions and that there aren’t going to be any candidates there. Wh- — what — is that suggest that he — that there aren’t Democrats that want to be seen with him?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Look, first of all, I’m going be really careful, not talk to the campaign and politics, but we should be very clear about the importance of labor unions. And so — and not — and not take that —

Q I’m not —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: No, no, no, but I’m saying labor unions are so important. It’s so critical —

Q I am a member of a union myself. But I — I under- — I (inaudible) —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I hear you, but you sidestep the labol [labor] unions in your question —

Q They’re not — but I’m — no, my question was, they’re not ca- —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: (Inaudible.)

Q They’re not — well, I’m sorry if you didn’t hear or if I —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: (Inaudible.) (Laughter.)

Q But he’s not — he’s not going to be appearing with a candidate.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Guys, just give us a second. We will have more to share on the campaign. We will have more to share on what the president’s schedule is going to look like.

What I am saying to you: Labor unions are critical. They’re important. And I’m going to be very careful because I’m not going to get into campaign strategy from here. I’m not going to get into campaign travel from here. But there will be more to share, and stand by.

And also, I would, you know — anyway, I’ll just leave it there. I was going to say I refer you to the campaign on — on scheduling of — of surrogates and what that looks like and what their strategy is. They can speak more to that.

But we will have more to share. I just cannot get into strategy and campaign schedule from here, as I do try to follow the Hatch Act and be — and fotho- — follow the law from — from here, even if we’re — how many thousand feet we are in the air on Air Force One.

Yeah.

Q What is the president doing tonight?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Well, we’re going to travel to Arizona. We’re going to la- —

Q Well, after we land. (Laughs.)

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: We’re going to land. (Laughter.) And he’ll be preparing for tomorrow’s event. As you know, it’s going to be historic and really important to him. He’s excited.

I mean, he went over and talked to your colleagues right before he got on Marine One, and I think that shows his excitement and also how important this is to him. And so, that’s what you’re going to be able to see tomorrow.

Q What do you expect the mood to be at the event tomorrow?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: The mood?

Q Yeah. I mean, wh- — wh- —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I mean, I can say this. You saw, from the secretary, it’s emotional. This is emotional. You know, what we have learned from the reporting — and some of us have known this; some of us have not known what has been occurring, especially if you think about the boarding schools, what the India- — Indian Country community has had to go through and how they’re fighting and — and continuing to — to get resolution to the devastation that they’ve had to go through, family members that they’ve lost, family members that got through some difficult times and are able to tell their story.

And it’s going to be emotional. It’s going to be a — very emotional. And you’re going to hear it directly from them, from the Tribal leaders.

And — I don’t know — I think when you think about this administration, you think about the Biden-Harris administration, how the president has said and how we continue to see that we’re going to speak up for each community, fight for each community. And what we have seen over decades and decades is communities like the Indian Country that have been left behind.

And this is a president that is going to — it doesn’t matter if you’re in a red state, blue state. You hear us talk about that urbal [sic] area — rural area. He’s going to continue to fight and try to speak to the wrongs that have been made. And you’ve seen him do that over and over again with different communities.

And so, I think, tomorrow, to your question, Nikki, is going to be emotional. I think it’s going to be impactful, and I think it’s going to be incredibly his- — special and, as I’ve said many times, historical.

Q The vice president is — next week is set to speak on the National Mall, kind of in the backyard of the White House, more or — so or less. But the — do you have any insight? Do- — is this something President Biden wants to attend —
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Look, that’s a campaign —

Q — wants —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: That’s a campaign decision, campaign event. I can’t speak to it. What — the president has been very clear about his support for the vice president, how he sees — how he always believed from the moment that he decided that she would be a running mate back in 2020, even saying that was the best decision that he made, that she will be a leader from day one.

I will let this campaign speak to their messaging. I will let the campaign speak to the reason of doing that event on Tuesday. That is something that I can’t speak to. But I will continue to say and the president will continue to say he’s very proud of her. She has done a phenomenal job, not — obviously, as a critical partner over the last three and a half years and certainly what he has been seeing from her in the past several months. And so, we’re going to let them speak to that.

All right, guys.

Q Just fo- — follow on something Skylar asked earlier that I’m not sure I understood on the Russia providing targeting data to the Houthis. Has the U.S. confirmed that? Do the —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I — that’s what I was saying. I don’t have an answer for you. So, I just need to — to go back to the team. She was asking me specifically about the president. I — that’s not something that I have spoken to the president. I don’t want to give you the wrong information, so I need to just go back and talk to the team on this. Okay? Obviously —

Q (Inaudible.)

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Obviously, it would be concerning. Let me just say that. It would be concerning if true. We know that the Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas are — they are a — as we’ve seen, Iranian backed and have threatened the security of Israel. And we have always said, we have — we are — we are going to continue to do everything that we can to ha- — to support and have that ironclad support for Israel’s security. That’s what you have seen from this administration.

And so, it would be concerning. I just don’t — I cannot confirm any intelligence at this time, so I would have to go back and — and talk to the team. So, just want to be —

Q Can I ask one more question about tomorrow?
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Sure.

Q Obviously, this formal apology — this type of formal apology is very rare coming from the sitting president of the United States, and the trauma in this community runs very deep. Can you speak, again, to the timing of why? I mean, for some people, this is coming too late.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Well, I mean, look, you heard from — you heard from the secretary — lay out what we have done over the past several years when it comes to Indian Country. And so, I will say that this has been, indeed, a — a deliberate and intentional process throughout the years. And this is part of — you know, you g- — you all ask me a lot about the president’s legacy and what he’s going to be doing the last, you know, several months. This is part of it. But it’s a continuation of the — what we’ve done.

And so, this is a trip that he’s been wanting to make. This is something that he’s been wanting to do. Again, we have been very deliberate — deliberati- — deliberative about this process. And so, this is a continuation of the work that this president has done, that the secretary has done, her — her agency that she runs, over the past three and a half years. And so, this is part of the president’s legacy.

And you’re right: This apology is historic. It’s impactful. And, you know, the scars and the trauma that we have seen from this community does indeed run deeply, and he feels that. He feels that and understands. As someone who understands tragedy and trauma and loss, he feels that very, very personally.

Obviously, the Indian Country and what they’ve gone through is very different. It’s very unique to their experience. And so, I would say, as you all are asking me, “What’s his legacy?” I would say this is part of that.

All right. Thanks, everybody.

Q Has he been — has he been consulting with anybody in sort of drafting this speech and — and getting ready for this moment?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I mean, he’s been working with his team — his speechwriters, obviously. He’s working with representatives that he has in the Office of Public Af- — Engagement on — who focus on the Indian Country, having those conversations. They’ve been very involved.

I would say Tom Perez, who runs the Intergovernmental Affairs, obviously, has go- — has done these trips, have been very in touch — very much in touch with what’s going on the ground.

So, he’s been certainly talking to his team, including the secretary, and — and consulting with them about what — what he wants to say and how he wants to really — you know, I don’t want to get ahead of the president. I think his remarks, as you’ll hear from him directly tomorrow, are — I think are going to be pretty powerful.

All right. Thanks, everybody.

Q Thanks, Karine.

Q Thank you.

5:41 P.M. EDT

The post Press Gaggle by Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland En Route Phoenix, AZ appeared first on The White House.

Aboard Air Force One
En Route Phoenix, Arizona

5:07 P.M. EDT

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Hi, everybody. Hello, hello.

Okay. Very excited about this trip. It’s going to be a fantastic trip. As you know, we are headed to Phoenix, Arizona, where the president will visit the Gila River Indian Community. This historic visit delivers on the president’s promise to visit Indian Country and builds on actions the president and the vice president has taken to support Tribal Nations.

Under President Biden, we saw the largest direct federal investment in Tribal Nations in history, with $32 billion provided by the American Rescue Plan and $13 billion through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to build high-speed Internet, roads, bridges, public transit, clean water, and improve sanitation in Tribal communities.

In particular, the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona received $84 million to build a pipeline that will help irrigate its community’s crops while conserving water to help al- — alleviate ongoing drought conditions.

The first lady has also been a champion for Native communities, visiting Indian Country 10 times to highlight the Biden-Harris administration’s historic investments in youth mental health, Native language revitalization, and infrastructure and economic development. And she has worked tirelessly to improve access to cancer screening and cancer care for Native communities.

Tomorrow, the president will take a critical step in order to usher in the next era of the federal-Tribal relationships by fully acknowledging the harms of the past. This historic presidential apology for the Federal Indian Boarding School era will acknowledge that i- — if we truly love our country, we must remember and teach our full history, even when it is painful, and we must learn from that history so that it never repeated — it is never repeated.

With that, I will turn it over to the Interior secretary, Deb Haaland, to provide further details on this historic visit and this administration’s continued efforts to support Indian Country.

SECRETARY HAALAND: Thank you, Karine.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Secretary.

SECRETARY HAALAND: Thank you, Karine. Thank you.

Hello, everyone. It’s an honor to be here. I’m accompanied by my assistant secretary for Indian Affairs, Bryan Newland. Really happy and proud to — to be here.

Twenty years ago, I never would have believed that I would be gaggling with the White House Press Corps on Air Force One, flying with the president to his first visit to Indian Country. President Biden has been the best president for Indian Country in my lifetime. This is a president and an administration that truly sees Indigenous people and has worked tirelessly to address the issues in Indian Country that have long been underfunded or outright ignored.

From infrastructure to education to the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous peoples, Joe Biden has directed historic resources into the hands of Tribal leaders who know best how to strengthen their communities. Across the Investing in America agenda, a historic $45 billion, more than 15 years’ worth of the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ annual budget, has gone into Indian Country during this administration. With that, comes transformational change.

“Once in a generation” means — means generational change for the people in those communities: electricity on the Hopi Reservation in Arizona for homes that have never had electricity; protecting cultural resources, like salmon, which Pacific Northwest Tribes have depended on for thousands of years; new transportation infrastructure for the Mescalero Apache Nation in New Mexico that will provide a safer travel route and boost their economic development, their local economy; addressing toxic legacy pollution and abandoned oil and gas infrastructure that pollutes our air and water for the Osage Nation in Oklahoma; providing clean drinking water for Fort Peck in Montana.

I could go on and on. This is a once-in-a-generation funding that is empowering Tribes and making up for significant systemic underfunding of Tribal communities for a very long time.

And, look, we know that the need is incredibly high. That’s what decades of a lack of investment looks like. But what we have done here will have lasting and enduring results.

Before we take your questions, I want to talk about the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative. For more than a century, tens of thousands of Indigenous children, as young as four years old, were taken from their families and communities and forced into boarding schools run by the U.S. government and religious institutions. This includes my own family.

For decades, this terrible chapter was hidden from our history books, but now our administration’s work will ensure that no one will ever forget. I’m happy to talk more about our investigative report; the year-long effort across Indian Country that we called the “Road to Healing,” where we went to 12 different communities and heard directly from survivors and descendants; and the work ahead.

But I just want to say that foundational to this work has been the idea, far-fetched as it might have been, that the federal government would acknowledge and apologize for the trauma and intergenerational impacts that these boarding schools — these places of horror — caused. That the president is taking that step tomorrow is so historic.

I’m not sure I could adequately put its impact into words, but I’m honored to have been on this journey with him, to have him support everything that we did with respect to the boarding schools in Indian Country, and, of course, to celebrate what I truly believe is a new era for not only Indian Country but for America.

Thank you.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Thank you so much.

Okay. With that, Aamer, go ahead.

Q Thanks. So, one, is an apology enough? What is next? Should this be followed by some sort of reparations?

And then, second, something that the president said to our colleagues as he was leaving the White House today is, “I should have done” — “this is something I should have done a long time ago.” Why didn’t he do it a long time ago? Why is he waiting for 11 days before a big election to announce this in a big swing state?

SECRETARY HAALAND: So, first of all, of course, I can’t comment on the president’s schedule. (Laughs.) I’m sure there’s a lot of things he would have liked to have done, but th- — you know, things come up.

What I will say is that it’s almost — you know, he’s — he’s doing this apology after he’s invested — after his leadership to invest $45 billion, the generational change that I talked about in my remarks. He’s done it after he has made Tribal consultation and — and an all-of-government approach to Indian Country a priority for this administration. The day he was sworn into office, he made commitments to Indian Country, and he has followed through on every single one of those commitments.

So, the timing, I couldn’t speak to that. To me, that’s not important. To me, what’s important is that the president, as the leader of our country, is taking this step that has never been taken, that he is seeing people — or helping them to know that they are seen and heard when perhaps they never thought they have ever been seen and heard.

Q So, I’m having — and I’m sorry. Is — is the commitment that he’s already made — is that the reparations, you’re saying? Is he already —

SECRETARY HAALAND: So, I — I want to just be clear about the word “reparations.” I don’t — you will never hear me using that term because we have a government-to-government relationship with our nation’s 574 federally recognized Tribes. The — the United States, the federal government has obligations to uphold the trust and treaty obligations to those Tribes.

If the federal government does that, then that’s what — that’s the promises that they need to keep. And I will tell you that during this administration, President Biden, as I mentioned in my remarks, has been the best president in my lifetime for Indian Country.

I have been out on — on the ground for decades — right? — advocating for Indian Country. I was a Tribal administrator in New Mexico for a Tribe. I have been out there working hard to make sure that we are seen. And this president sees us.

Q Could you draw back the curtain a little on this apology? Was it requested from you, from other Tribal leaders across the nation? Or did Biden — you know, was it his initiative?

SECRETARY HAALAND: So, if you will look at the second invest- — the second volume of the investigative Boarding School Initiative report, we had a list of recommendations. I believe there are eight recommendations. And the first recommendation — there’s links to it; you’ll find it on our website — the first recommendation was an acknowledgement and an apology.

We also have asked for other things — right? — like a national monument to honor the — the kids who never came home, for example. And then we also are asking for sustained investments in Indian Country for certain things.

One of the things that we heard most in our “Road to Healing” and from Tribal leaders was that their Native languages were stolen from them. And so, the president and Dr. Biden, even, have been incredibly supportive on Native language revitalization, and — and the budget that the president has asked for shows it. It’s gone from $2 million up to $41 million that the president has request for Native language revitalization. And I think that says — that says so much.

So, I mean, I — I don’t want to get into this, you know, “You owe u- — the federal government owes us.” This is our home. We love this country. We have fought for this country, even before we were citizens, even before we could vote. And so, I want to make clear that Indian Country are proud Americans, and this apology — it means more than words can even say.

Q Can you — can you give a little bit of a preview on the event tomorrow? I know that we’re visiting the school. What — who is he going to meet? Who else is going to be there? Who is invited?

SECRETARY HAALAND: So, I — I couldn’t be specific on that, and I’m sure there’s some staff who can fill you in on all the details.

But it’s my understanding that they invited Tribal leaders. There are some Tribal leaders today on Air Force One who — who are accompanying us to the event — and, you know, peop- — survivors, descendants, people who have advocated for this for a long time. Deborah Parker, the executive director of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, is with us today.

And so, I — I imagine, with Governor Lewis as our host, that it will be a really lovely event.

Q (Inaudible) on why this particular community as opposed to any of the others?

SECRETARY HAALAND: Well, I mean, I — you know, I mean, it’s hard, right? It’s hard to think, “Which one of 574 tribes should we visit?” Arizona, that’s my home — my home state. I was born in Winslow. I’m always happy to go to Arizona.

Governor Lewis, as — as Karine said, has worked hard to use the funding that they have been given to uplift his community. And I think that, along with this, the president wanted to just make contact there, knowing that they have done so much with their irrigation system and so forth.

Q On — on the boarding schools and repatriation of remains. Do you have, I guess, a better idea, any clarity that you can give on the number of remains on federal land associated with the boarding schools that remain — that the DO- — DOI still needs to repatriate?

SECRETARY HAALAND: You know, I think — you know, I’m not — I’m not clear on all those numbers, but what I will say is that with respect to any remains that are repat- — repatriated, it’s up to the Tribe. It’s completely up to the Tribe. That’s what Tribal consultation is all about. If that’s what the Tribe wants, then we will find a way to help them achieve that.

But we’re not out there saying, you know, we’re demanding all these things to be done. It’s really important for the Tribes to have a voice in how they see this moving forward, and we will com- — be completely respectful of — of that.

But I couldn’t tell you the number of children who were deceased. You know, in some cases, children got sick at boarding school, and they knew they were sick, so they sent them home, and then they died at home. This happened a lot. And so, you know, it’s hard to — to essentially assess the — the number of actual children who died as a result of being in those schools.

Q I just have one question.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah.

Q The election is right around the corner, and you mentioned, you know, requesting a potential monument. You talked about all of the investment from the Biden administration.

Assuming, if — if former President Trump, you know, comes back to the White House, you know, how do you see maybe some of that investment that has been done under the Biden admin- — administration maybe continuing, you know, down the road to keep building on what you’ve been working on in the administration?

SECRETARY HAALAND: Of course, I can’t comment on — on any election, but we have 90 days left in this administration. We’re going to use every minute of that 90 days to move this work forward.

I — what I will also say is that Tribal leaders are experiencing a new era. They’re at the table. They’re being consulted. In fact, we had a consultation about how they wanted to be — have consultation, right? We have — they have been at the table. I started my secretary’s advis- — advisory committee, Secretary’s Tribal Advisory Co- — we started the White House Council on Native Amer- — American Affairs. We’ve had the Tribal Nations Summit every year that the president has been here.

It’s my guess that Tribal leaders will not go back to the way things were before. So, I hope that regardless of what happens in the future, that Tribal leaders are dead set about what the relationship between the federal government and them is and that they will — they will ensure that they have a seat at the table.

Q What are those 90-day priorities for Indian Country for you?

SECRETARY HAALAND: Oh, gosh. Well — (laughter) — I mean, the — there is a whole lot — right? — that — you could look at the list of recommendations that we have. We made a visit — with respect to the monument, it’d be nice if we got that across the finish line, right? We have our oral history project that is in — in the works right now.

So — and then, I — I mean, I have Bryan Newland here, if you wanted to ask him what his priorities are for Indian Country, or you can just give him a call later on.

But I can rest assured — everyone is super tired, but for some reason, we got this, you know, energy to keep — to run across the finish line.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: All right.

Q More broadly, can you speak to — are you doing anything to sort of “Trump-proof,” you know, federal lands, if the election goes in that direction?

SECRETARY HAALAND: You know, I’m — I — I can’t comment on that really. All I can say is that everyone’s doing their jobs, and —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah, we’re not going to get into hypotheticals.

SECRETARY HAALAND: Yeah.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah. But, let — are you — you have one more, or you’re done?

Q Oh, I — we’ve got some for you, I’m sure.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: No, no, I know. Are we good for the secretary?

Q Thank you, Secretary.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Thank you so much.

Q Thank you, Secretary.

SECRETARY HAALAND: Thank you so much. Thank you —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Thank you.

SECRETARY HAALAND: — for caring about this. Thank you.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Thank you. Thank you so much. We appreciate you.

Okay. What you all got? Aamer, you want to reset us?

Q Yeah. I wanted to ask about the bombings by Israel of the Hezbollah-aligned banks. Those banks are also used by regular people. There’s bank tellers that work there.
It’s been called by human rights group “war crimes.”

How does the administration see this? Usually, this administration, when it goes after terror fi- — banks that are financing terrorism, they do it with sanctions. Is this the appropriate way to go after this?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: So, look — and — and my NSC colleagues spoke to — spoke — has spoken to this as well. So, look, we’re not going to comment on every — on — on every individual strike. That’s just not something that we going to — going back and forth on.

But broadly speaking — and you’ve heard us say this before. And, look, we understand that Israel is conducting operations to go after high-value targets or to destroy Hezbollah opera- — infrastructure, which is what we understand, what we — the conversations that we had. And — and let’s not forget, these are — are — when you think about the Hezbollah infrastructure, these are used to be — used to — to threaten Israeli citizens.

And so, we have told Israel directly — we’ve had direct conversations; as you know, we speak to them pretty regularly, and — that we oppose a campaign of nearly daily strikes in densely populated areas in Be- — in Beirut. And so, we’ll continue to support Israel’s — Israel’s self-defense against Hezbollah as we work towards a diplomatic resolution that sures — that ensures Israel’s security and allows it- — citizens to — on both sides to live in peace and — and — in peace.

And that’s what we want to do. That’s what we’re going to — we want to see. And so, we’ll continue to have those diplomatic conversations, but we’re not going to go back and forth on each individual strike. But more broadly speaking, we understand what they’re trying to do, and — and we’re obviously going to continue to have those dail- — those regular conversation with Israel as how — how they move forward.

Q This came up yesterday in the briefing, but I’m going to ask it again. Do we know if he’s going to vote this weekend?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Look, I know there’s a lot of questions on the scheduling. Obviously, we’re getting closer to an Election Day. The president certainly is looking forward to casting his ballot. I tell you he will be voting and —

Q Will he be early voting?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I — I don’t want to get ahead of that. We’re trying to — certainly trying to figure that out. As soon as we have that information, we will share that with all of you. But he is definitely looking forward, as he does every time — it is — he is — he has an opportunity to vote, he’s looking forward to casting th- — his ballot.

Q Karine, I wanted to ask about the Boeing —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah.

Q — negotiations. You know, I’m sure you saw, but they re- — the factory workers rejected the latest contract proposal. Is President Biden — has he spoken to anyone from — from the union, with anyone at Boeing? How concerned is he? They’ve been on strike now for quite a bit so —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: So, a couple of things. I don’t have anything to read out for you on any conversation that the president has had. Look, he directed his team — right? — to — to make sure that — to encourage parties to continue working to achieve an agreement that works, certainly, for all parties. And so, we’re going to continue to monitor those negotiations and — and continue to make sure that we encourage that.

Look, the — the reality is — and this is something that the president understands — that ultimately, when it comes to these types of negotiation, the decisions on a contract is going to be made by the union — union themselves. And so, that is for their decision to be made. But obviously, we’re going to continue to encourage both sides to continue to have these conversations in good faith. And collective bargaining is something that this president believes in. And so, we’re going to continue to monitor.

Q And — and just one more question. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Russia provided targeting data for the assault on global shipping. And I was just wondering if this is something that, you know, the president is aware of and if — if this has been brought to his attention or is this something you all are monitoring or —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: So, look, I would have to take that back. I have not talked to the president about this. So, I just need to talk to the team and get a sense of what his thinking is and where we are on that particular question. I just don’t have anything for you at this time.

Q Going off of the Boeing point.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah.

Q Are you able to say when the last time was that the labor secretary spoke to both parties?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: So, look, I don’t have any specific timeline on when — the last time they spoke. Obviously, they’ve been in direct communication and have continued to encourage both parties to come — to come together on this. At the end of the day, this is a decision that is made by the unions, right? And we’re going to continue to encourage collective bargaining, good faith — good faith participation by all parties.

I don’t have anything specific to tell you on the last time that that conversation happened.

Q Switching a little bit. The administration struck a note of optimism when Sinwar was killed that maybe this opened the opportunity for ceasefire talks with Gaz- — in Gaza. And Secretary Blinken is in the region. Can you speak to whether or not the administration is still optimistic that there is renewed hope for —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah.

Q — a ceasefire?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: It’s a good question, and I would just go back to what the secretary — Secretary Blinken said himself — said himself. We’re — they’re cont- — we’re continuing to try to find a way to get to a proposal that both sides can agree to. That is something that he said when he was in the region or is still in the region, because that’s how — or that’s how we can get — get the — the fighting to stop, we can get the hostages home, we can surge humanitarian assistance in Gaza for the people that are suffering and in such dire, dire need of it.

We do anticipate that the negotiations will be getting together in the upcoming days. That’s something that the secretary spoke about and the Qu- — Qatar prime minister when they were together.

But what real- — what — what we really have to determine is whether Hamas is prepared to engage. That’s the reality that we’re in. So, this is something that the president and his team remains — remains really steadfast on. We know in order to — again, for the — for the war to stop, we need to get to this ty- — this — this ceasefire in — in order to get this hostage deal. So, that is — continues to be our focus.

Q Karine, given that you’re — the vice president says she’s running against a candidate she considers to be a fascist. The president of the United States this week, only two weeks before an election, is doing no campaign events, at least through Friday. Is that odd? How should we interpret that?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I wouldn’t interpret it as odd at all. Look, the president has been out there. He has campaigned. He’s campaigned with her. And I think if you look at what he’s doing tomorrow, it’s critical. It’s important to the American people. What you heard, I think, even the secretary lay out just moments ago was emotional, was important to the Indian Country, what they’ve been through. And what the president is going to do tomorrow is historic.

We will have more to share. I’m — I’m — I am telling you, we will have more to share on what the president is going to do, whether it’s — including casting his ballot. The president is going to continue to be out there to — to deliver for the American people, like he is tomorrow for the Indian — Indian Country to — to offer up a federal apology. That’s historic. That’s historic.

And we will have more to share on the schedule. We
will.

Q I’m not — I’m not saying that’s not a story, but I’m just wondering —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: No, but (inaudible) —

Q — like, is he —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: — we have to look at both things.

Q Yeah.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: He’s doing things that are important to the American people. That’s actually his number one job, is to continue to deliver what’s important for the American people as president of the United States.

Q But is he leaving — is he leaving it all on the field if — if he goes two weeks before the — two weeks out before the election —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: (Inaudible.)

Q — there’s really nothing on the calendar at all on the —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: What I’m saying: You’re assuming there’s nothing on the calendar.

Q Up through Friday.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Well, there’s — there’s a lot more days to go. Obviously, I don’t want to get into the politics of this, into his political schedule. But what I am saying is stay tuned. There will be more to share.

Q Karine, I’m sorry. Just to follow on Peter’s question.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah, yeah.

Q You guys have already advised on Saturday that he’s going to Pittsburgh, right? So, who — who is he campaigning with in Pittsburgh?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: We’ll have more to share. We’ll have more to share.

Q (Inaudible.)

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: We will have more to share.

Q It’s my — my understanding that it’s with labor unions and that there aren’t going to be any candidates there. Wh- — what — is that suggest that he — that there aren’t Democrats that want to be seen with him?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Look, first of all, I’m going be really careful, not talk to the campaign and politics, but we should be very clear about the importance of labor unions. And so — and not — and not take that —

Q I’m not —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: No, no, no, but I’m saying labor unions are so important. It’s so critical —

Q I am a member of a union myself. But I — I under- — I (inaudible) —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I hear you, but you sidestep the labol [labor] unions in your question —

Q They’re not — but I’m — no, my question was, they’re not ca- —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: (Inaudible.)

Q They’re not — well, I’m sorry if you didn’t hear or if I —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: (Inaudible.) (Laughter.)

Q But he’s not — he’s not going to be appearing with a candidate.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Guys, just give us a second. We will have more to share on the campaign. We will have more to share on what the president’s schedule is going to look like.

What I am saying to you: Labor unions are critical. They’re important. And I’m going to be very careful because I’m not going to get into campaign strategy from here. I’m not going to get into campaign travel from here. But there will be more to share, and stand by.

And also, I would, you know — anyway, I’ll just leave it there. I was going to say I refer you to the campaign on — on scheduling of — of surrogates and what that looks like and what their strategy is. They can speak more to that.

But we will have more to share. I just cannot get into strategy and campaign schedule from here, as I do try to follow the Hatch Act and be — and fotho- — follow the law from — from here, even if we’re — how many thousand feet we are in the air on Air Force One.

Yeah.

Q What is the president doing tonight?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Well, we’re going to travel to Arizona. We’re going to la- —

Q Well, after we land. (Laughs.)

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: We’re going to land. (Laughter.) And he’ll be preparing for tomorrow’s event. As you know, it’s going to be historic and really important to him. He’s excited.

I mean, he went over and talked to your colleagues right before he got on Marine One, and I think that shows his excitement and also how important this is to him. And so, that’s what you’re going to be able to see tomorrow.

Q What do you expect the mood to be at the event tomorrow?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: The mood?

Q Yeah. I mean, wh- — wh- —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I mean, I can say this. You saw, from the secretary, it’s emotional. This is emotional. You know, what we have learned from the reporting — and some of us have known this; some of us have not known what has been occurring, especially if you think about the boarding schools, what the India- — Indian Country community has had to go through and how they’re fighting and — and continuing to — to get resolution to the devastation that they’ve had to go through, family members that they’ve lost, family members that got through some difficult times and are able to tell their story.

And it’s going to be emotional. It’s going to be a — very emotional. And you’re going to hear it directly from them, from the Tribal leaders.

And — I don’t know — I think when you think about this administration, you think about the Biden-Harris administration, how the president has said and how we continue to see that we’re going to speak up for each community, fight for each community. And what we have seen over decades and decades is communities like the Indian Country that have been left behind.

And this is a president that is going to — it doesn’t matter if you’re in a red state, blue state. You hear us talk about that urbal [sic] area — rural area. He’s going to continue to fight and try to speak to the wrongs that have been made. And you’ve seen him do that over and over again with different communities.

And so, I think, tomorrow, to your question, Nikki, is going to be emotional. I think it’s going to be impactful, and I think it’s going to be incredibly his- — special and, as I’ve said many times, historical.

Q The vice president is — next week is set to speak on the National Mall, kind of in the backyard of the White House, more or — so or less. But the — do you have any insight? Do- — is this something President Biden wants to attend —
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Look, that’s a campaign —

Q — wants —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: That’s a campaign decision, campaign event. I can’t speak to it. What — the president has been very clear about his support for the vice president, how he sees — how he always believed from the moment that he decided that she would be a running mate back in 2020, even saying that was the best decision that he made, that she will be a leader from day one.

I will let this campaign speak to their messaging. I will let the campaign speak to the reason of doing that event on Tuesday. That is something that I can’t speak to. But I will continue to say and the president will continue to say he’s very proud of her. She has done a phenomenal job, not — obviously, as a critical partner over the last three and a half years and certainly what he has been seeing from her in the past several months. And so, we’re going to let them speak to that.

All right, guys.

Q Just fo- — follow on something Skylar asked earlier that I’m not sure I understood on the Russia providing targeting data to the Houthis. Has the U.S. confirmed that? Do the —

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I — that’s what I was saying. I don’t have an answer for you. So, I just need to — to go back to the team. She was asking me specifically about the president. I — that’s not something that I have spoken to the president. I don’t want to give you the wrong information, so I need to just go back and talk to the team on this. Okay? Obviously —

Q (Inaudible.)

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Obviously, it would be concerning. Let me just say that. It would be concerning if true. We know that the Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas are — they are a — as we’ve seen, Iranian backed and have threatened the security of Israel. And we have always said, we have — we are — we are going to continue to do everything that we can to ha- — to support and have that ironclad support for Israel’s security. That’s what you have seen from this administration.

And so, it would be concerning. I just don’t — I cannot confirm any intelligence at this time, so I would have to go back and — and talk to the team. So, just want to be —

Q Can I ask one more question about tomorrow?
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Sure.

Q Obviously, this formal apology — this type of formal apology is very rare coming from the sitting president of the United States, and the trauma in this community runs very deep. Can you speak, again, to the timing of why? I mean, for some people, this is coming too late.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Well, I mean, look, you heard from — you heard from the secretary — lay out what we have done over the past several years when it comes to Indian Country. And so, I will say that this has been, indeed, a — a deliberate and intentional process throughout the years. And this is part of — you know, you g- — you all ask me a lot about the president’s legacy and what he’s going to be doing the last, you know, several months. This is part of it. But it’s a continuation of the — what we’ve done.

And so, this is a trip that he’s been wanting to make. This is something that he’s been wanting to do. Again, we have been very deliberate — deliberati- — deliberative about this process. And so, this is a continuation of the work that this president has done, that the secretary has done, her — her agency that she runs, over the past three and a half years. And so, this is part of the president’s legacy.

And you’re right: This apology is historic. It’s impactful. And, you know, the scars and the trauma that we have seen from this community does indeed run deeply, and he feels that. He feels that and understands. As someone who understands tragedy and trauma and loss, he feels that very, very personally.

Obviously, the Indian Country and what they’ve gone through is very different. It’s very unique to their experience. And so, I would say, as you all are asking me, “What’s his legacy?” I would say this is part of that.

All right. Thanks, everybody.

Q Has he been — has he been consulting with anybody in sort of drafting this speech and — and getting ready for this moment?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: I mean, he’s been working with his team — his speechwriters, obviously. He’s working with representatives that he has in the Office of Public Af- — Engagement on — who focus on the Indian Country, having those conversations. They’ve been very involved.

I would say Tom Perez, who runs the Intergovernmental Affairs, obviously, has go- — has done these trips, have been very in touch — very much in touch with what’s going on the ground.

So, he’s been certainly talking to his team, including the secretary, and — and consulting with them about what — what he wants to say and how he wants to really — you know, I don’t want to get ahead of the president. I think his remarks, as you’ll hear from him directly tomorrow, are — I think are going to be pretty powerful.

All right. Thanks, everybody.

Q Thanks, Karine.

Q Thank you.

5:41 P.M. EDT

The post Press Gaggle by Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland En Route Phoenix, AZ appeared first on The White House.

South Lawn

3:50 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: I’m heading —

(Cross-talk.)

THE PRESIDENT: I’m —

(Cross-talk.)

THE PRESIDENT: I’m heading to do something that should have been done a long time ago: to make a formal apology to the Indian Nations for the way we treated their children for so many years. That’s why I’m going — that’s why I’m heading West.

Thank you.

3:50 P.M. EDT

The post Remarks by President Biden Before Marine One Departure appeared first on The White House.

South Lawn

3:50 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: I’m heading —

(Cross-talk.)

THE PRESIDENT: I’m —

(Cross-talk.)

THE PRESIDENT: I’m heading to do something that should have been done a long time ago: to make a formal apology to the Indian Nations for the way we treated their children for so many years. That’s why I’m going — that’s why I’m heading West.

Thank you.

3:50 P.M. EDT

The post Remarks by President Biden Before Marine One Departure appeared first on The White House.

National Defense University
Washington, D.C.

MR. SULLIVAN: Good morning, everyone. And thanks so much for that introduction, Lieutenant Colonel Grewal. And I also want to thank the National War College for bringing us all together today. And I want to thank my colleagues from across the intelligence community and DOD, as well as from the NSC, who have really put their blood, sweat, toil, and tears into producing this National Security Memorandum on Artificial Intelligence that we’re rolling out today.

Most importantly, though, I want to thank all of you for allowing me to be here to say a few words this morning. It’s truly an honor for me to be here. And, in fact, there’s a reason I wanted to address this specific group of leaders.

More than 75 years ago, just a few months after the Second World War ended, then-General Dwight Eisenhower wrote a letter to his fellow military leaders. All around them, the world was changing. Nazi Germany had fallen. Nations were rebuilding. The Cold War was just beginning. And people everywhere were reckoning with the horrors of the Holocaust.

It was a new era, one that demanded new strategies, new thinking, and new leadership.

So, General Eisenhower pitched an idea: a National War College. He didn’t know where it would be or what exactly it would look like, but he knew America needed a school whose primary function would be, as he wrote, quote, “to develop doctrine rather than to accept and follow prescribed doctrine.” Develop, not accept and follow.

That idea has guided this institution ever since. In the aftermath of the Second World War, it led your forebearers to reimagine our decision-making apparatus, including the establishment of the National Security Council. Thanks for that. (Laughter.)

During the Cold War, it led them to develop new strategies to advance our national security, including implementing containment, détente, and beyond.

And throughout the global war against terror, your predecessors have pioneered new thinking and new tactics that have helped keep our nation safe.

Now it’s your turn.

We’re in an age of strategic competition in an interdependent world, where we have to compete vigorously and also mobilize partners to solve great challenges that no one country can solve on its own.

In this age, in this world, the application of artificial intelligence will define the future, and our country must once again develop new capabilities, new tools, and, as General Eisenhower said, new doctrine, if we want to ensure that AI works for us, for our partners, for our interests, and for our values, and not against us.

That’s why I’m proud to announce that President Biden has signed a National Security Memorandum on Artificial Intelligence. This is our nation’s first-ever strategy for harnessing the power and managing the risks of AI to advance our national security.

So, today I want to talk to you about what’s brought us to this moment and how our country needs all of you to help us meet it.

Like many of you here at the War College, I’ve had to grapple with AI and its implications for national security since I became National Security Advisor — about what makes it so potentially transformative and about what makes it different from other technological leaps our country has navigated before, from electrification to nuclear weapons to space flight to the Internet.

And I’ve seen three key things in particular.

First, the sheer speed of the development of artificial intelligence. The technical frontier of AI continues to advance rapidly — more rapidly than we’ve seen with other technologies.

Let’s just take protein folding as an example. Discovering a protein structure, or how it folds, is essential for understanding how it interacts with other molecules, which can solve fundamental puzzles in medicine and accelerate the development of treatment and cures. Up until 2018, humanity had collectively discovered the structure of around 150,000 proteins, largely through manual efforts, sometimes after years of painstaking work using advanced microscopes and x-rays.

Then, Google DeepMind showed that AI could predict the structure of a protein without any wet lab work. By 2022, four years later, that same team released predicted structures for almost every protein known to science, hundreds of millions in all.

Just a few weeks ago, the scientist involved won a Nobel Prize.

Now, imagine that same pace of change in the realms of science that impact your work as national security leaders every day.

Imagine how AI will impact areas where we’re already seeing paradigm shifts, from nuclear physics to rocketry to stealth, or how it could impact areas of competition that may not have yet matured, that we actually can’t even imagine, just as the early Cold Warriors could not really have imagined today’s cyber operations.

Put simply, a specific AI application that we’re trying to solve for today in the intelligence or military or commercial domains could look fundamentally different six weeks from now, let alone six months from now, or a year from now, or six years from now. The speed of change in this area is breathtaking.

This is compounded by huge uncertainty around AI’s growth trajectory, which is the second distinctive trait.

Over the last four years, I’ve met with scientists and entrepreneurs, lab CEOs and hyperscalers, researchers and engineers, and civil society advocates. And throughout all of those conversations, there’s clear agreement that developments in artificial intelligence are having a profound impact on our world.

But opinions diverge when I ask them, “What exactly should we expect next?” There’s a spectrum of views. At one end, some experts believe we barely kicked off the AI revolution, that AI capabilities will continue to grow exponentially, building on themselves to unlock paths we didn’t know existed, and that this could happen fast, well within this decade. And if they’re right, we could be on the cusp of one of the most significant technological shifts in human history.

At the other end of the spectrum is a view that AI isn’t a growth spurt, but it has or soon will plateau, or at least the pace of change will slow considerably, and more dramatic breakthroughs are further down the road.

Experts who believe this aren’t saying AI won’t be consequential, but they argue that the last-mile work of applying AI, that are already here — the capabilities that are already here — is what will matter most, not just now but for the foreseeable future.

These views are vastly different, with vastly different implications.

Now, innovation has never been predictable, but the degree of uncertainty in AI development is unprecedented. The size of the question mark distinguishes AI for many other technological challenges our government has had to face and make policy around. And that is our responsibility.

As National Security Advisor, I have to make sure our government is ready for every scenario along the spectrum. We have to build a national security policy that will protect the American people and the American innovation ecosystem, which is so critical to our advantage, even if the opportunities and challenges we face could manifest in fundamentally different ways. We have to be prepared for the entire spectrum of possibilities of where AI is headed in 2025, 2027, 2030, and beyond.

Now, what makes this even more difficult is that private companies are leading the development of AI, not the government. This is the third distinctive feature.

Many of the technological leaps of the last 80 years emerged from public research, public funding, public procurement. Our government took an early and critical role in shaping developments, from nuclear physics and space exploration to personal computing to the Internet.

That’s not been the case with most of the recent AI revolution. While the Department of Defense and other agencies funded a large share of AI work in the 20th century, the private sector has propelled much of the last decade of progress. And in many ways, that’s something to celebrate. It’s a testament to American ingenuity, to the American innovation system that American companies lead the world in frontier AI. It’s America’s special sauce. And it’s a good thing that taxpayers don’t have to foot the full bill for AI training costs, which can be staggeringly high.

But those of us in government have to be clear-eyed about the implications of this dynamic as both stewards and deployers of this technology.

Here, two things can be true at the same time.

On the one hand, major technology companies that develop and deploy AI systems by virtue of being American have given America a real national security lead, a lead that we want to extend. And they’re also going head-to-head with PRC companies like Huawei to provide digital services to people around the world. We’re supporting those efforts, because we want the United States to be the technology partner of choice for countries around the world.

On the other hand, we need to take responsible steps to ensure fair competition and open markets; to protect privacy, human rights, civil rights, civil liberties; to make sure that advanced AI systems are safe and trustworthy; to implement safeguards so that AI isn’t used to undercut our national security.

The U.S. government is fully capable of managing this healthy tension, as long as we’re honest and clear-eyed about it. And we have to get this right, because there is probably no other technology that will be more critical to our national security in the years ahead.

Now, when it comes to AI and our national security, I have both good news and bad news. The good news is that thanks to President Biden and Vice President Harris’s leadership, America is continuing to build a meaningful AI advantage.

Here at home, President Biden signed an executive order on the development and use of AI, the most comprehensive action that any country in the world has ever taken on AI.

We’ve worked to strengthen our AI talent, hardware, infrastructure, and governance. We’ve attracted leading researchers and entrepreneurs to move to and remain in the United States. We’ve unleashed tens of billions of dollars in incentives to catalyze domestic leading-edge chip production. We’ve led the world in issuing guidance to make sure that AI development and use is safe, secure, and trustworthy.

And as we’ve done all of this, we’ve scrutinized AI trends, not just frontier AI, but also the AI models that will proliferate most widely and rapidly around the world. And we’re working to enhance American advantages across the board.

But here’s the bad news: Our lead is not guaranteed. It is not pre-ordained. And it is not enough to just guard the progress we’ve made, as historic as it’s been. We have to be faster in deploying AI in our national security enterprise than America’s rivals are in theirs. They are in a persistent quest to leapfrog our military and intelligence capabilities. And the challenge is even more acute because they are unlikely to be bound by the same principles and responsibilities and values that we are.

The stakes are high. If we don’t act more intentionally to seize our advantages, if we don’t deploy AI more quickly and more comprehensively to strengthen our national security, we risk squandering our hard-earned lead.

Even if we have the best AI models but our competitors are faster to deploy, we could see them seize the advantage in using AI capabilities against our people, our forces, and our partners and allies. We could have the best team but lose because we didn’t put it on the field.

We could see advantages we built over decades in other domains, like space and undersea operations, be reduced or eroded entirely with AI-enabled technology.

And for all our strengths, there remains a risk of strategic surprise. We have to guard against that — which is why I’m here today.

Our new National Security Memorandum on AI seeks to address exactly this set of challenges. And as rising national security leaders, you will be charged with implementing it with no time to lose.

So, in the balance of my remarks, I want to spend a few minutes explaining the memorandum’s three main lines of effort: securing American leadership in AI, harnessing AI for national security, and strengthening international AI partnerships.

First, we have to ensure the United States continues to lead the world in developing AI. Our competitors also know how important AI leadership is in today’s age of geopolitical competition, and they are investing huge resources to seize it for themselves. So we have to start upping our game, and that starts with people.

America has to continue to be a magnet for global, scientific, and tech talent. As I noted, we’ve already taken major steps to make it easier and faster for top AI scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs to come to the United States, including by removing friction in our visa rules to attract talent from around the world.

And through this new memorandum, we’re taking more steps, streamlining visa processing wherever we can for applicants working with emerging technologies. And we’re calling on Congress to get in the game with us, staple more green cards to STEM diplomas, as President Biden has been pushing to do for years.

So, that’s the people part of the equation.

Next is hardware and power. Developing advanced AI systems requires large volumes of advanced chips, and keeping those AI systems humming requires large amounts of power.

On chips, we’ve taken really significant steps forward. We passed the CHIPS and Science Act, making a generational investment in our semiconductor manufacturing, including the leading-edge logic chips and the high-bandwidth memory chips needed for AI.

We’ve also taken decisive action to limit strategic competitors’ access to the most advanced chips necessary to train and use frontier AI systems with national security implications, as well as the tools needed to make those chips.

The National Security Memorandum builds on this progress by directing all of our national security agencies to make sure that those vital chip supply chains are secure and free from foreign interference.

On power, the memorandum recognizes the importance of designing, permitting, and constructing clean energy generation facilities that can serve AI data centers so that the companies building world-leading AI infrastructure build as much as possible here in the United States in a way that is consistent with our climate goals.

One thing is for certain: If we don’t rapidly build out this infrastructure in the next few years, adding tens or even hundreds of gigawatts of clean power to the grid, we will risk falling behind.

Finally, there’s funding for innovation. This fiscal year, federal funding for non-defense R&D declined significantly. And Congress still hasn’t appropriated the science part of the CHIPS and Science Act, even while China is increasing its science and technology budget 10 percent year over year. That can mean critical gaps in AI R&D.

We want to work with Congress to make sure this and the other requirements within the AI National Security Memorandum are funded. And we’ve received strong bipartisan signals of support for this from the Hill. So, it’s time for us to collectively roll up our sleeves on a bicameral, bipartisan basis and get this done.

And we also have to be aware that our competitors are watching closely, not least because they would love to depose our AI leadership. One playbook we’ve seen them deploy again and again is theft and espionage. So, the National Security Memorandum takes this head on. It establishes addressing adversary threats against our AI sector as a top-tier intelligence priority, a move that means more resources and more personnel will be devoted to combating this threat.

It also directs people across government, like so many of you, to work more closely with private sector AI developers to provide them with timely cybersecurity and counter-intelligence information to keep their technology secure, just as we’ve already worked to protect other elements of the U.S. private sector from threats to them and to our national security.

The second pillar focuses on how we harness our advantage and our enduring advantage to advance national security.

As National Security Advisor, I see how AI is already poised to transform the national security landscape. And where you sit, as war fighters, as diplomats, as intelligence officers, I’m sure you’re seeing it too. Some change is already here. AI is reshaping our logistics, our cyber vulnerability detection, how we analyze and synthesize intelligence. Some change we see looming on the horizon, including AI-enabled applications that will transform the way our military trains and fights. But some change, as I said earlier, we truly cannot predict in both the form it will take and how fast it will come.

Bottom line: Opportunities are already at hand, and more soon will be, so we’ve got to seize them quickly and effectively, or our competitors will first.

That means all of us in the national security enterprise have to become much more adept users of AI. It means we need to make significant technical, organizational, and policy changes to ease collaboration with the actors that are driving this development. And the National Security Memorandum does just that. It directs agencies to propose ways to enable more effective collaboration with non-traditional vendors, such as leading AI companies and cloud computing providers.

In practice, that means quickly putting the most advanced systems to use in our national security enterprise just after they’re developed, like how many in private industry are doing. We need to be getting fast adoption of these systems, which are iterating and advancing, as we see every few months.

Next, today’s AI systems are more generally capable than the bespoke and narrow tools that dominated prior AI. And this general capability is a huge advantage. But the flipside is they cost much more to train and run. So we’re pushing agencies to use shared computing resources to accelerate AI adoption, lower cost, and learn from one another as they responsibly address a wide range of threats, from nuclear security to biosecurity to cybersecurity.

And I emphasize that word, “responsibly.” Developing and deploying AI safely, securely, and, yes, responsibly, is the backbone of our strategy. That includes ensuring that AI systems are free of bias and discrimination.

This is profoundly in our self-interest. One reason is that even if we can attract AI talent or foster AI development here in the United States, we won’t be able to lead the world if people do not trust our systems. And that means developing standards for AI evaluations, including what makes those systems work and how they might fail in the real world. It means running tests on the world’s most advanced AI systems before they’re released to the public. And it means leading the way in areas like content authentication and watermarking so people know when they’re interacting with AI, as opposed to interacting with, for example, a real human.

To do all of that, we have to empower and learn from a full range of AI firms, experts, and entrepreneurs, which our AI Safety Institute is now doing on a daily basis.

Another reason we need to focus so much on responsibility, safety, and trustworthiness is a little bit counterintuitive. Ensuring security and trustworthiness will actually enable us to move faster, not slow us down. Put simply, uncertainty breeds caution. When we lack confidence about safety and reliability, we’re slower to experiment, to adopt, to use new capabilities, and we just can’t afford to do that in today’s strategic landscape.

That’s why our memorandum directs the first-ever government-wide framework on AI risk management commitments in the national security space, commitments like refraining from uses that depart from our nation’s core values, avoiding harmful bias and discrimination, maximizing accountability, ensuring effective and appropriate human oversight.

As I said, preventing misuse and ensuring high standards of accountability will not slow us down; it will actually do the opposite. And we’ve seen this before with technological change.

During the early days of the railroads, for example, the establishment of safety standards enabled trains to run faster thanks to increased certainty, confidence, and compatibility.

And I also want to note we’re going to update this framework regularly. This goes back to the uncertainty I mentioned earlier. There may be capabilities or novel legal issues that just haven’t emerged yet. We must and we will ensure our governance and our guardrails can adapt to meet the moment, no matter what it looks like or how quickly it comes.

Finally, we need to do all of this in lockstep with our partners, which is the third pillar of our memorandum.

President Biden often says we’re going to see more technological change in the next 10 years than we saw in the last 50. He’s right. And it doesn’t just apply to our country, but to all countries.

And when it comes to AI specifically, we need to ensure that people around the world are able to seize the benefits and mitigate the risks. That means building international norms and partnerships around AI.

Over the last year, thanks to the leadership of President Biden and Vice President Harris, we’ve laid that foundation. We developed the first-ever International Code of Conduct on AI with our G7 partners. We joined more than two dozen nations at the Bletchley and Seoul AI summits to outline clear AI principles.

We released our Political Declaration on the Military Use of AI, which more than 50 countries have endorsed, to outline what constitutes responsible practices for using AI in the military domain.

And we sponsored the first-ever U.N. General Assembly Resolution on AI, which passed unanimously, including with the PRC, I might add, as a co-sponsor.

It makes clear that, as I said, we can both seize the benefits of AI for the world and advance AI safety.

Let me take just a moment to speak about the PRC specifically.

Almost a year ago, when President Biden and President Xi met in San Francisco, they agreed to a dialogue between our two countries on AI risk and safety. And this past May, some of our government’s top AI experts met PRC officials in Geneva for a candid and constructive initial conversation.

I strongly believe that we should always be willing to engage in dialogue about this technology with the PRC and with others to better understand risks and counter misperceptions.

But those meetings do not diminish our deep concerns about the ways in which the PRC continues to use AI to repress its population, spread misinformation, and undermine the security of the United States and our allies and partners.

AI should be used to unleash possibilities and empower people. And nations around the world, especially developing economies, want to know how to do that. They don’t want to be left behind, and we don’t want that either.

Our national security has always been stronger when we extend a hand to partners around the world. So, we need to get the balance right. We need to balance protecting cutting-edge AI technologies on the one hand, while also promoting AI technology adoption around the world.

Protect and promote. We can and must and are doing both.

So let me briefly preview for you a new global approach to AI diffusion, how AI can spread around the world in a responsible way that allows AI for good while protecting against downside risk.

This new global approach complements the memorandum that has come out, and comes out of extended conversations in the Situation Room and with allies, industry, and partners over the last year.

The finer print will come out later, but I can say now that it will give the private sector more clarity and predictability as they plan to invest hundreds of billions of dollars globally.

This includes how our government will manage the export of the most advanced chips necessary to develop frontier models; how we will ensure broad access to substantial AI computing power that lies behind the bleeding-edge but could nonetheless transform health, agriculture, and manufacturing around the world; how we will help facilitate partnerships between leading American AI firms and countries around the world that want to be part of the AI revolution; and how we will set safety and security standards for these partnerships to ensure we effectively protect against risks while unleashing new opportunities.

These partnerships are critical. They’re fundamental to our leadership. We know that China is building its own technological ecosystem with digital infrastructure that won’t protect sensitive data, that can enable mass surveillance and censorship, that can spread misinformation, and that can make countries vulnerable to coercion.

So, we have to compete to provide a more attractive path, ideally before countries go too far down an untrusted road from which can be expensive and difficult to return. And that’s what we’re doing.

We’ve already developed new partnerships that will support economic progress, technological innovation, and indigenous AI ecosystems, from Africa to Asia to the Middle East and beyond. And we’re going to keep at it, with a clear and rigorous approach to AI diffusion.

Now, I do want to make sure I leave time for our conversation, so let me just close with this:

Everything I just laid out is a plan, but we need all of you to turn it into progress. We need you, and leaders across every state and every sector, to adopt this technology to advance our national security and to do it fast.

We need you to ensure that our work aligns with the core values that have always underpinned American leadership.

And as President Eisenhower said, we need you to constantly update and develop our AI doctrine in the years ahead.

It will be hard. It will require constant thinking, constant rethinking, constant innovation, constant collaboration, and constant leadership. But with the past as our proof, I know that everyone in this room and all across our country is up for it. And together, we will win the competition for the 21st century.

So, thank you, and I look forward to the conversation. (Applause.)

The post Remarks by APNSA Jake Sullivan on AI and National Security appeared first on The White House.

National Defense University
Washington, D.C.

MR. SULLIVAN: Good morning, everyone. And thanks so much for that introduction, Lieutenant Colonel Grewal. And I also want to thank the National War College for bringing us all together today. And I want to thank my colleagues from across the intelligence community and DOD, as well as from the NSC, who have really put their blood, sweat, toil, and tears into producing this National Security Memorandum on Artificial Intelligence that we’re rolling out today.

Most importantly, though, I want to thank all of you for allowing me to be here to say a few words this morning. It’s truly an honor for me to be here. And, in fact, there’s a reason I wanted to address this specific group of leaders.

More than 75 years ago, just a few months after the Second World War ended, then-General Dwight Eisenhower wrote a letter to his fellow military leaders. All around them, the world was changing. Nazi Germany had fallen. Nations were rebuilding. The Cold War was just beginning. And people everywhere were reckoning with the horrors of the Holocaust.

It was a new era, one that demanded new strategies, new thinking, and new leadership.

So, General Eisenhower pitched an idea: a National War College. He didn’t know where it would be or what exactly it would look like, but he knew America needed a school whose primary function would be, as he wrote, quote, “to develop doctrine rather than to accept and follow prescribed doctrine.” Develop, not accept and follow.

That idea has guided this institution ever since. In the aftermath of the Second World War, it led your forebearers to reimagine our decision-making apparatus, including the establishment of the National Security Council. Thanks for that. (Laughter.)

During the Cold War, it led them to develop new strategies to advance our national security, including implementing containment, détente, and beyond.

And throughout the global war against terror, your predecessors have pioneered new thinking and new tactics that have helped keep our nation safe.

Now it’s your turn.

We’re in an age of strategic competition in an interdependent world, where we have to compete vigorously and also mobilize partners to solve great challenges that no one country can solve on its own.

In this age, in this world, the application of artificial intelligence will define the future, and our country must once again develop new capabilities, new tools, and, as General Eisenhower said, new doctrine, if we want to ensure that AI works for us, for our partners, for our interests, and for our values, and not against us.

That’s why I’m proud to announce that President Biden has signed a National Security Memorandum on Artificial Intelligence. This is our nation’s first-ever strategy for harnessing the power and managing the risks of AI to advance our national security.

So, today I want to talk to you about what’s brought us to this moment and how our country needs all of you to help us meet it.

Like many of you here at the War College, I’ve had to grapple with AI and its implications for national security since I became National Security Advisor — about what makes it so potentially transformative and about what makes it different from other technological leaps our country has navigated before, from electrification to nuclear weapons to space flight to the Internet.

And I’ve seen three key things in particular.

First, the sheer speed of the development of artificial intelligence. The technical frontier of AI continues to advance rapidly — more rapidly than we’ve seen with other technologies.

Let’s just take protein folding as an example. Discovering a protein structure, or how it folds, is essential for understanding how it interacts with other molecules, which can solve fundamental puzzles in medicine and accelerate the development of treatment and cures. Up until 2018, humanity had collectively discovered the structure of around 150,000 proteins, largely through manual efforts, sometimes after years of painstaking work using advanced microscopes and x-rays.

Then, Google DeepMind showed that AI could predict the structure of a protein without any wet lab work. By 2022, four years later, that same team released predicted structures for almost every protein known to science, hundreds of millions in all.

Just a few weeks ago, the scientist involved won a Nobel Prize.

Now, imagine that same pace of change in the realms of science that impact your work as national security leaders every day.

Imagine how AI will impact areas where we’re already seeing paradigm shifts, from nuclear physics to rocketry to stealth, or how it could impact areas of competition that may not have yet matured, that we actually can’t even imagine, just as the early Cold Warriors could not really have imagined today’s cyber operations.

Put simply, a specific AI application that we’re trying to solve for today in the intelligence or military or commercial domains could look fundamentally different six weeks from now, let alone six months from now, or a year from now, or six years from now. The speed of change in this area is breathtaking.

This is compounded by huge uncertainty around AI’s growth trajectory, which is the second distinctive trait.

Over the last four years, I’ve met with scientists and entrepreneurs, lab CEOs and hyperscalers, researchers and engineers, and civil society advocates. And throughout all of those conversations, there’s clear agreement that developments in artificial intelligence are having a profound impact on our world.

But opinions diverge when I ask them, “What exactly should we expect next?” There’s a spectrum of views. At one end, some experts believe we barely kicked off the AI revolution, that AI capabilities will continue to grow exponentially, building on themselves to unlock paths we didn’t know existed, and that this could happen fast, well within this decade. And if they’re right, we could be on the cusp of one of the most significant technological shifts in human history.

At the other end of the spectrum is a view that AI isn’t a growth spurt, but it has or soon will plateau, or at least the pace of change will slow considerably, and more dramatic breakthroughs are further down the road.

Experts who believe this aren’t saying AI won’t be consequential, but they argue that the last-mile work of applying AI, that are already here — the capabilities that are already here — is what will matter most, not just now but for the foreseeable future.

These views are vastly different, with vastly different implications.

Now, innovation has never been predictable, but the degree of uncertainty in AI development is unprecedented. The size of the question mark distinguishes AI for many other technological challenges our government has had to face and make policy around. And that is our responsibility.

As National Security Advisor, I have to make sure our government is ready for every scenario along the spectrum. We have to build a national security policy that will protect the American people and the American innovation ecosystem, which is so critical to our advantage, even if the opportunities and challenges we face could manifest in fundamentally different ways. We have to be prepared for the entire spectrum of possibilities of where AI is headed in 2025, 2027, 2030, and beyond.

Now, what makes this even more difficult is that private companies are leading the development of AI, not the government. This is the third distinctive feature.

Many of the technological leaps of the last 80 years emerged from public research, public funding, public procurement. Our government took an early and critical role in shaping developments, from nuclear physics and space exploration to personal computing to the Internet.

That’s not been the case with most of the recent AI revolution. While the Department of Defense and other agencies funded a large share of AI work in the 20th century, the private sector has propelled much of the last decade of progress. And in many ways, that’s something to celebrate. It’s a testament to American ingenuity, to the American innovation system that American companies lead the world in frontier AI. It’s America’s special sauce. And it’s a good thing that taxpayers don’t have to foot the full bill for AI training costs, which can be staggeringly high.

But those of us in government have to be clear-eyed about the implications of this dynamic as both stewards and deployers of this technology.

Here, two things can be true at the same time.

On the one hand, major technology companies that develop and deploy AI systems by virtue of being American have given America a real national security lead, a lead that we want to extend. And they’re also going head-to-head with PRC companies like Huawei to provide digital services to people around the world. We’re supporting those efforts, because we want the United States to be the technology partner of choice for countries around the world.

On the other hand, we need to take responsible steps to ensure fair competition and open markets; to protect privacy, human rights, civil rights, civil liberties; to make sure that advanced AI systems are safe and trustworthy; to implement safeguards so that AI isn’t used to undercut our national security.

The U.S. government is fully capable of managing this healthy tension, as long as we’re honest and clear-eyed about it. And we have to get this right, because there is probably no other technology that will be more critical to our national security in the years ahead.

Now, when it comes to AI and our national security, I have both good news and bad news. The good news is that thanks to President Biden and Vice President Harris’s leadership, America is continuing to build a meaningful AI advantage.

Here at home, President Biden signed an executive order on the development and use of AI, the most comprehensive action that any country in the world has ever taken on AI.

We’ve worked to strengthen our AI talent, hardware, infrastructure, and governance. We’ve attracted leading researchers and entrepreneurs to move to and remain in the United States. We’ve unleashed tens of billions of dollars in incentives to catalyze domestic leading-edge chip production. We’ve led the world in issuing guidance to make sure that AI development and use is safe, secure, and trustworthy.

And as we’ve done all of this, we’ve scrutinized AI trends, not just frontier AI, but also the AI models that will proliferate most widely and rapidly around the world. And we’re working to enhance American advantages across the board.

But here’s the bad news: Our lead is not guaranteed. It is not pre-ordained. And it is not enough to just guard the progress we’ve made, as historic as it’s been. We have to be faster in deploying AI in our national security enterprise than America’s rivals are in theirs. They are in a persistent quest to leapfrog our military and intelligence capabilities. And the challenge is even more acute because they are unlikely to be bound by the same principles and responsibilities and values that we are.

The stakes are high. If we don’t act more intentionally to seize our advantages, if we don’t deploy AI more quickly and more comprehensively to strengthen our national security, we risk squandering our hard-earned lead.

Even if we have the best AI models but our competitors are faster to deploy, we could see them seize the advantage in using AI capabilities against our people, our forces, and our partners and allies. We could have the best team but lose because we didn’t put it on the field.

We could see advantages we built over decades in other domains, like space and undersea operations, be reduced or eroded entirely with AI-enabled technology.

And for all our strengths, there remains a risk of strategic surprise. We have to guard against that — which is why I’m here today.

Our new National Security Memorandum on AI seeks to address exactly this set of challenges. And as rising national security leaders, you will be charged with implementing it with no time to lose.

So, in the balance of my remarks, I want to spend a few minutes explaining the memorandum’s three main lines of effort: securing American leadership in AI, harnessing AI for national security, and strengthening international AI partnerships.

First, we have to ensure the United States continues to lead the world in developing AI. Our competitors also know how important AI leadership is in today’s age of geopolitical competition, and they are investing huge resources to seize it for themselves. So we have to start upping our game, and that starts with people.

America has to continue to be a magnet for global, scientific, and tech talent. As I noted, we’ve already taken major steps to make it easier and faster for top AI scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs to come to the United States, including by removing friction in our visa rules to attract talent from around the world.

And through this new memorandum, we’re taking more steps, streamlining visa processing wherever we can for applicants working with emerging technologies. And we’re calling on Congress to get in the game with us, staple more green cards to STEM diplomas, as President Biden has been pushing to do for years.

So, that’s the people part of the equation.

Next is hardware and power. Developing advanced AI systems requires large volumes of advanced chips, and keeping those AI systems humming requires large amounts of power.

On chips, we’ve taken really significant steps forward. We passed the CHIPS and Science Act, making a generational investment in our semiconductor manufacturing, including the leading-edge logic chips and the high-bandwidth memory chips needed for AI.

We’ve also taken decisive action to limit strategic competitors’ access to the most advanced chips necessary to train and use frontier AI systems with national security implications, as well as the tools needed to make those chips.

The National Security Memorandum builds on this progress by directing all of our national security agencies to make sure that those vital chip supply chains are secure and free from foreign interference.

On power, the memorandum recognizes the importance of designing, permitting, and constructing clean energy generation facilities that can serve AI data centers so that the companies building world-leading AI infrastructure build as much as possible here in the United States in a way that is consistent with our climate goals.

One thing is for certain: If we don’t rapidly build out this infrastructure in the next few years, adding tens or even hundreds of gigawatts of clean power to the grid, we will risk falling behind.

Finally, there’s funding for innovation. This fiscal year, federal funding for non-defense R&D declined significantly. And Congress still hasn’t appropriated the science part of the CHIPS and Science Act, even while China is increasing its science and technology budget 10 percent year over year. That can mean critical gaps in AI R&D.

We want to work with Congress to make sure this and the other requirements within the AI National Security Memorandum are funded. And we’ve received strong bipartisan signals of support for this from the Hill. So, it’s time for us to collectively roll up our sleeves on a bicameral, bipartisan basis and get this done.

And we also have to be aware that our competitors are watching closely, not least because they would love to depose our AI leadership. One playbook we’ve seen them deploy again and again is theft and espionage. So, the National Security Memorandum takes this head on. It establishes addressing adversary threats against our AI sector as a top-tier intelligence priority, a move that means more resources and more personnel will be devoted to combating this threat.

It also directs people across government, like so many of you, to work more closely with private sector AI developers to provide them with timely cybersecurity and counter-intelligence information to keep their technology secure, just as we’ve already worked to protect other elements of the U.S. private sector from threats to them and to our national security.

The second pillar focuses on how we harness our advantage and our enduring advantage to advance national security.

As National Security Advisor, I see how AI is already poised to transform the national security landscape. And where you sit, as war fighters, as diplomats, as intelligence officers, I’m sure you’re seeing it too. Some change is already here. AI is reshaping our logistics, our cyber vulnerability detection, how we analyze and synthesize intelligence. Some change we see looming on the horizon, including AI-enabled applications that will transform the way our military trains and fights. But some change, as I said earlier, we truly cannot predict in both the form it will take and how fast it will come.

Bottom line: Opportunities are already at hand, and more soon will be, so we’ve got to seize them quickly and effectively, or our competitors will first.

That means all of us in the national security enterprise have to become much more adept users of AI. It means we need to make significant technical, organizational, and policy changes to ease collaboration with the actors that are driving this development. And the National Security Memorandum does just that. It directs agencies to propose ways to enable more effective collaboration with non-traditional vendors, such as leading AI companies and cloud computing providers.

In practice, that means quickly putting the most advanced systems to use in our national security enterprise just after they’re developed, like how many in private industry are doing. We need to be getting fast adoption of these systems, which are iterating and advancing, as we see every few months.

Next, today’s AI systems are more generally capable than the bespoke and narrow tools that dominated prior AI. And this general capability is a huge advantage. But the flipside is they cost much more to train and run. So we’re pushing agencies to use shared computing resources to accelerate AI adoption, lower cost, and learn from one another as they responsibly address a wide range of threats, from nuclear security to biosecurity to cybersecurity.

And I emphasize that word, “responsibly.” Developing and deploying AI safely, securely, and, yes, responsibly, is the backbone of our strategy. That includes ensuring that AI systems are free of bias and discrimination.

This is profoundly in our self-interest. One reason is that even if we can attract AI talent or foster AI development here in the United States, we won’t be able to lead the world if people do not trust our systems. And that means developing standards for AI evaluations, including what makes those systems work and how they might fail in the real world. It means running tests on the world’s most advanced AI systems before they’re released to the public. And it means leading the way in areas like content authentication and watermarking so people know when they’re interacting with AI, as opposed to interacting with, for example, a real human.

To do all of that, we have to empower and learn from a full range of AI firms, experts, and entrepreneurs, which our AI Safety Institute is now doing on a daily basis.

Another reason we need to focus so much on responsibility, safety, and trustworthiness is a little bit counterintuitive. Ensuring security and trustworthiness will actually enable us to move faster, not slow us down. Put simply, uncertainty breeds caution. When we lack confidence about safety and reliability, we’re slower to experiment, to adopt, to use new capabilities, and we just can’t afford to do that in today’s strategic landscape.

That’s why our memorandum directs the first-ever government-wide framework on AI risk management commitments in the national security space, commitments like refraining from uses that depart from our nation’s core values, avoiding harmful bias and discrimination, maximizing accountability, ensuring effective and appropriate human oversight.

As I said, preventing misuse and ensuring high standards of accountability will not slow us down; it will actually do the opposite. And we’ve seen this before with technological change.

During the early days of the railroads, for example, the establishment of safety standards enabled trains to run faster thanks to increased certainty, confidence, and compatibility.

And I also want to note we’re going to update this framework regularly. This goes back to the uncertainty I mentioned earlier. There may be capabilities or novel legal issues that just haven’t emerged yet. We must and we will ensure our governance and our guardrails can adapt to meet the moment, no matter what it looks like or how quickly it comes.

Finally, we need to do all of this in lockstep with our partners, which is the third pillar of our memorandum.

President Biden often says we’re going to see more technological change in the next 10 years than we saw in the last 50. He’s right. And it doesn’t just apply to our country, but to all countries.

And when it comes to AI specifically, we need to ensure that people around the world are able to seize the benefits and mitigate the risks. That means building international norms and partnerships around AI.

Over the last year, thanks to the leadership of President Biden and Vice President Harris, we’ve laid that foundation. We developed the first-ever International Code of Conduct on AI with our G7 partners. We joined more than two dozen nations at the Bletchley and Seoul AI summits to outline clear AI principles.

We released our Political Declaration on the Military Use of AI, which more than 50 countries have endorsed, to outline what constitutes responsible practices for using AI in the military domain.

And we sponsored the first-ever U.N. General Assembly Resolution on AI, which passed unanimously, including with the PRC, I might add, as a co-sponsor.

It makes clear that, as I said, we can both seize the benefits of AI for the world and advance AI safety.

Let me take just a moment to speak about the PRC specifically.

Almost a year ago, when President Biden and President Xi met in San Francisco, they agreed to a dialogue between our two countries on AI risk and safety. And this past May, some of our government’s top AI experts met PRC officials in Geneva for a candid and constructive initial conversation.

I strongly believe that we should always be willing to engage in dialogue about this technology with the PRC and with others to better understand risks and counter misperceptions.

But those meetings do not diminish our deep concerns about the ways in which the PRC continues to use AI to repress its population, spread misinformation, and undermine the security of the United States and our allies and partners.

AI should be used to unleash possibilities and empower people. And nations around the world, especially developing economies, want to know how to do that. They don’t want to be left behind, and we don’t want that either.

Our national security has always been stronger when we extend a hand to partners around the world. So, we need to get the balance right. We need to balance protecting cutting-edge AI technologies on the one hand, while also promoting AI technology adoption around the world.

Protect and promote. We can and must and are doing both.

So let me briefly preview for you a new global approach to AI diffusion, how AI can spread around the world in a responsible way that allows AI for good while protecting against downside risk.

This new global approach complements the memorandum that has come out, and comes out of extended conversations in the Situation Room and with allies, industry, and partners over the last year.

The finer print will come out later, but I can say now that it will give the private sector more clarity and predictability as they plan to invest hundreds of billions of dollars globally.

This includes how our government will manage the export of the most advanced chips necessary to develop frontier models; how we will ensure broad access to substantial AI computing power that lies behind the bleeding-edge but could nonetheless transform health, agriculture, and manufacturing around the world; how we will help facilitate partnerships between leading American AI firms and countries around the world that want to be part of the AI revolution; and how we will set safety and security standards for these partnerships to ensure we effectively protect against risks while unleashing new opportunities.

These partnerships are critical. They’re fundamental to our leadership. We know that China is building its own technological ecosystem with digital infrastructure that won’t protect sensitive data, that can enable mass surveillance and censorship, that can spread misinformation, and that can make countries vulnerable to coercion.

So, we have to compete to provide a more attractive path, ideally before countries go too far down an untrusted road from which can be expensive and difficult to return. And that’s what we’re doing.

We’ve already developed new partnerships that will support economic progress, technological innovation, and indigenous AI ecosystems, from Africa to Asia to the Middle East and beyond. And we’re going to keep at it, with a clear and rigorous approach to AI diffusion.

Now, I do want to make sure I leave time for our conversation, so let me just close with this:

Everything I just laid out is a plan, but we need all of you to turn it into progress. We need you, and leaders across every state and every sector, to adopt this technology to advance our national security and to do it fast.

We need you to ensure that our work aligns with the core values that have always underpinned American leadership.

And as President Eisenhower said, we need you to constantly update and develop our AI doctrine in the years ahead.

It will be hard. It will require constant thinking, constant rethinking, constant innovation, constant collaboration, and constant leadership. But with the past as our proof, I know that everyone in this room and all across our country is up for it. And together, we will win the competition for the 21st century.

So, thank you, and I look forward to the conversation. (Applause.)

The post Remarks by APNSA Jake Sullivan on AI and National Security appeared first on The White House.

On Monday, October 21st, President Biden held an East Room ceremony at the White House to present the 2022 and 2023 National Medals of Arts and the 2022 and 2023 National Humanities Medals.

The National Medal of Arts is the highest award given to artists, arts patrons, and groups by the United States Government and honors exemplary individuals and organizations that have advanced the arts in America and offered inspiration to others through their distinguished achievement, support, or patronage. The National Humanities Medal honors individuals or groups whose work has deepened the nation’s understanding of the humanities and broadened our citizens’ engagement with history, literature, languages, philosophy, and other humanities subjects.

Below are the citations presented to the 2022 and 2023 medal recipients:

National Medal of Arts – Class of 2022

Ruth Asawa (Posthumously)

For groundbreaking modernism and championing art for everyone. From a family of Japanese immigrants separated in incarceration camps, Ruth Asawa emerged to become a renowned educator and artist, bringing her distinctive wire sculptures to the Nation’s museums, homes, and classrooms, and leaving a legacy as powerful and profound as her portfolio.

Randy A. Batista

For focusing the lens on human nature. Born in Tampa, Florida, to Italian and Cuban immigrants and raised on both sides of the Straits of Florida, Randy Batista is known as the people’s photographer. With the camera as his sixth sense of deep empathy, he captures people’s pain and challenges us to respect their inherent dignity.

Clyde Butcher

For focusing the lens on Mother Nature. From humble beginnings as a self-taught photographer, Clyde Butcher is considered America’s most acclaimed landscape photographer today. From the Rocky Mountains to the Everglades, and countless pristine places in between, his images inspire and challenge us to respect and defend our natural wonders.

Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum

For cataloging one of the Nation’s great homegrown art forms. As the world’s largest repository of country music history, in the country music capital of Nashville, Tennessee, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum preserves history, honors giants of the genre, and inspires future generations to write their own songs about the American story.

Melissa “Missy” Elliott

For shattering glass ceilings with timeless beats. From a child singing in the church choir to becoming a best-selling female rapper and pioneering hip-hop icon, Missy Elliott’s genre-defying music and rhymes have elevated an industry into a global powerhouse and inspired generations to push the sound and movement of America.

Leonardo “Flaco” Jiménez

For harnessing heritage to enrich American music. The son of a musical family in Texas, Flaco Jiménez mastered the accordion and Spanglish lyrics as a trailblazer of Conjunto. Blending Norteño, Tex Mex, and Tejano music with the Blues, Rock n’ Roll, and Pop Music, he sings the soul of America’s Southwest.

Eva Longoria

For recognizing the strength of our diversity and the full talents of our Nation. Actor, producer, director, and proud Mexican American, Eva Longoria has broken barriers on screen and uses her power to lift up Latino voices all across American life — challenging stereotypes and instilling Latino pride in our Nation.

Idina Menzel

For magical songs that lift our spirits and stir our souls. From Broadway stages to movie screens, Idina Menzel’s powerful voice has sold out shows, topped Billboard charts, and above all, empowered millions of Americans of all ages and backgrounds to be strong, use their voice, and lead with their hearts.

Herbert I. Ohta

For redefining ukulele music as a deeply moving American sound. The Hawaiian son of Japanese immigrants, Herb Ohta learned his first chords as a child and played through his service as a United States Marine. A musical innovator and mentor, he has bridged cultures and genres, spreading the peace and hope of aloha spirit.

Bruce Sagan

For seeking the truth as a true public citizen. A Chicago, Illinois, journalism legend and lifelong supporter of the performing arts, Bruce Sagan’s seven decades of leadership and stewardship in building, protecting, and uplifting local newspapers, voices, artists, and dancers have inspired his beloved city and enriched the tapestry of American life and culture.

Carrie Mae Weems

For capturing the resilience and dignity of Black America and our deeper humanity.

Over three decades at the forefront of American expression, Carrie Mae Weems has honed her craft as a renowned artist whose photography, film, video, and art confront hard truths about power and prejudice, while celebrating the indomitable human spirit.

National Medal of Arts – Class of 2023

Mark Bradford

For revealing the full history of the Nation through groundbreaking art. Inspired by the diverse cultures of Southern California, Mark Bradford’s paper-on-canvas storytelling reveals the interwoven hopes, sorrows, and joys of communities of color, with each layer challenging convention, shining light, and reminding us all of the full potential of America.

Ken Burns

For documenting the hope and history of our Nation. From his home in rural New Hampshire and deep from his imagination, Ken Burns´ pioneering documentaries of diverse people, places, and histories have shaped our understanding of the American experience, and defined him as one of the most respected filmmakers of our time.

Bruce Cohen

For championing the arts to express our highest ideals of freedom, justice, and equality.

An entertainment industry icon ahead of his time, Bruce Cohen has produced our biggest moments on screen and stage by lifting up people and stories that need to be seen and heard, making real the promise of America for all Americans.

Alex Katz

For conjuring an enduring portrait of America. Born in Brooklyn, New York, to Russian immigrants, Alex Katz is among the most prolific and distinctive artists in our history. With a ferocious work ethic and visionary style, he continues to condense the complexities of everyday life into iconic faces and landscapes that reveal the essence of who we are as Americans.

Jo Carole Lauder

For devoted support of the arts, culture, and civic causes in America. A renowned philanthropist leading an array of causes — from supporting the White House Historical Association to refurbishing and preserving United States embassies abroad to inspiring participation in Jewish life worldwide —Jo Carole Lauder channels her creative talents to beautify the spirit of our Nation.

Spike Lee

For revolutionizing American cinema and culture. One of the most thought-provoking filmmakers of our time, Spike Lee honors his Brooklyn, New York, roots by daring to capture the depth of the Black experience and lifting up Black culture on the world stage through vibrant films and courtside pride that shapes our Nation’s collective conscience.

Queen Latifah

For leading the Nation as a champion of women’s empowerment. A natural storyteller and one of the first ladies of hip-hop, Queen Latifah breaks the mold for women in entertainment — rapping about overcoming loss and abuse of power to exuding cool and confidence as a critically-acclaimed actor and activist, showing how infinite love is the only hope for unity.

Selena Quintanilla (Posthumously)

For cementing Tejano music into the heart of the Nation. The youngest of the Quintanilla music family, Selena brought Latin music to the masses as the Queen of Tejano music and one of the most celebrated entertainers in our history. Her young life was tragically cut short, but her voice and spirit endure for the ages.

Steven Spielberg

For filmmaking that entertains, educates, and inspires. Growing up moved by the power of films, Steven Spielberg is considered one of the greatest filmmakers ever, using his gift of storytelling to stretch our imaginations, confront the horrors of history, and inspire us to be the characters of our Nation and the world’s future — full of courage, honor, and dignity.

National Humanities Medal – Class of 2022

Wallis Annenberg

For transforming philanthropy in our Nation. The daughter of a groundbreaking media family in Los Angeles, California, Wallis Annenberg is a visionary giver and innovator who has donated to thousands of organizations in the arts, education, environment, medical research, social justice, and more — transforming countless lives by advancing, healing, and inspiring communities across America.

Appalshop

For amplifying the voices of Appalachia. Located in Kentucky’s Appalachian Mountains for 50 years, Appalshop is home to the world’s largest collection of creative work on Appalachia — a hub for new generations of artists, filmmakers, musicians, and playwrights to share their stories of pride and promise of their American roots.

Joy Harjo

For shining the light on the sacred traditions of Native American storytelling. A member of the Muscogee Nation in Oklahoma, and the first Native American Poet Laureate of the United States, Joy Harjo’s distinguished poetry and award-winning music about art, justice, and healing honors ancestral generations and empowers those that follow.

Robin Harris

For educating our youngest students to be dreamers and doers of our Nation. As an elementary school teacher and trailblazing principal in Massachusetts, Robin Harris is redefining K-12 education to empower students, embrace parents, and extend learning and leadership beyond the walls of the classroom and into the free spirit of the mind.

Juan Felipe Herrera

For poeticism that captures America’s imagination. The son of California farm workers, Juan Felipe Herrera takes readers across countries and cultures, genres, and disciplines as a towering figure in Chicano poetry and the first Latino Poet Laureate of the United States, using the power of his pen to give life to our identities and common bonds.

Robert Martin

For dedicating his career to the academic achievement of Native American students. A member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, Dr. Robert Martin has led Tribal colleges and launched Indian Studies programs at institutions of higher learning across the country to strengthen Tribal self-determination and empower future Native American leaders.

Jon Meacham

For drawing wisdom from history to shape the future of America. A proud son of Tennessee and celebrated historian and biographer, Jon Meacham chronicles the journey of America with an unmatched mix of historical context, parables from Scripture, and unyielding faith in the goodness of the American people that makes us a truly great Nation.

Ruth J. Simmons

For pioneering equity in our Nation’s higher education system. One of twelve children born into a sharecropper family in Texas, Dr. Ruth Simmons blazed trails in academia as a distinguished professor of literature and the first African American woman president of an Ivy League institution—showing how an education makes one free and fearless.

Pauline Yu

For a lifetime of advocacy for the humanities in America. The daughter of Chinese immigrants raised in Rochester, New York, Dr. Pauline Yu is a respected scholar of Chinese poetry and renowned advocate for the humanities, who has deepened cross-cultural understanding through language and literature, and advanced core democratic values of truth, reason, and free inquiry.

National Humanities Medal – Class of 2023

Anthony Bourdain (Posthumously)

For making food a gateway to understanding the world and one another. A beloved chef, writer, and social commentator, Anthony Bourdain is remembered across the globe for his empathy, openness, and humor—approaching every table with equal reverence for the people it convened, and embodying the best of American curiosity and exploration.

LeVar Burton

For imagining a more optimistic and enlightened America for everyone. A celebrated actor, advocate, and storyteller, LeVar Burton confronted the trauma of history, took us to the depths of space, and transformed literacy in America by sharing the gift of reading with generations of children, unlocking our imaginations and spirit of discovery.

Roz Chast

For healing a Nation with humor and observation. One of the most prolific cartoonists of our time, Roz Chast has wielded pen and watercolor for over 45 years to make ordinary things extraordinary, blaze a trail for women in her field, and define an era of American wit and wisdom.

Nicolás Kanellos

For amplifying Hispanic voices in America’s past, present, and future. Raised between Puerto Rico and Jersey City, New Jersey, Nicolás Kanellos channeled a childhood love for Spanish literature into a distinguished literary career in Houston, Texas, leading the Nation’s oldest and largest Hispanic publishing house and elevating the diversity of American literature.

Robin Wall Kimmerer

For sharing Indigenous wisdom in America’s natural sciences. A citizen of Potawatomi Nation and a renowned scientist and writer, Robin Wall Kimmerer has transformed our understanding of environmental science by incorporating Indigenous knowledge into college curriculum and critical efforts to heal a climate in crisis, offering new hope for generations to come.

Mellon Foundation

For charting an unparalleled course for the arts and humanities in America. For over 50 years, the Mellon Foundation has been the trusted benefactor for thousands of people and organizations harnessing the power of ideas and imagination to advance social justice and freedom, and defend the arts as essential to American democracy.

Dawn Porter

For documenting the good, the bad, and the truth of our Nation. Beginning her career as a lawyer, Dawn Porter pursued filmmaking to showcase the vibrancy of Black culture and history. By chronicling the lives of America’s everyday heroes and legendary leaders, her award-winning documentaries remind us that the work of perfecting our Union is essential and never-ending.

Aaron Sorkin

For trademark storytelling in America. Drawn to theatre at a young age, Aaron Sorkin found his calling as a groundbreaking writer and creator, scripting and show-running iconic films and television shows that inspired an entire generation to believe in the possibilities of our Nation and walk, talk, and answer “what’s next?”

Darren Walker

For showing us hope is the oxygen of democracy. With boundless passion and enduring purpose, Darren Walker harnesses empathy from his modest upbringing in the South to advance the most ambitious philanthropic goals of our Nation, as a visionary leader whose commitment to improving the human condition has fortified justice and good governance in America and around the world.

Rosita Worl

For embodying the resilient community spirit of Native American culture. As a child in Alaska, Dr. Rosita Worl survived the brutalities of Federal Indian boarding school that took her from her family and Nation. As an anthropologist and advocate, she has since spent her life pushing to right wrongs and build a new era of understanding and healing.

Additional information

National Endowment for the Arts

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), established by Congress in 1965, is an independent Federal agency that is the largest public funder of the arts and arts education in communities nationwide and a catalyst of public and private support for the arts. The NEA’s mission is based on an abiding conviction that the arts play an integral role in our national life and public discourse. The arts strengthen and promote the well-being and resilience of people and communities. By advancing equitable opportunities for arts participation and practice, the NEA fosters and sustains an environment in which the arts belong to and benefit everyone in the United States.

National Endowment for the Humanities

Created in 1965 as an independent Federal agency, the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) supports learning in history, literature, philosophy, and other humanities subjects by funding selected, peer-reviewed proposals from around the Nation that support research in the humanities, foster education, nurture humanities infrastructure, and expand the reach of the humanities. Since 1965, NEH has awarded over six billion dollars to cultural institutions, individual scholars, and communities throughout the United States. The Endowment serves and strengthens the country by bringing high-quality historical and cultural experiences to large and diverse audiences in all 50 States, the District of Columbia, and five territories; providing opportunities for lifelong learning, expanding access to cultural and educational resources, and preserving the human stories that connect all Americans.

The President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities

The President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities (PCAH) was founded in 1982 by Executive Order to advise the President on cultural policy. The First Lady has historically served as Honorary Chair of the Committee, which is composed of members appointed by the President. Private committee members include prominent artists, scholars, and philanthropists who have demonstrated a serious commitment to the arts and humanities. Public members represent the heads of key Federal agencies with a role in culture, including the Chairs of the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities, the Librarian of Congress, the Secretary of the Smithsonian, and the Director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services among others. The PCAH facilitates public-private partnerships, promotes interagency cooperation, and proposes programs that enhance arts, humanities, museums, and library services across the country. Over the past 40 years, PCAH has catalyzed Federal programs and played a vital role in the advancement of arts and humanities education, cultural diplomacy, and the creative economy.

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The post 2022 and 2023 National Medal of Arts and National Humanities Medal Citations appeared first on The White House.

On Monday, October 21st, President Biden held an East Room ceremony at the White House to present the 2022 and 2023 National Medals of Arts and the 2022 and 2023 National Humanities Medals.

The National Medal of Arts is the highest award given to artists, arts patrons, and groups by the United States Government and honors exemplary individuals and organizations that have advanced the arts in America and offered inspiration to others through their distinguished achievement, support, or patronage. The National Humanities Medal honors individuals or groups whose work has deepened the nation’s understanding of the humanities and broadened our citizens’ engagement with history, literature, languages, philosophy, and other humanities subjects.

Below are the citations presented to the 2022 and 2023 medal recipients:

National Medal of Arts – Class of 2022

Ruth Asawa (Posthumously)

For groundbreaking modernism and championing art for everyone. From a family of Japanese immigrants separated in incarceration camps, Ruth Asawa emerged to become a renowned educator and artist, bringing her distinctive wire sculptures to the Nation’s museums, homes, and classrooms, and leaving a legacy as powerful and profound as her portfolio.

Randy A. Batista

For focusing the lens on human nature. Born in Tampa, Florida, to Italian and Cuban immigrants and raised on both sides of the Straits of Florida, Randy Batista is known as the people’s photographer. With the camera as his sixth sense of deep empathy, he captures people’s pain and challenges us to respect their inherent dignity.

Clyde Butcher

For focusing the lens on Mother Nature. From humble beginnings as a self-taught photographer, Clyde Butcher is considered America’s most acclaimed landscape photographer today. From the Rocky Mountains to the Everglades, and countless pristine places in between, his images inspire and challenge us to respect and defend our natural wonders.

Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum

For cataloging one of the Nation’s great homegrown art forms. As the world’s largest repository of country music history, in the country music capital of Nashville, Tennessee, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum preserves history, honors giants of the genre, and inspires future generations to write their own songs about the American story.

Melissa “Missy” Elliott

For shattering glass ceilings with timeless beats. From a child singing in the church choir to becoming a best-selling female rapper and pioneering hip-hop icon, Missy Elliott’s genre-defying music and rhymes have elevated an industry into a global powerhouse and inspired generations to push the sound and movement of America.

Leonardo “Flaco” Jiménez

For harnessing heritage to enrich American music. The son of a musical family in Texas, Flaco Jiménez mastered the accordion and Spanglish lyrics as a trailblazer of Conjunto. Blending Norteño, Tex Mex, and Tejano music with the Blues, Rock n’ Roll, and Pop Music, he sings the soul of America’s Southwest.

Eva Longoria

For recognizing the strength of our diversity and the full talents of our Nation. Actor, producer, director, and proud Mexican American, Eva Longoria has broken barriers on screen and uses her power to lift up Latino voices all across American life — challenging stereotypes and instilling Latino pride in our Nation.

Idina Menzel

For magical songs that lift our spirits and stir our souls. From Broadway stages to movie screens, Idina Menzel’s powerful voice has sold out shows, topped Billboard charts, and above all, empowered millions of Americans of all ages and backgrounds to be strong, use their voice, and lead with their hearts.

Herbert I. Ohta

For redefining ukulele music as a deeply moving American sound. The Hawaiian son of Japanese immigrants, Herb Ohta learned his first chords as a child and played through his service as a United States Marine. A musical innovator and mentor, he has bridged cultures and genres, spreading the peace and hope of aloha spirit.

Bruce Sagan

For seeking the truth as a true public citizen. A Chicago, Illinois, journalism legend and lifelong supporter of the performing arts, Bruce Sagan’s seven decades of leadership and stewardship in building, protecting, and uplifting local newspapers, voices, artists, and dancers have inspired his beloved city and enriched the tapestry of American life and culture.

Carrie Mae Weems

For capturing the resilience and dignity of Black America and our deeper humanity.

Over three decades at the forefront of American expression, Carrie Mae Weems has honed her craft as a renowned artist whose photography, film, video, and art confront hard truths about power and prejudice, while celebrating the indomitable human spirit.

National Medal of Arts – Class of 2023

Mark Bradford

For revealing the full history of the Nation through groundbreaking art. Inspired by the diverse cultures of Southern California, Mark Bradford’s paper-on-canvas storytelling reveals the interwoven hopes, sorrows, and joys of communities of color, with each layer challenging convention, shining light, and reminding us all of the full potential of America.

Ken Burns

For documenting the hope and history of our Nation. From his home in rural New Hampshire and deep from his imagination, Ken Burns´ pioneering documentaries of diverse people, places, and histories have shaped our understanding of the American experience, and defined him as one of the most respected filmmakers of our time.

Bruce Cohen

For championing the arts to express our highest ideals of freedom, justice, and equality.

An entertainment industry icon ahead of his time, Bruce Cohen has produced our biggest moments on screen and stage by lifting up people and stories that need to be seen and heard, making real the promise of America for all Americans.

Alex Katz

For conjuring an enduring portrait of America. Born in Brooklyn, New York, to Russian immigrants, Alex Katz is among the most prolific and distinctive artists in our history. With a ferocious work ethic and visionary style, he continues to condense the complexities of everyday life into iconic faces and landscapes that reveal the essence of who we are as Americans.

Jo Carole Lauder

For devoted support of the arts, culture, and civic causes in America. A renowned philanthropist leading an array of causes — from supporting the White House Historical Association to refurbishing and preserving United States embassies abroad to inspiring participation in Jewish life worldwide —Jo Carole Lauder channels her creative talents to beautify the spirit of our Nation.

Spike Lee

For revolutionizing American cinema and culture. One of the most thought-provoking filmmakers of our time, Spike Lee honors his Brooklyn, New York, roots by daring to capture the depth of the Black experience and lifting up Black culture on the world stage through vibrant films and courtside pride that shapes our Nation’s collective conscience.

Queen Latifah

For leading the Nation as a champion of women’s empowerment. A natural storyteller and one of the first ladies of hip-hop, Queen Latifah breaks the mold for women in entertainment — rapping about overcoming loss and abuse of power to exuding cool and confidence as a critically-acclaimed actor and activist, showing how infinite love is the only hope for unity.

Selena Quintanilla (Posthumously)

For cementing Tejano music into the heart of the Nation. The youngest of the Quintanilla music family, Selena brought Latin music to the masses as the Queen of Tejano music and one of the most celebrated entertainers in our history. Her young life was tragically cut short, but her voice and spirit endure for the ages.

Steven Spielberg

For filmmaking that entertains, educates, and inspires. Growing up moved by the power of films, Steven Spielberg is considered one of the greatest filmmakers ever, using his gift of storytelling to stretch our imaginations, confront the horrors of history, and inspire us to be the characters of our Nation and the world’s future — full of courage, honor, and dignity.

National Humanities Medal – Class of 2022

Wallis Annenberg

For transforming philanthropy in our Nation. The daughter of a groundbreaking media family in Los Angeles, California, Wallis Annenberg is a visionary giver and innovator who has donated to thousands of organizations in the arts, education, environment, medical research, social justice, and more — transforming countless lives by advancing, healing, and inspiring communities across America.

Appalshop

For amplifying the voices of Appalachia. Located in Kentucky’s Appalachian Mountains for 50 years, Appalshop is home to the world’s largest collection of creative work on Appalachia — a hub for new generations of artists, filmmakers, musicians, and playwrights to share their stories of pride and promise of their American roots.

Joy Harjo

For shining the light on the sacred traditions of Native American storytelling. A member of the Muscogee Nation in Oklahoma, and the first Native American Poet Laureate of the United States, Joy Harjo’s distinguished poetry and award-winning music about art, justice, and healing honors ancestral generations and empowers those that follow.

Robin Harris

For educating our youngest students to be dreamers and doers of our Nation. As an elementary school teacher and trailblazing principal in Massachusetts, Robin Harris is redefining K-12 education to empower students, embrace parents, and extend learning and leadership beyond the walls of the classroom and into the free spirit of the mind.

Juan Felipe Herrera

For poeticism that captures America’s imagination. The son of California farm workers, Juan Felipe Herrera takes readers across countries and cultures, genres, and disciplines as a towering figure in Chicano poetry and the first Latino Poet Laureate of the United States, using the power of his pen to give life to our identities and common bonds.

Robert Martin

For dedicating his career to the academic achievement of Native American students. A member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, Dr. Robert Martin has led Tribal colleges and launched Indian Studies programs at institutions of higher learning across the country to strengthen Tribal self-determination and empower future Native American leaders.

Jon Meacham

For drawing wisdom from history to shape the future of America. A proud son of Tennessee and celebrated historian and biographer, Jon Meacham chronicles the journey of America with an unmatched mix of historical context, parables from Scripture, and unyielding faith in the goodness of the American people that makes us a truly great Nation.

Ruth J. Simmons

For pioneering equity in our Nation’s higher education system. One of twelve children born into a sharecropper family in Texas, Dr. Ruth Simmons blazed trails in academia as a distinguished professor of literature and the first African American woman president of an Ivy League institution—showing how an education makes one free and fearless.

Pauline Yu

For a lifetime of advocacy for the humanities in America. The daughter of Chinese immigrants raised in Rochester, New York, Dr. Pauline Yu is a respected scholar of Chinese poetry and renowned advocate for the humanities, who has deepened cross-cultural understanding through language and literature, and advanced core democratic values of truth, reason, and free inquiry.

National Humanities Medal – Class of 2023

Anthony Bourdain (Posthumously)

For making food a gateway to understanding the world and one another. A beloved chef, writer, and social commentator, Anthony Bourdain is remembered across the globe for his empathy, openness, and humor—approaching every table with equal reverence for the people it convened, and embodying the best of American curiosity and exploration.

LeVar Burton

For imagining a more optimistic and enlightened America for everyone. A celebrated actor, advocate, and storyteller, LeVar Burton confronted the trauma of history, took us to the depths of space, and transformed literacy in America by sharing the gift of reading with generations of children, unlocking our imaginations and spirit of discovery.

Roz Chast

For healing a Nation with humor and observation. One of the most prolific cartoonists of our time, Roz Chast has wielded pen and watercolor for over 45 years to make ordinary things extraordinary, blaze a trail for women in her field, and define an era of American wit and wisdom.

Nicolás Kanellos

For amplifying Hispanic voices in America’s past, present, and future. Raised between Puerto Rico and Jersey City, New Jersey, Nicolás Kanellos channeled a childhood love for Spanish literature into a distinguished literary career in Houston, Texas, leading the Nation’s oldest and largest Hispanic publishing house and elevating the diversity of American literature.

Robin Wall Kimmerer

For sharing Indigenous wisdom in America’s natural sciences. A citizen of Potawatomi Nation and a renowned scientist and writer, Robin Wall Kimmerer has transformed our understanding of environmental science by incorporating Indigenous knowledge into college curriculum and critical efforts to heal a climate in crisis, offering new hope for generations to come.

Mellon Foundation

For charting an unparalleled course for the arts and humanities in America. For over 50 years, the Mellon Foundation has been the trusted benefactor for thousands of people and organizations harnessing the power of ideas and imagination to advance social justice and freedom, and defend the arts as essential to American democracy.

Dawn Porter

For documenting the good, the bad, and the truth of our Nation. Beginning her career as a lawyer, Dawn Porter pursued filmmaking to showcase the vibrancy of Black culture and history. By chronicling the lives of America’s everyday heroes and legendary leaders, her award-winning documentaries remind us that the work of perfecting our Union is essential and never-ending.

Aaron Sorkin

For trademark storytelling in America. Drawn to theatre at a young age, Aaron Sorkin found his calling as a groundbreaking writer and creator, scripting and show-running iconic films and television shows that inspired an entire generation to believe in the possibilities of our Nation and walk, talk, and answer “what’s next?”

Darren Walker

For showing us hope is the oxygen of democracy. With boundless passion and enduring purpose, Darren Walker harnesses empathy from his modest upbringing in the South to advance the most ambitious philanthropic goals of our Nation, as a visionary leader whose commitment to improving the human condition has fortified justice and good governance in America and around the world.

Rosita Worl

For embodying the resilient community spirit of Native American culture. As a child in Alaska, Dr. Rosita Worl survived the brutalities of Federal Indian boarding school that took her from her family and Nation. As an anthropologist and advocate, she has since spent her life pushing to right wrongs and build a new era of understanding and healing.

Additional information

National Endowment for the Arts

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), established by Congress in 1965, is an independent Federal agency that is the largest public funder of the arts and arts education in communities nationwide and a catalyst of public and private support for the arts. The NEA’s mission is based on an abiding conviction that the arts play an integral role in our national life and public discourse. The arts strengthen and promote the well-being and resilience of people and communities. By advancing equitable opportunities for arts participation and practice, the NEA fosters and sustains an environment in which the arts belong to and benefit everyone in the United States.

National Endowment for the Humanities

Created in 1965 as an independent Federal agency, the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) supports learning in history, literature, philosophy, and other humanities subjects by funding selected, peer-reviewed proposals from around the Nation that support research in the humanities, foster education, nurture humanities infrastructure, and expand the reach of the humanities. Since 1965, NEH has awarded over six billion dollars to cultural institutions, individual scholars, and communities throughout the United States. The Endowment serves and strengthens the country by bringing high-quality historical and cultural experiences to large and diverse audiences in all 50 States, the District of Columbia, and five territories; providing opportunities for lifelong learning, expanding access to cultural and educational resources, and preserving the human stories that connect all Americans.

The President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities

The President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities (PCAH) was founded in 1982 by Executive Order to advise the President on cultural policy. The First Lady has historically served as Honorary Chair of the Committee, which is composed of members appointed by the President. Private committee members include prominent artists, scholars, and philanthropists who have demonstrated a serious commitment to the arts and humanities. Public members represent the heads of key Federal agencies with a role in culture, including the Chairs of the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities, the Librarian of Congress, the Secretary of the Smithsonian, and the Director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services among others. The PCAH facilitates public-private partnerships, promotes interagency cooperation, and proposes programs that enhance arts, humanities, museums, and library services across the country. Over the past 40 years, PCAH has catalyzed Federal programs and played a vital role in the advancement of arts and humanities education, cultural diplomacy, and the creative economy.

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The post 2022 and 2023 National Medal of Arts and National Humanities Medal Citations appeared first on The White House.

The United States is proudly a leader and core strategic partner in the world’s quest to eradicate polio and because of our efforts, the world has a historic window of opportunity to end polio for good. Today, we reaffirm our commitment to secure a polio-free future.

Through our leadership in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, our sustained commitment to ending polio has resulted in 20 million people walking today who otherwise could have been paralyzed. We have reduced the number of children paralyzed by 99.9 percent and vaccinated over 3 billion children against polio. However, polio persists in some of the world’s most challenging environments.

If high vaccination rates against polio are not achieved and maintained, including amidst instability, conflict, and misinformation mounting around the world, the risk of polio outbreaks will rise even in places long considered polio-free, like we’ve recently seen in New York, London, and Ukraine as well as in Gaza, where all parties must ensure the safe and effective implementation of the polio vaccination campaign that is urgently needed throughout Gaza.

In order to achieve the goal of eradicating polio, the world must rally together. Delivering a polio-free world with stronger health systems and communities is not only the right thing to do for humanity, but a smart investment in the health of future generations and our collective global health security. Together, we can make it a reality.

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The post Statement from President Joe Biden on World Polio Day appeared first on The White House.

The United States is proudly a leader and core strategic partner in the world’s quest to eradicate polio and because of our efforts, the world has a historic window of opportunity to end polio for good. Today, we reaffirm our commitment to secure a polio-free future.

Through our leadership in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, our sustained commitment to ending polio has resulted in 20 million people walking today who otherwise could have been paralyzed. We have reduced the number of children paralyzed by 99.9 percent and vaccinated over 3 billion children against polio. However, polio persists in some of the world’s most challenging environments.

If high vaccination rates against polio are not achieved and maintained, including amidst instability, conflict, and misinformation mounting around the world, the risk of polio outbreaks will rise even in places long considered polio-free, like we’ve recently seen in New York, London, and Ukraine as well as in Gaza, where all parties must ensure the safe and effective implementation of the polio vaccination campaign that is urgently needed throughout Gaza.

In order to achieve the goal of eradicating polio, the world must rally together. Delivering a polio-free world with stronger health systems and communities is not only the right thing to do for humanity, but a smart investment in the health of future generations and our collective global health security. Together, we can make it a reality.

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The post Statement from President Joe Biden on World Polio Day appeared first on The White House.

Warwick Hotel Rittenhouse Square Philadelphia
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

1:27 P.M. EDT

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Oh, hi, guys. 

     Q    Hello.

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Okay.  Good morning — or af- —

     Q    Good afternoon.

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  — afternoon.  Good afternoon.  Good afternoon.

Well, let me start by saying I’m really very proud to announce that we’ve had some endorsements this morning, as we’ve been rolling out endorsements, by two leaders in the Republican Party: the mayor of Waukesha and then, of course, former Representative Fred Upton.

And this continues to be, I think, evidence of the fact that people who have been leaders in our country, regardless of their political party, understand what’s at stake.  And they are weighing in — courageously, in many cases — in support of what we need to have, which is a president of the United States who understands the obligation to uphold the Constitution of the United States and our democracy.

As for last night, yet again, Trump not showing up, refused to be a part of a CNN debate.  And clearly, his staff has been saying he’s exhausted.  And the sad part about that is he’s trying to be president of the United States, probably the toughest job in the world, and he’s exhausted.

I said last night what I mean, which is the American people are being presented with a very serious decision, and it includes what we must understand will happen, starting on January 20th, in this choice. 

Either you have the choice of a Donald Trump, who will sit in the Oval Office stewing, plotting revenge, retribution, writing out his enemies list, or what I will be doing, which is responding to folks like the folks last night with a to-do list, understanding the need to work on lifting up the American people, whether it be through the issue of grocery prices and bringing them down or investing in our economy, investing in our small businesses, investing in our families.

Happy to take any questions.

     Q    Madam Vice President, you will be back in Philadelphia with members of your team on Monday, former President Barack Obama, as well as Bruce Springsteen.

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Yes.

     Q    Do you — can you tell us where you — that may be? 

And secondly, any other, as we would say, heavy hitters in your campaign planning to come to Philadelphia in the lead-up to Election Day?

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Well, I’m very honored to have the support of former President Obama.  As you know, he’s been on the campaign trail and has been really wonderful and extraordinary in terms of the time and effort that he’s putting into our campaign.  And people like Bruce Springsteen, to have their support — and, of course, he is an American icon — I think it just shows the breadth and depth of the support that we have and also the enthusiasm that a lot of people are bringing to the campaign and feel about our campaign.

Q    Any other big names we can share?

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  I have nothing to report at this moment.  (Laughs.)

Q    (Inaudible.)

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Stay tuned, however.

Q    Vice President, what do you make of the gender gap in this election?  Why do you think you have stronger support among women than the former president?

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Well, I have to be honest with you, it’s not what I see in terms of my rallies, in terms of the interactions I’m having with people in communities and — and on the ground.  What I am seeing is e- — in equal measure, men and women talking about their concerns about the future of our democracy; talking about the fact that they want a president who leads with optimism and takes on the challenges that we face, whether it be grocery prices or investing in small businesses or homeownership. 

So, I’m not actually seeing that kind of disparity, and I intend to be a president for all Americans.  And that includes paying attention, yes, to a fundamental freedom that has been taken away because of Donald Trump — the freedom of a woman to make decisions about her own body — and, in equal measure, to prioritize the economic needs of individuals and families in America and what we also must do in terms of upholding our strength and standing on the global stage.

Q    Madam Vice President —

Q    Madam Vice President —

THE VICE PRESIDENT:   You all sort that out, okay?  (Laughter.)

Q    How are you going to vote on Prop 36 in California? You are a California voter.  Do California and other states need to punish drug and theft crimes more harshly?

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  So, I have not yet voted, and I have not yet had the chance to read through the ballot.  I will keep you posted on that.

AIDE:  We have time for one more question.

Q    Madam Vice President, this topic was brought up last night, but will construction of a southern border wall continue in your administration?

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  I will tell you that my highest priority is to put the resources into ensuring that our border is secure, which is why I’ve been very clear: I’m going to bring back up, as president, that bipartisan border security bill and make sure that it is brought to my desk so I can sign it into law. 

The biggest issue that we have right now is that Donald Trump has stood in the way of what would have been a proven part of the solution to the bigger problem, which is that we have a broken immigration system in America, and we need to fix it.  And we have the tools at hand, but we have on the other side of this election, Donald Trump, who would prefer to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem. 

I intend to fix the problem in a way that is just about practical solutions that are within our arms reach if we have the commitment to do it. 

Okay?  Thank you.

The post Remarks by Vice President Harris in Press Gaggle | Philadelphia, PA appeared first on The White House.

Warwick Hotel Rittenhouse Square Philadelphia
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

1:27 P.M. EDT

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Oh, hi, guys. 

     Q    Hello.

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Okay.  Good morning — or af- —

     Q    Good afternoon.

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  — afternoon.  Good afternoon.  Good afternoon.

Well, let me start by saying I’m really very proud to announce that we’ve had some endorsements this morning, as we’ve been rolling out endorsements, by two leaders in the Republican Party: the mayor of Waukesha and then, of course, former Representative Fred Upton.

And this continues to be, I think, evidence of the fact that people who have been leaders in our country, regardless of their political party, understand what’s at stake.  And they are weighing in — courageously, in many cases — in support of what we need to have, which is a president of the United States who understands the obligation to uphold the Constitution of the United States and our democracy.

As for last night, yet again, Trump not showing up, refused to be a part of a CNN debate.  And clearly, his staff has been saying he’s exhausted.  And the sad part about that is he’s trying to be president of the United States, probably the toughest job in the world, and he’s exhausted.

I said last night what I mean, which is the American people are being presented with a very serious decision, and it includes what we must understand will happen, starting on January 20th, in this choice. 

Either you have the choice of a Donald Trump, who will sit in the Oval Office stewing, plotting revenge, retribution, writing out his enemies list, or what I will be doing, which is responding to folks like the folks last night with a to-do list, understanding the need to work on lifting up the American people, whether it be through the issue of grocery prices and bringing them down or investing in our economy, investing in our small businesses, investing in our families.

Happy to take any questions.

     Q    Madam Vice President, you will be back in Philadelphia with members of your team on Monday, former President Barack Obama, as well as Bruce Springsteen.

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Yes.

     Q    Do you — can you tell us where you — that may be? 

And secondly, any other, as we would say, heavy hitters in your campaign planning to come to Philadelphia in the lead-up to Election Day?

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Well, I’m very honored to have the support of former President Obama.  As you know, he’s been on the campaign trail and has been really wonderful and extraordinary in terms of the time and effort that he’s putting into our campaign.  And people like Bruce Springsteen, to have their support — and, of course, he is an American icon — I think it just shows the breadth and depth of the support that we have and also the enthusiasm that a lot of people are bringing to the campaign and feel about our campaign.

Q    Any other big names we can share?

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  I have nothing to report at this moment.  (Laughs.)

Q    (Inaudible.)

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Stay tuned, however.

Q    Vice President, what do you make of the gender gap in this election?  Why do you think you have stronger support among women than the former president?

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Well, I have to be honest with you, it’s not what I see in terms of my rallies, in terms of the interactions I’m having with people in communities and — and on the ground.  What I am seeing is e- — in equal measure, men and women talking about their concerns about the future of our democracy; talking about the fact that they want a president who leads with optimism and takes on the challenges that we face, whether it be grocery prices or investing in small businesses or homeownership. 

So, I’m not actually seeing that kind of disparity, and I intend to be a president for all Americans.  And that includes paying attention, yes, to a fundamental freedom that has been taken away because of Donald Trump — the freedom of a woman to make decisions about her own body — and, in equal measure, to prioritize the economic needs of individuals and families in America and what we also must do in terms of upholding our strength and standing on the global stage.

Q    Madam Vice President —

Q    Madam Vice President —

THE VICE PRESIDENT:   You all sort that out, okay?  (Laughter.)

Q    How are you going to vote on Prop 36 in California? You are a California voter.  Do California and other states need to punish drug and theft crimes more harshly?

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  So, I have not yet voted, and I have not yet had the chance to read through the ballot.  I will keep you posted on that.

AIDE:  We have time for one more question.

Q    Madam Vice President, this topic was brought up last night, but will construction of a southern border wall continue in your administration?

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  I will tell you that my highest priority is to put the resources into ensuring that our border is secure, which is why I’ve been very clear: I’m going to bring back up, as president, that bipartisan border security bill and make sure that it is brought to my desk so I can sign it into law. 

The biggest issue that we have right now is that Donald Trump has stood in the way of what would have been a proven part of the solution to the bigger problem, which is that we have a broken immigration system in America, and we need to fix it.  And we have the tools at hand, but we have on the other side of this election, Donald Trump, who would prefer to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem. 

I intend to fix the problem in a way that is just about practical solutions that are within our arms reach if we have the commitment to do it. 

Okay?  Thank you.

The post Remarks by Vice President Harris in Press Gaggle | Philadelphia, PA appeared first on The White House.

Tomorrow, at the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona, President Biden will outline his record of transformative investment in Indian Country and relationships with Tribal Nations, advancing Tribal sovereignty and self-determination, respecting Native cultures, and protecting Indigenous sacred sites. 

President Biden and Vice President Harris have taken historic actions to support Indian Country through executive actions, historic investments, and strengthening government-to-government relationships. The President has issued three historic Executive Orders that reform federal funding to help live up to the promise of Tribal self-determination, improve public safety and criminal justice for Native Americans while targeting the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous people, and improve educational outcomes and career opportunities for Native American students by focusing on systemic barriers and increasing access to high-quality education. The President has also taken further executive action through two Presidential Memoranda on Tribal consultation, including his 2021 Memorandum on Tribal Consultation and Strengthening Nation-to-Nation Relationships and his 2022 Memorandum on Uniform Standards for Tribal Consultation.

This executive action builds on the historic investments President Biden has made in Indian Country, including:

• $32 billion in the American Rescue Plan, the largest direct federal investment in Tribal Nations in history.
• $13 billion in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to build high-speed internet, roads, bridges, public transit, and clean water sanitation infrastructure in Tribal communities.
• $700 million in the Inflation Reduction Act to invest in Native communities for climate resilience and adaptation programs, drought mitigation, home electrification, and clean energy development.
• Obligating billions of federal contract dollars—and significant percentages of agencies’ overall procurement dollars—to Native-owned or controlled businesses through the Buy Indian Act, a law that has been re-invigorated under the Biden-Harris Administration.

The Biden-Harris Administration has made honoring Tribal Nations and Indigenous Peoples central to our conservation agenda, including by restoring and designating multiple new national monuments that honor Tribal Nations by protecting sacred ancestral places and their historically and scientifically important features, designating the first Indigenous-focused national marine sanctuary, directing federal agencies to support First Foods including healthy and abundant native salmon and steelhead, signing over 200 new co-stewardship agreements with Tribes, issuing an updated Sacred Sites MOU and best practices, and implementing a first-of-its kind Indigenous Knowledge guidance.

The President has also sought to have an Administration that reflects the priorities of Indian Country by hiring over 80 Native appointees in historic positions, including the first Native American Cabinet Secretary with Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland and the first Native American Treasurer of the United States with Chief Lynn Malerba. In addition, the President followed through with his promise to reinstate the annual White House Tribal Nations Summit and the White House Council on Native American Affairs.

Dr. Biden has been a champion for Native communities. As First Lady, she has visited Native communities ten times, highlighting the Biden-Harris Administration’s historic investments in youth mental health, Native language revitalization, and infrastructure and economic development, and she has worked to improve access to cancer screening and cancer care for Native communities.

The President also believes that to usher in the next era of the Federal-Tribal relationships we need to fully acknowledge the harms of the past. That is why he is issuing a historic Presidential apology for the Federal Indian Boarding School era. For over 150 years, the federal government ran boarding schools that forcibly removed generations of Native children from their homes to boarding schools often far away. Native children at these schools endured physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, and, as detailed in the Federal Indian Boarding School Investigative Report by the Department of the Interior (DOI), at least 973 children died in these schools. The federally-run Indian boarding school system was designed to assimilate Native Americans by destroying Native culture, language, and identity through harsh militaristic and assimilationist methods.

In making this apology, the President acknowledges that we as a people who love our country must remember and teach our full history, even when it is painful. And we must learn from that history so that it is never repeated.

The Presidential apology builds on the Biden-Harris Administration’s extraordinary accomplishments working with Tribes and Native Communities:

Strengthening Tribal Self-Determination

• Executive Order 14112 on Reforming Federal Funding and Support for Tribal Nations to Better Embrace Our Trust Responsibilities and Promote the Next Era of Tribal Self-Determination (Dec. 2023): EO 14112 directs agencies to reform federal funding programs in a manner that reflects trust in Tribal priorities and deference to Tribal decision-making. The Executive Order directs the White House Council on Native American Affairs, the Office and Management and Budget, and the White House Domestic Policy Council to work across the Federal Government to measure the chronic shortfalls of existing federal funding for Tribes and develop recommendations for what additional funding and programming is necessary. 

Addressing Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons and Gender-Based Violence in Native Communities

• Signing an Executive Order to improve public safety and criminal justice and address the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous People (MMIP) by directing agencies to prioritize addressing this crisis and assessing what more they can do.
• Signed into law the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) Reauthorization Act of 2022, which expanded special Tribal criminal jurisdiction over non-Native perpetrators of sexual violence, child violence, stalking, assaults on Tribal law enforcement officers, and sex trafficking on Tribal lands, in addition to domestic and dating violence.
• Awarded $68 million in FY 2023 VAWA grants and more than $85 million in FY 2024 VAWA grants to support Native communities to provide services and promote justice for survivors.
• Established the Not Invisible Act Commission to improve the federal government’s efforts to address violent crime and the high rates of people reported missing in Native communities.

Historic Investments in Indian Country

• Historic investments in Tribal Nations, including $32 billion in the American Rescue Plan, the largest direct federal investment to Tribal Nations in history; $13 billion in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law; and $700 million in the Inflation Reduction Act.
• Through the President’s Justice40 Initiative, more than 500 federal programs, including programs funded and created through the President’s Investing in America agenda, are working to deliver benefits to disadvantaged communities that are marginalized by underinvestment and overburdened by pollution. All federally recognized Tribes and Tribal entities are recognized as disadvantaged for purposes of benefitting from the Justice40 Initiative. These investments are resulting in cleaner air and water, more affordable clean energy, good-paying jobs, and other benefits that Tribes are seeing and experiencing today and into the future.

Supporting Native-owned Businesses

• The Biden-Harris Administration has spent billions of federal contract dollars with Native-owned or controlled businesses through the Buy Indian Act, a law that authorizes the Department of the Interior and Indian Health Service (IHS) at the Department of Health and Human Services to have contract set-asides for Tribal and Native-owned businesses.
• Under the Biden-Harris Administration, Federal spending with Native firms has increased by $8.2B between FY20 and FY23. The Small Business Administration (SBA) has expanded access to capital for Native communities by nearly doubling the total dollar amount lent to Native American small businesses. SBA now has 12 Native-owned banks and CDFIs that lend with SBA backing.

Advance Appropriations for Indian Health Service

• For the first time ever, and after many years of Tribal advocacy, the Biden-Harris Administration successfully secured advance appropriations for the Indian Health Service (IHS), and the President has requested mandatory funding for IHS moving forward.

Regulations Supporting Tribes and Native Communities

• The Biden-Harris Administration has worked consistently with Tribal Nations throughout the last four years to secure regulatory improvements that reflect long-standing Tribal priorities. Some of this regulatory work includes revising regulations for promoting economic development opportunities across Indian Country, revising regulations for the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), increasing transparency for Nation-to-Nation consultation and other changes to support Tribal Self-Governance, updating the federal regulations regarding the Indian Reorganization Act to streamline the process for placing land into trust, proposing updated regulations pertaining to groups petitioning the Department for federal acknowledgment, updating Class III Indian gaming compacts to increase transparency and provide guidance to Tribes and states, updating regulations for modernizing Indian Arts and Crafts Act regulations, revising the Agricultural Leasing regulation to ensure Tribal self-determination is being upheld and proposing a rule that describes Tribally chartered entities as having the same federal tax status as their owning Tribes and clarifying Tribal eligibility for elective pay to access Inflation Reduction Act tax credits.

Tribal Consultation

• Signing two Presidential Memorandums directing federal agencies to submit plans of action to implement meaningful consultation with Tribal Nations and establishing uniform standards for Tribal Consultation.

A Whole-of-Government Approach to the Federal Trust Responsibility

• Re-launching the Tribal Nations Summit and re-establishing the White House Council on Native American Affairs that serves to foster an all-of-government approach to coordinating and developing Tribal policy.

Protecting Tribal Treaty Rights, Sacred Sites and Tribal Homelands

• Restoring and strengthening protections for areas of national importance and of cultural significance to Tribal Nations and Indigenous Peoples, including Bears Ears, Grand Staircase-Escalante, and Northeast Canyons and Seamounts National Monuments, as well as the Tongass National Forest.
• Designating new National Monuments that honor Tribal Nations by protecting sacred ancestral places and their historically and scientifically important features: Camp Hale – Continental Divide in Colorado; Avi Kwa Ame in Nevada; Castner Range in Texas; and Baaj Nwaajo I’tah Kukveni Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon  in Arizona; expansion of Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument and San Gabriel Mountains National Monument in California.
• Designated the first Indigenous-focused marine sanctuary, the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary, following nearly a decade of work by Tribes, Indigenous Peoples, community leaders, and committed to work meaningfully with Indigenous Peoples to help guide sanctuary management.
• Took Presidential action and reached a historic agreement to work in partnership with Tribes and states from the Pacific Northwest to restore wild salmon populations in the Columbia River Basin, including the issuance of a Presidential Memorandum on Restoring Healthy and Abundant Salmon, Steelhead, and other Native Fish Populations in the Columbia River Basin.
• Signed the Memorandum of Understanding Regarding Interagency Coordination and Collaboration for the Protection of Indigenous Sacred Sites in 2021, which commits the signatory agencies to identifying best practices for the management and protection of sacred sites on federal lands and waters. Fulfilling this commitment, WHCNAA has completed a Best Practices Guide for Tribal and Native Hawaiian Sacred Sites, which provides best practices, procedures, and guidance for the management, treatment, and protection of sacred sites, identifies impediments to federal-level protection of sacred sites, and helps federal agencies address and remedy impediments. The initial draft was based on comments heard at two federal listening sessions, and the final version has been expanded and improved based on comments received through Tribal consultation
• Signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) Regarding Interagency Coordination and Collaboration for the Protection of Tribal Treaty Rights and Reserved Rights at the 2021 Tribal Nations Summit, where 17 federal agencies, coordinated through WHCNAA committed to integrate Tribal treaty rights into agency decision-making processes. In 2022, the 17 signatories developed and released the Best Practices Guide for Identifying and Protecting Tribal Treaty Rights, Reserved Rights, and Other Similar Rights in Federal Regulatory Actions and Federal Decision-Making. This year, the MOU Workgroup will be issuing government-wide trainings on the protection of Tribal treaty rights.
• Signed more than 200 co-stewardship or co-management agreements with Federal agencies, which allow Tribal Nations to collaborate with the agencies to manage the federal lands, waters, and resources that are most important to them. The announcements include the first ever co-stewardship agreement with the Department of Commerce (DOC), more than 70 co-stewardship agreements with the Department of the Interior (DOI), and over 120 new co-stewardship and co-management agreements with the Department of Agriculture (USDA), which also tripled its investment in these agreements to over $68 million.
• Protected significant lands and waters: Took action to protect the cultural and historic resources surrounding Chaco Culture National Historical Park from new oil and gas leasing and mining claims. Rejected the proposed Ambler Road project, which would have traversed 211 miles of significant wildlife habitat and pristine waters that are vital for the subsistence activities of Tribal communities along the iconic Brooks Range in north central Alaska.

Revitalizing Native Languages

• Native Languages MOA: At the 2021 Tribal Nations Summit, several agencies and offices—DOI, USDA, HHS, ED, Institute for Museum and Library Sciences, NEA, NEH, DOT, and White House CEQ—signed a Memorandum of Agreement on Native Languages, kickstarting a new interagency initiative to preserve, protect, and promote the rights and freedom of Native Americans to use, practice, and develop Native languages. Since 2021, several other agencies have signed on to the MOA including, ACHP, OPM, SSA, SBA, OMB, DHS, DOC, DOL, DOS, VA, AmeriCorps, and EPA.

Strengthening Education for Native American Students

• Executive Order 14049 on Establishing the White House Initiative on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity for Native Americans and Strengthening Tribal Colleges and Universities: EO 14049 seeks to improve educational outcomes and career opportunities for Native American students. It focuses on addressing systemic barriers, increasing access to high-quality education, and fostering economic empowerment.

###

The post FACT SHEET: President Biden Touts Historic Support for Indian Country and Transformation of the Nation-to-Nation Relationship with Tribal Nations appeared first on The White House.

Tomorrow, at the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona, President Biden will outline his record of transformative investment in Indian Country and relationships with Tribal Nations, advancing Tribal sovereignty and self-determination, respecting Native cultures, and protecting Indigenous sacred sites. 

President Biden and Vice President Harris have taken historic actions to support Indian Country through executive actions, historic investments, and strengthening government-to-government relationships. The President has issued three historic Executive Orders that reform federal funding to help live up to the promise of Tribal self-determination, improve public safety and criminal justice for Native Americans while targeting the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous people, and improve educational outcomes and career opportunities for Native American students by focusing on systemic barriers and increasing access to high-quality education. The President has also taken further executive action through two Presidential Memoranda on Tribal consultation, including his 2021 Memorandum on Tribal Consultation and Strengthening Nation-to-Nation Relationships and his 2022 Memorandum on Uniform Standards for Tribal Consultation.

This executive action builds on the historic investments President Biden has made in Indian Country, including:

• $32 billion in the American Rescue Plan, the largest direct federal investment in Tribal Nations in history.
• $13 billion in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to build high-speed internet, roads, bridges, public transit, and clean water sanitation infrastructure in Tribal communities.
• $700 million in the Inflation Reduction Act to invest in Native communities for climate resilience and adaptation programs, drought mitigation, home electrification, and clean energy development.
• Obligating billions of federal contract dollars—and significant percentages of agencies’ overall procurement dollars—to Native-owned or controlled businesses through the Buy Indian Act, a law that has been re-invigorated under the Biden-Harris Administration.

The Biden-Harris Administration has made honoring Tribal Nations and Indigenous Peoples central to our conservation agenda, including by restoring and designating multiple new national monuments that honor Tribal Nations by protecting sacred ancestral places and their historically and scientifically important features, designating the first Indigenous-focused national marine sanctuary, directing federal agencies to support First Foods including healthy and abundant native salmon and steelhead, signing over 200 new co-stewardship agreements with Tribes, issuing an updated Sacred Sites MOU and best practices, and implementing a first-of-its kind Indigenous Knowledge guidance.

The President has also sought to have an Administration that reflects the priorities of Indian Country by hiring over 80 Native appointees in historic positions, including the first Native American Cabinet Secretary with Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland and the first Native American Treasurer of the United States with Chief Lynn Malerba. In addition, the President followed through with his promise to reinstate the annual White House Tribal Nations Summit and the White House Council on Native American Affairs.

Dr. Biden has been a champion for Native communities. As First Lady, she has visited Native communities ten times, highlighting the Biden-Harris Administration’s historic investments in youth mental health, Native language revitalization, and infrastructure and economic development, and she has worked to improve access to cancer screening and cancer care for Native communities.

The President also believes that to usher in the next era of the Federal-Tribal relationships we need to fully acknowledge the harms of the past. That is why he is issuing a historic Presidential apology for the Federal Indian Boarding School era. For over 150 years, the federal government ran boarding schools that forcibly removed generations of Native children from their homes to boarding schools often far away. Native children at these schools endured physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, and, as detailed in the Federal Indian Boarding School Investigative Report by the Department of the Interior (DOI), at least 973 children died in these schools. The federally-run Indian boarding school system was designed to assimilate Native Americans by destroying Native culture, language, and identity through harsh militaristic and assimilationist methods.

In making this apology, the President acknowledges that we as a people who love our country must remember and teach our full history, even when it is painful. And we must learn from that history so that it is never repeated.

The Presidential apology builds on the Biden-Harris Administration’s extraordinary accomplishments working with Tribes and Native Communities:

Strengthening Tribal Self-Determination

• Executive Order 14112 on Reforming Federal Funding and Support for Tribal Nations to Better Embrace Our Trust Responsibilities and Promote the Next Era of Tribal Self-Determination (Dec. 2023): EO 14112 directs agencies to reform federal funding programs in a manner that reflects trust in Tribal priorities and deference to Tribal decision-making. The Executive Order directs the White House Council on Native American Affairs, the Office and Management and Budget, and the White House Domestic Policy Council to work across the Federal Government to measure the chronic shortfalls of existing federal funding for Tribes and develop recommendations for what additional funding and programming is necessary. 

Addressing Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons and Gender-Based Violence in Native Communities

• Signing an Executive Order to improve public safety and criminal justice and address the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous People (MMIP) by directing agencies to prioritize addressing this crisis and assessing what more they can do.
• Signed into law the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) Reauthorization Act of 2022, which expanded special Tribal criminal jurisdiction over non-Native perpetrators of sexual violence, child violence, stalking, assaults on Tribal law enforcement officers, and sex trafficking on Tribal lands, in addition to domestic and dating violence.
• Awarded $68 million in FY 2023 VAWA grants and more than $85 million in FY 2024 VAWA grants to support Native communities to provide services and promote justice for survivors.
• Established the Not Invisible Act Commission to improve the federal government’s efforts to address violent crime and the high rates of people reported missing in Native communities.

Historic Investments in Indian Country

• Historic investments in Tribal Nations, including $32 billion in the American Rescue Plan, the largest direct federal investment to Tribal Nations in history; $13 billion in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law; and $700 million in the Inflation Reduction Act.
• Through the President’s Justice40 Initiative, more than 500 federal programs, including programs funded and created through the President’s Investing in America agenda, are working to deliver benefits to disadvantaged communities that are marginalized by underinvestment and overburdened by pollution. All federally recognized Tribes and Tribal entities are recognized as disadvantaged for purposes of benefitting from the Justice40 Initiative. These investments are resulting in cleaner air and water, more affordable clean energy, good-paying jobs, and other benefits that Tribes are seeing and experiencing today and into the future.

Supporting Native-owned Businesses

• The Biden-Harris Administration has spent billions of federal contract dollars with Native-owned or controlled businesses through the Buy Indian Act, a law that authorizes the Department of the Interior and Indian Health Service (IHS) at the Department of Health and Human Services to have contract set-asides for Tribal and Native-owned businesses.
• Under the Biden-Harris Administration, Federal spending with Native firms has increased by $8.2B between FY20 and FY23. The Small Business Administration (SBA) has expanded access to capital for Native communities by nearly doubling the total dollar amount lent to Native American small businesses. SBA now has 12 Native-owned banks and CDFIs that lend with SBA backing.

Advance Appropriations for Indian Health Service

• For the first time ever, and after many years of Tribal advocacy, the Biden-Harris Administration successfully secured advance appropriations for the Indian Health Service (IHS), and the President has requested mandatory funding for IHS moving forward.

Regulations Supporting Tribes and Native Communities

• The Biden-Harris Administration has worked consistently with Tribal Nations throughout the last four years to secure regulatory improvements that reflect long-standing Tribal priorities. Some of this regulatory work includes revising regulations for promoting economic development opportunities across Indian Country, revising regulations for the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), increasing transparency for Nation-to-Nation consultation and other changes to support Tribal Self-Governance, updating the federal regulations regarding the Indian Reorganization Act to streamline the process for placing land into trust, proposing updated regulations pertaining to groups petitioning the Department for federal acknowledgment, updating Class III Indian gaming compacts to increase transparency and provide guidance to Tribes and states, updating regulations for modernizing Indian Arts and Crafts Act regulations, revising the Agricultural Leasing regulation to ensure Tribal self-determination is being upheld and proposing a rule that describes Tribally chartered entities as having the same federal tax status as their owning Tribes and clarifying Tribal eligibility for elective pay to access Inflation Reduction Act tax credits.

Tribal Consultation

• Signing two Presidential Memorandums directing federal agencies to submit plans of action to implement meaningful consultation with Tribal Nations and establishing uniform standards for Tribal Consultation.

A Whole-of-Government Approach to the Federal Trust Responsibility

• Re-launching the Tribal Nations Summit and re-establishing the White House Council on Native American Affairs that serves to foster an all-of-government approach to coordinating and developing Tribal policy.

Protecting Tribal Treaty Rights, Sacred Sites and Tribal Homelands

• Restoring and strengthening protections for areas of national importance and of cultural significance to Tribal Nations and Indigenous Peoples, including Bears Ears, Grand Staircase-Escalante, and Northeast Canyons and Seamounts National Monuments, as well as the Tongass National Forest.
• Designating new National Monuments that honor Tribal Nations by protecting sacred ancestral places and their historically and scientifically important features: Camp Hale – Continental Divide in Colorado; Avi Kwa Ame in Nevada; Castner Range in Texas; and Baaj Nwaajo I’tah Kukveni Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon  in Arizona; expansion of Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument and San Gabriel Mountains National Monument in California.
• Designated the first Indigenous-focused marine sanctuary, the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary, following nearly a decade of work by Tribes, Indigenous Peoples, community leaders, and committed to work meaningfully with Indigenous Peoples to help guide sanctuary management.
• Took Presidential action and reached a historic agreement to work in partnership with Tribes and states from the Pacific Northwest to restore wild salmon populations in the Columbia River Basin, including the issuance of a Presidential Memorandum on Restoring Healthy and Abundant Salmon, Steelhead, and other Native Fish Populations in the Columbia River Basin.
• Signed the Memorandum of Understanding Regarding Interagency Coordination and Collaboration for the Protection of Indigenous Sacred Sites in 2021, which commits the signatory agencies to identifying best practices for the management and protection of sacred sites on federal lands and waters. Fulfilling this commitment, WHCNAA has completed a Best Practices Guide for Tribal and Native Hawaiian Sacred Sites, which provides best practices, procedures, and guidance for the management, treatment, and protection of sacred sites, identifies impediments to federal-level protection of sacred sites, and helps federal agencies address and remedy impediments. The initial draft was based on comments heard at two federal listening sessions, and the final version has been expanded and improved based on comments received through Tribal consultation
• Signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) Regarding Interagency Coordination and Collaboration for the Protection of Tribal Treaty Rights and Reserved Rights at the 2021 Tribal Nations Summit, where 17 federal agencies, coordinated through WHCNAA committed to integrate Tribal treaty rights into agency decision-making processes. In 2022, the 17 signatories developed and released the Best Practices Guide for Identifying and Protecting Tribal Treaty Rights, Reserved Rights, and Other Similar Rights in Federal Regulatory Actions and Federal Decision-Making. This year, the MOU Workgroup will be issuing government-wide trainings on the protection of Tribal treaty rights.
• Signed more than 200 co-stewardship or co-management agreements with Federal agencies, which allow Tribal Nations to collaborate with the agencies to manage the federal lands, waters, and resources that are most important to them. The announcements include the first ever co-stewardship agreement with the Department of Commerce (DOC), more than 70 co-stewardship agreements with the Department of the Interior (DOI), and over 120 new co-stewardship and co-management agreements with the Department of Agriculture (USDA), which also tripled its investment in these agreements to over $68 million.
• Protected significant lands and waters: Took action to protect the cultural and historic resources surrounding Chaco Culture National Historical Park from new oil and gas leasing and mining claims. Rejected the proposed Ambler Road project, which would have traversed 211 miles of significant wildlife habitat and pristine waters that are vital for the subsistence activities of Tribal communities along the iconic Brooks Range in north central Alaska.

Revitalizing Native Languages

• Native Languages MOA: At the 2021 Tribal Nations Summit, several agencies and offices—DOI, USDA, HHS, ED, Institute for Museum and Library Sciences, NEA, NEH, DOT, and White House CEQ—signed a Memorandum of Agreement on Native Languages, kickstarting a new interagency initiative to preserve, protect, and promote the rights and freedom of Native Americans to use, practice, and develop Native languages. Since 2021, several other agencies have signed on to the MOA including, ACHP, OPM, SSA, SBA, OMB, DHS, DOC, DOL, DOS, VA, AmeriCorps, and EPA.

Strengthening Education for Native American Students

• Executive Order 14049 on Establishing the White House Initiative on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity for Native Americans and Strengthening Tribal Colleges and Universities: EO 14049 seeks to improve educational outcomes and career opportunities for Native American students. It focuses on addressing systemic barriers, increasing access to high-quality education, and fostering economic empowerment.

###

The post FACT SHEET: President Biden Touts Historic Support for Indian Country and Transformation of the Nation-to-Nation Relationship with Tribal Nations appeared first on The White House.

MEMORANDUM FOR THE VICE PRESIDENT

               THE SECRETARY OF STATE

               THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY

               THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE

               THE ATTORNEY GENERAL

               THE SECRETARY OF COMMERCE

               THE SECRETARY OF ENERGY

               THE SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

               THE SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY

               THE DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET

               THE DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE

               THE REPRESENTATIVE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA TO THE UNITED NATIONS

               THE DIRECTOR OF THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

               THE ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT AND CHIEF OF STAFF

               THE ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT FOR NATIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS

               THE ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT FOR ECONOMIC

                  POLICY AND DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL

               THE CHAIR OF THE COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISERS

               THE DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY

               THE ADMINISTRATOR OF THE UNITED STATES AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

               THE DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION

               THE DIRECTOR OF THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

               THE NATIONAL CYBER DIRECTOR

               THE DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF PANDEMIC PREPAREDNESS AND RESPONSE POLICY

               THE DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY

               THE DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL GEOSPATIAL-INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

               THE DIRECTOR OF THE DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

SUBJECT:       Advancing the United States’ Leadership in

               Artificial Intelligence; Harnessing Artificial

               Intelligence to Fulfill National Security

               Objectives; and Fostering the Safety, Security,

               and Trustworthiness of Artificial Intelligence

     Section 1.  Policy.  (a)  This memorandum fulfills the directive set forth in subsection 4.8 of Executive Order 14110 of October 30, 2023 (Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence).  This memorandum provides further direction on appropriately harnessing artificial intelligence (AI) models and AI-enabled technologies in the United States Government, especially in the context of national security systems (NSS), while protecting human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, privacy, and safety in AI-enabled national security activities.  A classified annex to this memorandum addresses additional sensitive national security issues, including countering adversary use of AI that poses risks to United States national security.

     (b)  United States national security institutions have historically triumphed during eras of technological transition.  To meet changing times, they developed new capabilities, from submarines and aircraft to space systems and cyber tools.  To gain a decisive edge and protect national security, they pioneered technologies such as radar, the Global Positioning System, and nuclear propulsion, and unleashed these hard-won breakthroughs on the battlefield.  With each paradigm shift, they also developed new systems for tracking and countering adversaries’ attempts to wield cutting-edge technology for their own advantage.

     (c)  AI has emerged as an era-defining technology and has demonstrated significant and growing relevance to national security.  The United States must lead the world in the responsible application of AI to appropriate national security functions.  AI, if used appropriately and for its intended purpose, can offer great benefits.  If misused, AI could threaten United States national security, bolster authoritarianism worldwide, undermine democratic institutions and processes, facilitate human rights abuses, and weaken the rules-based international order.  Harmful outcomes could occur even without malicious intent if AI systems and processes lack sufficient protections.

     (d)  Recent innovations have spurred not only an increase in AI use throughout society, but also a paradigm shift within the AI field — one that has occurred mostly outside of Government.  This era of AI development and deployment rests atop unprecedented aggregations of specialized computational power, as well as deep scientific and engineering expertise, much of which is concentrated in the private sector.  This trend is most evident with the rise of large language models, but it extends to a broader class of increasingly general-purpose and computationally intensive systems.  The United States Government must urgently consider how this current AI paradigm specifically could transform the national security mission.

     (e)  Predicting technological change with certainty is impossible, but the foundational drivers that have underpinned recent AI progress show little sign of abating.  These factors include compounding algorithmic improvements, increasingly efficient computational hardware, a growing willingness in industry to invest substantially in research and development, and the expansion of training data sets.  AI under the current paradigm may continue to become more powerful and general-purpose.  Developing and effectively using these systems requires an evolving array of resources, infrastructure, competencies, and workflows that in many cases differ from what was required to harness prior technologies, including previous paradigms of AI.

     (f)  If the United States Government does not act with responsible speed and in partnership with industry, civil society, and academia to make use of AI capabilities in service of the national security mission — and to ensure the safety, security, and trustworthiness of American AI innovation writ large — it risks losing ground to strategic competitors.  Ceding the United States’ technological edge would not only greatly harm American national security, but it would also undermine United States foreign policy objectives and erode safety, human rights, and democratic norms worldwide.

     (g)  Establishing national security leadership in AI will require making deliberate and meaningful changes to aspects of the United States Government’s strategies, capabilities, infrastructure, governance, and organization.  AI is likely to affect almost all domains with national security significance, and its use cannot be relegated to a single institutional silo.  The increasing generality of AI means that many functions that to date have been served by individual bespoke tools may, going forward, be better fulfilled by systems that, at least in part, rely on a shared, multi-purpose AI capability.  Such integration will only succeed if paired with appropriately redesigned United States Government organizational and informational infrastructure.

     (h)  In this effort, the United States Government must also protect human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, privacy, and safety, and lay the groundwork for a stable and responsible international AI governance landscape.  Throughout its history, the United States has been a global leader in shaping the design, development, and use of new technologies not only to advance national security, but also to protect and promote democratic values.  The United States Government must develop safeguards for its use of AI tools, and take an active role in steering global AI norms and institutions.  The AI frontier is moving quickly, and the United States Government must stay attuned to ongoing technical developments without losing focus on its guiding principles.

     (i)  This memorandum aims to catalyze needed change in how the United States Government approaches AI national security policy.  In line with Executive Order 14110, it directs actions to strengthen and protect the United States AI ecosystem; improve the safety, security, and trustworthiness of AI systems developed and used in the United States; enhance the United States Government’s appropriate, responsible, and effective adoption of AI in service of the national security mission; and minimize the misuse of AI worldwide.

Sec. 2.  Objectives.  It is the policy of the United States Government that the following three objectives will guide its activities with respect to AI and national security.

     (a)  First, the United States must lead the world’s development of safe, secure, and trustworthy AI.  To that end, the United States Government must — in partnership with industry, civil society, and academia — promote and secure the foundational capabilities across the United States that power AI development.  The United States Government cannot take the unmatched vibrancy and innovativeness of the United States AI ecosystem for granted; it must proactively strengthen it, ensuring that the United States remains the most attractive destination for global talent and home to the world’s most sophisticated computational facilities.  The United States Government must also provide appropriate safety and security guidance to AI developers and users, and rigorously assess and help mitigate the risks that AI systems could pose.

     (b)  Second, the United States Government must harness powerful AI, with appropriate safeguards, to achieve national security objectives.  Emerging AI capabilities, including increasingly general-purpose models, offer profound opportunities for enhancing national security, but employing these systems effectively will require significant technical, organizational, and policy changes.  The United States must understand AI’s limitations as it harnesses the technology’s benefits, and any use of AI must respect democratic values with regard to transparency, human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, privacy, and safety.

     (c)  Third, the United States Government must continue cultivating a stable and responsible framework to advance international AI governance that fosters safe, secure, and trustworthy AI development and use; manages AI risks; realizes democratic values; respects human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, and privacy; and promotes worldwide benefits from AI.  It must do so in collaboration with a wide range of allies and partners.  Success for the United States in the age of AI will be measured not only by the preeminence of United States technology and innovation, but also by the United States’ leadership in developing effective global norms and engaging in institutions rooted in international law, human rights, civil rights, and democratic values.

Sec. 3.  Promoting and Securing the United States’ Foundational AI Capabilities.  (a)  To preserve and expand United States advantages in AI, it is the policy of the United States Government to promote progress, innovation, and competition in domestic AI development; protect the United States AI ecosystem against foreign intelligence threats; and manage risks to AI safety, security, and trustworthiness.  Leadership in responsible AI development benefits United States national security by enabling applications directly relevant to the national security mission, unlocking economic growth, and avoiding strategic surprise.  United States technological leadership also confers global benefits by enabling like-minded entities to collectively mitigate the risks of AI misuse and accidents, prevent the unchecked spread of digital authoritarianism, and prioritize vital research.

     3.1.  Promoting Progress, Innovation, and Competition in United States AI Development.  (a)  The United States’ competitive edge in AI development will be at risk absent concerted United States Government efforts to promote and secure domestic AI progress, innovation, and competition.  Although the United States has benefited from a head start in AI, competitors are working hard to catch up, have identified AI as a top strategic priority, and may soon devote resources to research and development that United States AI developers cannot match without appropriately supportive Government policies and action.  It is therefore the policy of the United States Government to enhance innovation and competition by bolstering key drivers of AI progress, such as technical talent and computational power.

     (b)  It is the policy of the United States Government that advancing the lawful ability of noncitizens highly skilled in AI and related fields to enter and work in the United States constitutes a national security priority.  Today, the unparalleled United States AI industry rests in substantial part on the insights of brilliant scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs who moved to the United States in pursuit of academic, social, and economic opportunity.  Preserving and expanding United States talent advantages requires developing talent at home and continuing to attract and retain top international minds.

     (c)  Consistent with these goals:

(i)    On an ongoing basis, the Department of State, the Department of Defense (DOD), and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shall each use all available legal authorities to assist in attracting and rapidly bringing to the United States individuals with relevant technical expertise who would improve United States competitiveness in AI and related fields, such as semiconductor design and production.  These activities shall include all appropriate vetting of these individuals and shall be consistent with all appropriate risk mitigation measures.  This tasking is consistent with and additive to the taskings on attracting AI talent in section 5 of Executive Order 14110.

(ii)   Within 180 days of the date of this memorandum, the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers shall prepare an analysis of the AI talent market in the United States and overseas, to the extent that reliable data is available.

(iii)  Within 180 days of the date of this memorandum, the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and Director of the National Economic Council shall coordinate an economic assessment of the relative competitive advantage of the United States private sector AI ecosystem, the key sources of the United States private sector’s competitive advantage, and possible risks to that position, and shall recommend policies to mitigate them.  The assessment could include areas including (1) the design, manufacture, and packaging of chips critical in AI-related activities; (2) the availability of capital; (3) the availability of workers highly skilled in AI-related fields; (4) computational resources and the associated electricity requirements; and (5) technological platforms or institutions with the requisite scale of capital and data resources for frontier AI model development, as well as possible other factors.

(iv)   Within 90 days of the date of this memorandum, the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (APNSA) shall convene appropriate executive departments and agencies (agencies) to explore actions for prioritizing and streamlining administrative processing operations for all visa applicants working with sensitive technologies.  Doing so shall assist with streamlined processing of highly skilled applicants in AI and other critical and emerging technologies.  This effort shall explore options for ensuring the adequate resourcing of such operations and narrowing the criteria that trigger secure advisory opinion requests for such applicants, as consistent with national security objectives.

     (d)  The current paradigm of AI development depends heavily on computational resources.  To retain its lead in AI, the United States must continue developing the world’s most sophisticated AI semiconductors and constructing its most advanced AI-dedicated computational infrastructure.

     (e)  Consistent with these goals:

(i)    DOD, the Department of Energy (DOE) (including national laboratories), and the Intelligence Community (IC) shall, when planning for and constructing or renovating computational facilities, consider the applicability of large-scale AI to their mission.  Where appropriate, agencies shall design and build facilities capable of harnessing frontier AI for relevant scientific research domains and intelligence analysis.  Those investments shall be consistent with the Federal Mission Resilience Strategy adopted in Executive Order 13961 of December 7, 2020 (Governance and Integration of Federal Mission Resilience).

(ii)   On an ongoing basis, the National Science Foundation (NSF) shall, consistent with its authorities, use the National AI Research Resource (NAIRR) pilot project and any future NAIRR efforts to distribute computational resources, data, and other critical assets for AI development to a diverse array of actors that otherwise would lack access to such capabilities — such as universities, nonprofits, and independent researchers (including trusted international collaborators) — to ensure that AI research in the United States remains competitive and innovative.  This tasking is consistent with the NAIRR pilot assigned in section 5 of Executive Order 14110.

(iii)  Within 180 days of the date of this memorandum, DOE shall launch a pilot project to evaluate the performance and efficiency of federated AI and data sources for frontier AI-scale training, fine-tuning, and inference.

(iv)   The Office of the White House Chief of Staff, in coordination with DOE and other relevant agencies, shall coordinate efforts to streamline permitting, approvals, and incentives for the construction of AI-enabling infrastructure, as well as surrounding assets supporting the resilient operation of this infrastructure, such as clean energy generation, power transmission lines, and high-capacity fiber data links.  These efforts shall include coordination, collaboration, consultation, and partnership with State, local, Tribal, and territorial governments, as appropriate, and shall be consistent with the United States’ goals for managing climate risks.

(v)    The Department of State, DOD, DOE, the IC, and the Department of Commerce (Commerce) shall, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, use existing authorities to make public investments and encourage private investments in strategic domestic and foreign AI technologies and adjacent fields.  These agencies shall assess the need for new authorities for the purposes of facilitating public and private investment in AI and adjacent capabilities.

     3.2.  Protecting United States AI from Foreign Intelligence Threats.  (a)  In addition to pursuing industrial strategies that support their respective AI industries, foreign states almost certainly aim to obtain and repurpose the fruits of AI innovation in the United States to serve their national security goals.  Historically, such competitors have employed techniques including research collaborations, investment schemes, insider threats, and advanced cyber espionage to collect and exploit United States scientific insights.  It is the policy of the United States Government to protect United States industry, civil society, and academic AI intellectual property and related infrastructure from foreign intelligence threats to maintain a lead in foundational capabilities and, as necessary, to provide appropriate Government assistance to relevant non-government entities.

     (b)  Consistent with these goals:

(i)   Within 90 days of the date of this memorandum, the National Security Council (NSC) staff and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) shall review the President’s Intelligence Priorities and the National Intelligence Priorities Framework consistent with National Security Memorandum 12 of July 12, 2022 (The President’s Intelligence Priorities), and make recommendations to ensure that such priorities improve identification and assessment of foreign intelligence threats to the United States AI ecosystem and closely related enabling sectors, such as those involved in semiconductor design and production.

(ii)  Within 180 days of the date of this memorandum, and on an ongoing basis thereafter, ODNI, in coordination with DOD, the Department of Justice (DOJ), Commerce, DOE, DHS, and other IC elements as appropriate, shall identify critical nodes in the AI supply chain, and develop a list of the most plausible avenues through which these nodes could be disrupted or compromised by foreign actors.  On an ongoing basis, these agencies shall take all steps, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, to reduce such risks.

     (c)  Foreign actors may also seek to obtain United States intellectual property through gray-zone methods, such as technology transfer and data localization requirements.  AI-related intellectual property often includes critical technical artifacts (CTAs) that would substantially lower the costs of recreating, attaining, or using powerful AI capabilities.  The United States Government must guard against these risks.

     (d)  Consistent with these goals:

(i)  In furtherance of Executive Order 14083 of September 15, 2022 (Ensuring Robust Consideration of Evolving National Security Risks by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States), the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States shall, as appropriate, consider whether a covered transaction involves foreign actor access to proprietary information on AI training techniques, algorithmic improvements, hardware advances, CTAs, or other proprietary insights that shed light on how to create and effectively use powerful AI systems.

     3.3.  Managing Risks to AI Safety, Security, and Trustworthiness.  (a)  Current and near-future AI systems could pose significant safety, security, and trustworthiness risks, including those stemming from deliberate misuse and accidents.  Across many technological domains, the United States has historically led the world not only in advancing capabilities, but also in developing the tests, standards, and norms that underpin reliable and beneficial global adoption.  The United States approach to AI should be no different, and proactively constructing testing infrastructure to assess and mitigate AI risks will be essential to realizing AI’s positive potential and to preserving United States AI leadership.

     (b)  It is the policy of the United States Government to pursue new technical and policy tools that address the potential challenges posed by AI.  These tools include processes for reliably testing AI models’ applicability to harmful tasks and deeper partnerships with institutions in industry, academia, and civil society capable of advancing research related to AI safety, security, and trustworthiness.

     (c)  Commerce, acting through the AI Safety Institute (AISI) within the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), shall serve as the primary United States Government point of contact with private sector AI developers to facilitate voluntary pre- and post-public deployment testing for safety, security, and trustworthiness of frontier AI models.  In coordination with relevant agencies as appropriate, Commerce shall establish an enduring capability to lead voluntary unclassified pre-deployment safety testing of frontier AI models on behalf of the United States Government, including assessments of risks relating to cybersecurity, biosecurity, chemical weapons, system autonomy, and other risks as appropriate (not including nuclear risk, the assessment of which shall be led by DOE).  Voluntary unclassified safety testing shall also, as appropriate, address risks to human rights, civil rights, and civil liberties, such as those related to privacy, discrimination and bias, freedom of expression, and the safety of individuals and groups.  Other agencies, as identified in subsection 3.3(f) of this section, shall establish enduring capabilities to perform complementary voluntary classified testing in appropriate areas of expertise.  The directives set forth in this subsection are consistent with broader taskings on AI safety in section 4 of Executive Order 14110, and provide additional clarity on agencies’ respective roles and responsibilities.

     (d)  Nothing in this subsection shall inhibit agencies from performing their own evaluations of AI systems, including tests performed before those systems are released to the public, for the purposes of evaluating suitability for that agency’s acquisition and procurement.  AISI’s responsibilities do not extend to the evaluation of AI systems for the potential use by the United States Government for national security purposes; those responsibilities lie with agencies considering such use, as outlined in subsection 4.2(e) of this memorandum and the associated framework described in that subsection.

     (e)  Consistent with these goals, Commerce, acting through AISI within NIST, shall take the following actions to aid in the evaluation of current and near-future AI systems:

(i)    Within 180 days of the date of this memorandum and subject to private sector cooperation, AISI shall pursue voluntary preliminary testing of at least two frontier AI models prior to their public deployment or release to evaluate capabilities that might pose a threat to national security.  This testing shall assess models’ capabilities to aid offensive cyber operations, accelerate development of biological and/or chemical weapons, autonomously carry out malicious behavior, automate development and deployment of other models with such capabilities, and give rise to other risks identified by AISI.  AISI shall share feedback with the APNSA, interagency counterparts as appropriate, and the respective model developers regarding the results of risks identified during such testing and any appropriate mitigations prior to deployment.

(ii)   Within 180 days of the date of this memorandum, AISI shall issue guidance for AI developers on how to test, evaluate, and manage risks to safety, security, and trustworthiness arising from dual-use foundation models, building on guidelines issued pursuant to subsection 4.1(a) of Executive Order 14110.  AISI shall issue guidance on topics including:

(A)  How to measure capabilities that are relevant to the risk that AI models could enable the development of biological and chemical weapons or the automation of offensive cyber operations;

(B)  How to address societal risks, such as the misuse of models to harass or impersonate individuals;

(C)  How to develop mitigation measures to prevent malicious or improper use of models;

(D)  How to test the efficacy of safety and security mitigations; and

(E)  How to apply risk management practices throughout the development and deployment lifecycle (pre-development, development, and deployment/release).

(iii)  Within 180 days of the date of this memorandum, AISI, in consultation with other agencies as appropriate, shall develop or recommend benchmarks or other methods for assessing AI systems’ capabilities and limitations in science, mathematics, code generation, and general reasoning, as well as other categories of activity that AISI deems relevant to assessing general-purpose capabilities likely to have a bearing on national security and public safety.

(iv)   In the event that AISI or another agency determines that a dual-use foundation model’s capabilities could be used to harm public safety significantly, AISI shall serve as the primary point of contact through which the United States Government communicates such findings and any associated recommendations regarding risk mitigation to the developer of the model.

(v)    Within 270 days of the date of this memorandum, and at least annually thereafter, AISI shall submit to the President, through the APNSA, and provide to other interagency counterparts as appropriate, at minimum one report that shall include the following:

(A)  A summary of findings from AI safety assessments of frontier AI models that have been conducted by or shared with AISI;

(B)  A summary of whether AISI deemed risk mitigation necessary to resolve any issues identified in the assessments, along with conclusions regarding any mitigations’ efficacy; and

(C)  A summary of the adequacy of the science-based tools and methods used to inform such assessments.

     (f)  Consistent with these goals, other agencies specified below shall take the following actions, in coordination with Commerce, acting through AISI within NIST, to provide classified sector-specific evaluations of current and near-future AI systems for cyber, nuclear, and radiological risks:

(i)    All agencies that conduct or fund safety testing and evaluations of AI systems shall share the results of such evaluations with AISI within 30 days of their completion, consistent with applicable protections for classified and controlled information.

(ii)   Within 120 days of the date of this memorandum, the National Security Agency (NSA), acting through its AI Security Center (AISC) and in coordination with AISI, shall develop the capability to perform rapid systematic classified testing of AI models’ capacity to detect, generate, and/or exacerbate offensive cyber threats.  Such tests shall assess the degree to which AI systems, if misused, could accelerate offensive cyber operations.

(iii)  Within 120 days of the date of this memorandum, DOE, acting primarily through the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and in close coordination with AISI and NSA, shall seek to develop the capability to perform rapid systematic testing of AI models’ capacity to generate or exacerbate nuclear and radiological risks.  This initiative shall involve the development and maintenance of infrastructure capable of running classified and unclassified tests, including using restricted data and relevant classified threat information.  This initiative shall also feature the creation and regular updating of automated evaluations, the development of an interface for enabling human-led red-teaming, and the establishment of technical and legal tooling necessary for facilitating the rapid and secure transfer of United States Government, open-weight, and proprietary models to these facilities.  As part of this initiative:

(A)  Within 180 days of the date of this memorandum, DOE shall use the capability described in subsection 3.3(f)(iii) of this section to complete initial evaluations of the radiological and nuclear knowledge, capabilities, and implications of a frontier AI model no more than 30 days after the model has been made available to NNSA at an appropriate classification level.  These evaluations shall involve tests of AI systems both without significant modifications and, as appropriate, with fine-tuning or other modifications that could enhance performance.

(B)  Within 270 days of the date of this memorandum, and at least annually thereafter, DOE shall submit to the President, through the APNSA, at minimum one assessment that shall include the following:

(1)  A concise summary of the findings of each AI model evaluation for radiological and nuclear risk, described in subsection 3.3(f)(iii)(A) of this section, that DOE has performed in the preceding 12 months;

(2)  A recommendation as to whether corrective action is necessary to resolve any issues identified in the evaluations, including but not limited to actions necessary for attaining and sustaining compliance conditions appropriate to safeguard and prevent unauthorized disclosure of restricted data or other classified information, pursuant to the Atomic Energy Act of 1954; and

(3)  A concise statement regarding the adequacy of the science-based tools and methods used to inform the evaluations.

(iv)   On an ongoing basis, DHS, acting through the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), shall continue to fulfill its responsibilities with respect to the application of AISI guidance, as identified in National Security Memorandum 22 of April 30, 2024 (Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience), and section 4 of Executive Order 14110.

     (g)  Consistent with these goals, and to reduce the chemical and biological risks that could emerge from AI:

(i)    The United States Government shall advance classified evaluations of advanced AI models’ capacity to generate or exacerbate deliberate chemical and biological threats.  As part of this initiative:

(A)  Within 210 days of the date of this memorandum, DOE, DHS, and AISI, in consultation with DOD and other relevant agencies, shall coordinate to develop a roadmap for future classified evaluations of advanced AI models’ capacity to generate or exacerbate deliberate chemical and biological threats, to be shared with the APNSA.  This roadmap shall consider the scope, scale, and priority of classified evaluations; proper safeguards to ensure that evaluations and simulations are not misconstrued as offensive capability development; proper safeguards for testing sensitive and/or classified information; and sustainable implementation of evaluation methodologies.

(B)  On an ongoing basis, DHS shall provide expertise, threat and risk information, and other technical support to assess the feasibility of proposed biological and chemical classified evaluations; interpret and contextualize evaluation results; and advise relevant agencies on potential risk mitigations.

(C)  Within 270 days of the date of this memorandum, DOE shall establish a pilot project to provide expertise, infrastructure, and facilities capable of conducting classified tests in this area.

(ii)   Within 240 days of the date of this memorandum, DOD, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), DOE (including national laboratories), DHS, NSF, and other agencies pursuing the development of AI systems substantially trained on biological and chemical data shall, as appropriate, support efforts to utilize high-performance computing resources and AI systems to enhance biosafety and biosecurity.  These efforts shall include:

(A)  The development of tools for screening in silico chemical and biological research and technology;

(B)  The creation of algorithms for nucleic acid synthesis screening;

(C)  The construction of high-assurance software foundations for novel biotechnologies;

(D)  The screening of complete orders or data streams from cloud labs and biofoundries; and

(E)  The development of risk mitigation strategies such as medical countermeasures.

(iii)  After the publication of biological and chemical safety guidance by AISI outlined in subsection 3.3(e) of this section, all agencies that directly develop relevant dual-use foundation AI models that are made available to the public and are substantially trained on biological or chemical data shall incorporate this guidance into their agency’s practices, as appropriate and feasible.

(iv)   Within 180 days of the date of this memorandum, NSF, in coordination with DOD, Commerce (acting through AISI within NIST), HHS, DOE, the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), and other relevant agencies, shall seek to convene academic research institutions and scientific publishers to develop voluntary best practices and standards for publishing computational biological and chemical models, data sets, and approaches, including those that use AI and that could contribute to the production of knowledge, information, technologies, and products that could be misused to cause harm.  This is in furtherance of the activities described in subsections 4.4 and 4.7 of Executive Order 14110.

(v)    Within 540 days of the date of this memorandum, and informed by the United States Government Policy for Oversight of Dual Use Research of Concern and Pathogens with Enhanced Pandemic Potential, OSTP, NSC staff, and the Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy, in consultation with relevant agencies and external stakeholders as appropriate, shall develop guidance promoting the benefits of and mitigating the risks associated with in silico biological and chemical research.

     (h)  Agencies shall take the following actions to improve foundational understanding of AI safety, security, and trustworthiness:

(i)   DOD, Commerce, DOE, DHS, ODNI, NSF, NSA, and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) shall, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, prioritize research on AI safety and trustworthiness.  As appropriate and consistent with existing authorities, they shall pursue partnerships as appropriate with leading public sector, industry, civil society, academic, and other institutions with expertise in these domains, with the objective of accelerating technical and socio-technical progress in AI safety and trustworthiness.  This work may include research on interpretability, formal methods, privacy enhancing technologies, techniques to address risks to civil liberties and human rights, human-AI interaction, and/or the socio-technical effects of detecting and labeling synthetic and authentic content (for example, to address the malicious use of AI to generate misleading videos or images, including those of a strategically damaging or non-consensual intimate nature, of political or public figures).

(ii)  DOD, Commerce, DOE, DHS, ODNI, NSF, NSA, and NGA shall, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, prioritize research to improve the security, robustness, and reliability of AI systems and controls.  These entities shall, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, partner with other agencies, industry, civil society, and academia.  Where appropriate, DOD, DHS (acting through CISA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and NSA (acting through AISC) shall publish unclassified guidance concerning known AI cybersecurity vulnerabilities and threats; best practices for avoiding, detecting, and mitigating such issues during model training and deployment; and the integration of AI into other software systems.  This work shall include an examination of the role of and vulnerabilities potentially caused by AI systems used in critical infrastructure.

     (i)  Agencies shall take actions to protect classified and controlled information, given the potential risks posed by AI:

(i)  In the course of regular updates to policies and procedures, DOD, DOE, and the IC shall consider how analysis enabled by AI tools may affect decisions related to declassification of material, standards for sufficient anonymization, and similar activities, as well as the robustness of existing operational security and equity controls to protect classified or controlled information, given that AI systems have demonstrated the capacity to extract previously inaccessible insight from redacted and anonymized data.

Sec. 4.  Responsibly Harnessing AI to Achieve National Security Objectives.  (a)  It is the policy of the United States Government to act decisively to enable the effective and responsible use of AI in furtherance of its national security mission.  Achieving global leadership in national security applications of AI will require effective partnership with organizations outside Government, as well as significant internal transformation, including strengthening effective oversight and governance functions.

     4.1.  Enabling Effective and Responsible Use of AI.  (a)  It is the policy of the United States Government to adapt its partnerships, policies, and infrastructure to use AI capabilities appropriately, effectively, and responsibly.  These modifications must balance each agency’s unique oversight, data, and application needs with the substantial benefits associated with sharing powerful AI and computational resources across the United States Government.  Modifications must also be grounded in a clear understanding of the United States Government’s comparative advantages relative to industry, civil society, and academia, and must leverage offerings from external collaborators and contractors as appropriate.  The United States Government must make the most of the rich United States AI ecosystem by incentivizing innovation in safe, secure, and trustworthy AI and promoting industry competition when selecting contractors, grant recipients, and research collaborators.  Finally, the United States Government must address important technical and policy considerations in ways that ensure the integrity and interoperability needed to pursue its objectives while protecting human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, privacy, and safety.

     (b)  The United States Government needs an updated set of Government-wide procedures for attracting, hiring, developing, and retaining AI and AI-enabling talent for national security purposes.

     (c)  Consistent with these goals:

(i)   In the course of regular legal, policy, and compliance framework reviews, the Department of State, DOD, DOJ, DOE, DHS, and IC elements shall revise, as appropriate, their hiring and retention policies and strategies to accelerate responsible AI adoption.  Agencies shall account for technical talent needs required to adopt AI and integrate it into their missions and other roles necessary to use AI effectively, such as AI-related governance, ethics, and policy positions.  These policies and strategies shall identify financial, organizational, and security hurdles, as well as potential mitigations consistent with applicable law.  Such measures shall also include consideration of programs to attract experts with relevant technical expertise from industry, academia, and civil society — including scholarship for service programs — and similar initiatives that would expose Government employees to relevant non-government entities in ways that build technical, organizational, and cultural familiarity with the AI industry.  These policies and strategies shall use all available authorities, including expedited security clearance procedures as appropriate, in order to address the shortfall of AI-relevant talent within Government.

(ii)  Within 120 days of the date of this memorandum, the Department of State, DOD, DOJ, DOE, DHS, and IC elements shall each, in consultation with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), identify education and training opportunities to increase the AI competencies of their respective workforces, via initiatives which may include training and skills-based hiring.

     (d)  To accelerate the use of AI in service of its national security mission, the United States Government needs coordinated and effective acquisition and procurement systems.  This will require an enhanced capacity to assess, define, and articulate AI-related requirements for national security purposes, as well as improved accessibility for AI companies that lack significant prior experience working with the United States Government.

     (e)  Consistent with these goals:

(i)    Within 30 days of the date of this memorandum, DOD and ODNI, in coordination with OMB and other agencies as appropriate, shall establish a working group to address issues involving procurement of AI by DOD and IC elements and for use on NSS.  As appropriate, the working group shall consult the Director of the NSA, as the National Manager for NSS, in developing recommendations for acquiring and procuring AI for use on NSS.

(ii)   Within 210 days of the date of this memorandum, the working group described in subsection 4.1(e)(i) of this section shall provide written recommendations to the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council (FARC) regarding changes to existing regulations and guidance, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, to promote the following objectives for AI procured by DOD and IC elements and for use on NSS:

(A)  Ensuring objective metrics to measure and promote the safety, security, and trustworthiness of AI systems;

(B)  Accelerating the acquisition and procurement process for AI, consistent with the Federal Acquisition Regulation, while maintaining appropriate checks to mitigate safety risks;  

(C)  Simplifying processes such that companies without experienced contracting teams may meaningfully compete for relevant contracts, to ensure that the United States Government has access to a wide range of AI systems and that the AI marketplace is competitive;

(D)  Structuring competitions to encourage robust participation and achieve best value to the Government, such as by including requirements that promote interoperability and prioritizing the technical capability of vendors when evaluating offers;

(E)  Accommodating shared use of AI to the greatest degree possible and as appropriate across relevant agencies; and

(F)  Ensuring that agencies with specific authorities and missions may implement other policies, where appropriate and necessary.

(iii)  The FARC shall, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, consider proposing amendments to the Federal Acquisition Regulation to codify recommendations provided by the working group pursuant to subsection 4.1(e)(ii) of this section that may have Government-wide application.

(iv)   DOD and ODNI shall seek to engage on an ongoing basis with diverse United States private sector stakeholders — including AI technology and defense companies and members of the United States investor community — to identify and better understand emerging capabilities that would benefit or otherwise affect the United States national security mission.

     (f)  The United States Government needs clear, modernized, and robust policies and procedures that enable the rapid development and national security use of AI, consistent with human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, privacy, safety, and other democratic values.

     (g)  Consistent with these goals:

(i)    DOD and the IC shall, in consultation with DOJ as appropriate, review their respective legal, policy, civil liberties, privacy, and compliance frameworks, including international legal obligations, and, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, seek to develop or revise policies and procedures to enable the effective and responsible use of AI, accounting for the following:

(A)  Issues raised by the acquisition, use, retention, dissemination, and disposal of models trained on datasets that include personal information traceable to specific United States persons, publicly available information, commercially available information, and intellectual property, consistent with section 9 of Executive Order 14110;

(B)  Guidance that shall be developed by DOJ, in consultation with DOD and ODNI, regarding constitutional considerations raised by the IC’s acquisition and use of AI;

(C)  Challenges associated with classification and compartmentalization;

(D)  Algorithmic bias, inconsistent performance, inaccurate outputs, and other known AI failure modes;

(E)  Threats to analytic integrity when employing AI tools;

(F)  Risks posed by a lack of safeguards that protect human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, privacy, and other democratic values, as addressed in further detail in subsection 4.2 of this section;

(G)  Barriers to sharing AI models and related insights with allies and partners; and

(H)  Potential inconsistencies between AI use and the implementation of international legal obligations and commitments.

(ii)   As appropriate, the policies described in subsection 4.1(g) of this section shall be consistent with direction issued by the Committee on NSS and DOD governing the security of AI used on NSS, policies issued by the Director of National Intelligence governing adoption of AI by the IC, and direction issued by OMB governing the security of AI used on non-NSS.

(iii)  On an ongoing basis, each agency that uses AI on NSS shall, in consultation with ODNI and DOD, take all steps appropriate and consistent with applicable law to accelerate responsible approval of AI systems for use on NSS and accreditation of NSS that use AI systems.

     (h)  The United States’ network of allies and partners confers significant advantages over competitors.  Consistent with the 2022 National Security Strategy or any successor strategies, the United States Government must invest in and proactively enable the co-development and co-deployment of AI capabilities with select allies and partners.

     (i)  Consistent with these goals:

(i)  Within 150 days of the date of this memorandum, DOD, in coordination with the Department of State and ODNI, shall evaluate the feasibility of advancing, increasing, and promoting co-development and shared use of AI and AI-enabled assets with select allies and partners.  This evaluation shall include:

(A)  A potential list of foreign states with which such co-development or co-deployment may be feasible;

(B)  A list of bilateral and multilateral fora for potential outreach;

(C)  Potential co-development and co-deployment concepts;

(D)  Proposed classification-appropriate testing vehicles for co-developed AI capabilities; and

(E)  Considerations for existing programs, agreements, or arrangements to use as foundations for future co-development and co-deployment of AI capabilities.

     (j)  The United States Government needs improved internal coordination with respect to its use of and approach to AI on NSS in order to ensure interoperability and resource sharing consistent with applicable law, and to reap the generality and economies of scale offered by frontier AI models.

     (k)  Consistent with these goals:

(i)  On an ongoing basis, DOD and ODNI shall issue or revise relevant guidance to improve consolidation and interoperability across AI functions on NSS.  This guidance shall seek to ensure that the United States Government can coordinate and share AI-related resources effectively, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law.  Such work shall include:

(A)  Recommending agency organizational practices to improve AI research and deployment activities that span multiple national security institutions.  In order to encourage AI adoption for the purpose of national security, these measures shall aim to create consistency to the greatest extent possible across the revised practices.

(B)  Steps that enable consolidated research, development, and procurement for general-purpose AI systems and supporting infrastructure, such that multiple agencies can share access to these tools to the extent consistent with applicable law, while still allowing for appropriate controls on sensitive data.

(C)  Aligning AI-related national security policies and procedures across agencies, as practicable and appropriate, and consistent with applicable law.

(D)  Developing policies and procedures, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, to share information across DOD and the IC when an AI system developed, deployed, or used by a contractor demonstrates risks related to safety, security, and trustworthiness, including to human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, or privacy.

     4.2.  Strengthening AI Governance and Risk Management.  (a)  As the United States Government moves swiftly to adopt AI in support of its national security mission, it must continue taking active steps to uphold human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, privacy, and safety; ensure that AI is used in a manner consistent with the President’s authority as Commander in Chief to decide when to order military operations in the Nation’s defense; and ensure that military use of AI capabilities is accountable, including through such use during military operations within a responsible human chain of command and control.  Accordingly, the United States Government must develop and implement robust AI governance and risk management practices to ensure that its AI innovation aligns with democratic values, updating policy guidance where necessary.  In light of the diverse authorities and missions across covered agencies with a national security mission and the rapid rate of ongoing technological change, such AI governance and risk management frameworks shall be:

(i)    Structured, to the extent permitted by law, such that they can adapt to future opportunities and risks posed by new technical developments;

(ii)   As consistent across agencies as is practicable and appropriate in order to enable interoperability, while respecting unique authorities and missions;

(iii)  Designed to enable innovation that advances United States national security objectives;

(iv)   As transparent to the public as practicable and appropriate, while protecting classified or controlled information;

(v)    Developed and applied in a manner and with means to integrate protections, controls, and safeguards for human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, privacy, and safety where relevant; and

(vi)   Designed to reflect United States leadership in establishing broad international support for rules and norms that reinforce the United States’ approach to AI governance and risk management.

     (b)  Covered agencies shall develop and use AI responsibly, consistent with United States law and policies, democratic values, and international law and treaty obligations, including international humanitarian and human rights law.  All agency officials retain their existing authorities and responsibilities established in other laws and policies.

     (c)  Consistent with these goals:

(i)  Heads of covered agencies shall, consistent with their authorities, monitor, assess, and mitigate risks directly tied to their agency’s development and use of AI.  Such risks may result from reliance on AI outputs to inform, influence, decide, or execute agency decisions or actions, when used in a defense, intelligence, or law enforcement context, and may impact human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, privacy, safety, national security, and democratic values.  These risks from the use of AI include the following:

(A)  Risks to physical safety:  AI use may pose unintended risks to human life or property.

(B)  Privacy harms:  AI design, development, and operation may result in harm, embarrassment, unfairness, and prejudice to individuals.

(C)  Discrimination and bias:  AI use may lead to unlawful discrimination and harmful bias, resulting in, for instance, inappropriate surveillance and profiling, among other harms.

(D)  Inappropriate use:  operators using AI systems may not fully understand the capabilities and limitations of these technologies, including systems used in conflicts.  Such unfamiliarity could impact operators’ ability to exercise appropriate levels of human judgment.

(E)  Lack of transparency:  agencies may have gaps in documentation of AI development and use, and the public may lack access to information about how AI is used in national security contexts because of the necessity to protect classified or controlled information.

(F)  Lack of accountability:  training programs and guidance for agency personnel on the proper use of AI systems may not be sufficient, including to mitigate the risk of overreliance on AI systems (such as “automation bias”), and accountability mechanisms may not adequately address possible intentional or negligent misuse of AI-enabled technologies.

(G)  Data spillage:  AI systems may reveal aspects of their training data — either inadvertently or through deliberate manipulation by malicious actors — and data spillage may result from AI systems trained on classified or controlled information when used on networks where such information is not permitted.

(H)  Poor performance:  AI systems that are inappropriately or insufficiently trained, used for purposes outside the scope of their training set, or improperly integrated into human workflows may exhibit poor performance, including in ways that result in inconsistent outcomes or unlawful discrimination and harmful bias, or that undermine the integrity of decision-making processes.

(I)  Deliberate manipulation and misuse:  foreign state competitors and malicious actors may deliberately undermine the accuracy and efficacy of AI systems, or seek to extract sensitive information from such systems.

     (d)  The United States Government’s AI governance and risk management policies must keep pace with evolving technology.

     (e)  Consistent with these goals:

(i)   An AI framework, entitled “Framework to Advance AI Governance and Risk Management in National Security” (AI Framework), shall further implement this subsection.  The AI Framework shall be approved by the NSC Deputies Committee through the process described in National Security Memorandum 2 of February 4, 2021 (Renewing the National Security Council System), or any successor process, and shall be reviewed periodically through that process.  This process shall determine whether adjustments are needed to address risks identified in subsection 4.2(c) of this section and other topics covered in the AI Framework.  The AI Framework shall serve as a national security-focused counterpart to OMB’s Memorandum M-24-10 of March 28, 2024 (Advancing Governance, Innovation, and Risk Management for Agency Use of Artificial Intelligence), and any successor OMB policies.  To the extent feasible, appropriate, and consistent with applicable law, the AI Framework shall be as consistent as possible with these OMB policies and shall be made public.

(ii)  The AI Framework described in subsection 4.2(e)(i) of this section and any successor document shall, at a minimum, and to the extent consistent with applicable law, specify the following:

(A)  Each covered agency shall have a Chief AI Officer who holds primary responsibility within that agency, in coordination with other responsible officials, for managing the agency’s use of AI, promoting AI innovation within the agency, and managing risks from the agency’s use of AI consistent with subsection 3(b) of OMB Memorandum M-24-10, as practicable.

(B)  Covered agencies shall have AI Governance Boards to coordinate and govern AI issues through relevant senior leaders from the agency.

(C)  Guidance on AI activities that pose unacceptable levels of risk and that shall be prohibited.

(D)  Guidance on AI activities that are “high impact” and require minimum risk management practices, including for high-impact AI use that affects United States Government personnel.  Such high-impact activities shall include AI whose output serves as a principal basis for a decision or action that could exacerbate or create significant risks to national security, international norms, human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, privacy, safety, or other democratic values.  The minimum risk management practices for high-impact AI shall include a mechanism for agencies to assess AI’s expected benefits and potential risks; a mechanism for assessing data quality; sufficient test and evaluation practices; mitigation of unlawful discrimination and harmful bias; human training, assessment, and oversight requirements; ongoing monitoring; and additional safeguards for military service members, the Federal civilian workforce, and individuals who receive an offer of employment from a covered agency.

(E)  Covered agencies shall ensure privacy, civil liberties, and safety officials are integrated into AI governance and oversight structures.  Such officials shall report findings to the heads of agencies and oversight officials, as appropriate, using existing reporting channels when feasible.

(F)  Covered agencies shall ensure that there are sufficient training programs, guidance, and accountability processes to enable proper use of AI systems.

(G)  Covered agencies shall maintain an annual inventory of their high-impact AI use and AI systems and provide updates on this inventory to agency heads and the APNSA.

(H)  Covered agencies shall ensure that whistleblower protections are sufficient to account for issues that may arise in the development and use of AI and AI systems.

(I)  Covered agencies shall develop and implement waiver processes for high-impact AI use that balance robust implementation of risk mitigation measures in this memorandum and the AI Framework with the need to utilize AI to preserve and advance critical agency missions and operations.

(J)  Covered agencies shall implement cybersecurity guidance or direction associated with AI systems issued by the National Manager for NSS to mitigate the risks posed by malicious actors exploiting new technologies, and to enable interoperability of AI across agencies.  Within 150 days of the date of this memorandum, and periodically thereafter, the National Manager for NSS shall issue minimum cybersecurity guidance and/or direction for AI used as a component of NSS, which shall be incorporated into AI governance guidance detailed in subsection 4.2(g)(i) of this section.

     (f)  The United States Government needs guidance specifically regarding the use of AI on NSS.

     (g)  Consistent with these goals:

(i)  Within 180 days of the date of this memorandum, the heads of the Department of State, the Department of the Treasury, DOD, DOJ, Commerce, DOE, DHS, ODNI (acting on behalf of the 18 IC elements), and any other covered agency that uses AI as part of a NSS (Department Heads) shall issue or update guidance to their components/sub-agencies on AI governance and risk management for NSS, aligning with the policies in this subsection, the AI Framework, and other applicable policies.  Department Heads shall review their respective guidance on an annual basis, and update such guidance as needed.  This guidance, and any updates thereto, shall be provided to the APNSA prior to issuance.  This guidance shall be unclassified and made available to the public to the extent feasible and appropriate, though it may have a classified annex.  Department Heads shall seek to harmonize their guidance, and the APNSA shall convene an interagency meeting at least annually for the purpose of harmonizing Department Heads’ guidance on AI governance and risk management to the extent practicable and appropriate while respecting the agencies’ diverse authorities and missions.  Harmonization shall be pursued in the following areas:

(A)  Implementation of the risk management practices for high-impact AI;

(B)  AI and AI system standards and activities, including as they relate to training, testing, accreditation, and security and cybersecurity; and

(C)  Any other issues that affect interoperability for AI and AI systems.

Sec. 5.  Fostering a Stable, Responsible, and Globally Beneficial International AI Governance Landscape.  (a)  Throughout its history, the United States has played an essential role in shaping the international order to enable the safe, secure, and trustworthy global adoption of new technologies while also protecting democratic values.  These contributions have ranged from establishing nonproliferation regimes for biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons to setting the foundations for multi-stakeholder governance of the Internet.  Like these precedents, AI will require new global norms and coordination mechanisms, which the United States Government must maintain an active role in crafting.

     (b)  It is the policy of the United States Government that United States international engagement on AI shall support and facilitate improvements to the safety, security, and trustworthiness of AI systems worldwide; promote democratic values, including respect for human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, privacy, and safety; prevent the misuse of AI in national security contexts; and promote equitable access to AI’s benefits.  The United States Government shall advance international agreements, collaborations, and other substantive and norm-setting initiatives in alignment with this policy.

     (c)  Consistent with these goals:

(i)  Within 120 days of the date of this memorandum, the Department of State, in coordination with DOD, Commerce, DHS, the United States Mission to the United Nations (USUN), and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), shall produce a strategy for the advancement of international AI governance norms in line with safe, secure, and trustworthy AI, and democratic values, including human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, and privacy.  This strategy shall cover bilateral and multilateral engagement and relations with allies and partners.  It shall also include guidance on engaging with competitors, and it shall outline an approach to working in international institutions such as the United Nations and the Group of 7 (G7), as well as technical organizations.  The strategy shall:

(A)  Develop and promote internationally shared definitions, norms, expectations, and standards, consistent with United States policy and existing efforts, which will promote safe, secure, and trustworthy AI development and use around the world.  These norms shall be as consistent as possible with United States domestic AI governance (including Executive Order 14110 and OMB Memorandum M-24-10), the International Code of Conduct for Organizations Developing Advanced AI Systems released by the G7 in October 2023, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Principles on AI, United Nations General Assembly Resolution A/78/L.49, and other United States-supported relevant international frameworks (such as the Political Declaration on Responsible Military Use of AI and Autonomy) and instruments.  By discouraging misuse and encouraging appropriate safeguards, these norms and standards shall aim to reduce the likelihood of AI causing harm or having adverse impacts on human rights, democracy, or the rule of law.

(B)  Promote the responsible and ethical use of AI in national security contexts in accordance with democratic values and in compliance with applicable international law.  The strategy shall advance the norms and practices established by this memorandum and measures endorsed in the Political Declaration on Responsible Military Use of AI and Autonomy.

Sec. 6.  Ensuring Effective Coordination, Execution, and Reporting of AI Policy.  (a)  The United States Government must work in a closely coordinated manner to make progress on effective and responsible AI adoption.  Given the speed with which AI technology evolves, the United States Government must learn quickly, adapt to emerging strategic developments, adopt new capabilities, and confront novel risks.

     (b)  Consistent with these goals:

(i)    Within 270 days of the date of this memorandum, and annually thereafter for at least the next 5 years, the heads of the Department of State, DOD, Commerce, DOE, ODNI (acting on behalf of the IC), USUN, and USAID shall each submit a report to the President, through the APNSA, that offers a detailed accounting of their activities in response to their taskings in all sections of this memorandum, including this memorandum’s classified annex, and that provides a plan for further action.  The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), NSA, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and NGA shall submit reports on their activities to ODNI for inclusion in full as an appendix to ODNI’s report regarding IC activities.  NGA, NSA, and DIA shall submit their reports as well to DOD for inclusion in full as an appendix to DOD’s report.

(ii)   Within 45 days of the date of this memorandum, the Chief AI Officers of the Department of State, DOD, DOJ, DOE, DHS, OMB, ODNI, CIA, DIA, NSA, and NGA, as well as appropriate technical staff, shall form an AI National Security Coordination Group (Coordination Group).  Any Chief AI Officer of an agency that is a member of the Committee on National Security Systems may also join the Coordination Group as a full member.  The Coordination Group shall be co-chaired by the Chief AI Officers of ODNI and DOD.  The Coordination Group shall consider ways to harmonize policies relating to the development, accreditation, acquisition, use, and evaluation of AI on NSS.  This work could include development of:

(A)  Enhanced training and awareness to ensure that agencies prioritize the most effective AI systems, responsibly develop and use AI, and effectively evaluate AI systems;

(B)  Best practices to identify and mitigate foreign intelligence risks and human rights considerations associated with AI procurement;

(C)  Best practices to ensure interoperability between agency deployments of AI, to include data interoperability and data sharing agreements, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law;

(D)  A process to maintain, update, and disseminate such trainings and best practices on an ongoing basis;

(E)  AI-related policy initiatives to address regulatory gaps implicated by executive branch-wide policy development processes; and 

(F)  An agile process to increase the speed of acquisitions, validation, and delivery of AI capabilities, consistent with applicable law.

(iii)  Within 90 days of the date of this memorandum, the Coordination Group described in subsection (b)(ii) of this section shall establish a National Security AI Executive Talent Committee (Talent Committee) composed of senior AI officials (or designees) from all agencies in the Coordination Group that wish to participate.  The Talent Committee shall work to standardize, prioritize, and address AI talent needs and develop an updated set of Government-wide procedures for attracting, hiring, developing, and retaining AI and AI-enabling talent for national security purposes.  The Talent Committee shall designate a representative to serve as a member of the AI and Technology Talent Task Force set forth in Executive Order 14110, helping to identify overlapping needs and address shared challenges in hiring.

(iv)   Within 365 days of the date of this memorandum, and annually thereafter for at least the next 5 years, the Coordination Group described in subsection (b)(ii) of this section shall issue a joint report to the APNSA on consolidation and interoperability of AI efforts and systems for the purposes of national security.

     Sec. 7.  Definitions.  (a)  This memorandum uses definitions set forth in section 3 of Executive Order 14110.  In addition, for the purposes of this memorandum:

(i)     The term “AI safety” means the mechanisms through which individuals and organizations minimize and mitigate the potential for harm to individuals and society that can result from the malicious use, misapplication, failures, accidents, and unintended behavior of AI models; the systems that integrate them; and the ways in which they are used.

(ii)    The term “AI security” means a set of practices to protect AI systems — including training data, models, abilities, and lifecycles — from cyber and physical attacks, thefts, and damage.

(iii)   The term “covered agencies” means agencies in the Intelligence Community, as well as all agencies as defined in 44 U.S.C. 3502(1) when they use AI as a component of a National Security System, other than the Executive Office of the President.

(iv)    The term “Critical Technical Artifacts” (CTAs) means information, usually specific to a single model or group of related models that, if possessed by someone other than the model developer, would substantially lower the costs of recreating, attaining, or using the model’s capabilities.  Under the technical paradigm dominant in the AI industry today, the model weights of a trained AI system constitute CTAs, as do, in some cases, associated training data and code.  Future paradigms may rely on different CTAs.

(v)     The term “frontier AI model” means a general-purpose AI system near the cutting-edge of performance, as measured by widely accepted publicly available benchmarks, or similar assessments of reasoning, science, and overall capabilities.

(vi)    The term “Intelligence Community” (IC) has the meaning provided in 50 U.S.C. 3003.

(vii)   The term “open-weight model” means a model that has weights that are widely available, typically through public release.

(viii)  The term “United States Government” means all agencies as defined in 44 U.S.C. 3502(1).

     Sec. 8.  General Provisions.  (a)  Nothing in this memorandum shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:

(i)   the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or

(ii)  the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

     (b)  This memorandum shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

     (c)  This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

                              JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR.

The post Memorandum on Advancing the United States’ Leadership in Artificial Intelligence; Harnessing Artificial Intelligence to Fulfill National Security Objectives; and Fostering the Safety, Security, and Trustworthiness of Artificial Intelligence appeared first on The White House.

MEMORANDUM FOR THE VICE PRESIDENT

               THE SECRETARY OF STATE

               THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY

               THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE

               THE ATTORNEY GENERAL

               THE SECRETARY OF COMMERCE

               THE SECRETARY OF ENERGY

               THE SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

               THE SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY

               THE DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET

               THE DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE

               THE REPRESENTATIVE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA TO THE UNITED NATIONS

               THE DIRECTOR OF THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

               THE ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT AND CHIEF OF STAFF

               THE ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT FOR NATIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS

               THE ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT FOR ECONOMIC

                  POLICY AND DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL

               THE CHAIR OF THE COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISERS

               THE DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY

               THE ADMINISTRATOR OF THE UNITED STATES AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

               THE DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION

               THE DIRECTOR OF THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

               THE NATIONAL CYBER DIRECTOR

               THE DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF PANDEMIC PREPAREDNESS AND RESPONSE POLICY

               THE DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY

               THE DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL GEOSPATIAL-INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

               THE DIRECTOR OF THE DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

SUBJECT:       Advancing the United States’ Leadership in

               Artificial Intelligence; Harnessing Artificial

               Intelligence to Fulfill National Security

               Objectives; and Fostering the Safety, Security,

               and Trustworthiness of Artificial Intelligence

     Section 1.  Policy.  (a)  This memorandum fulfills the directive set forth in subsection 4.8 of Executive Order 14110 of October 30, 2023 (Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence).  This memorandum provides further direction on appropriately harnessing artificial intelligence (AI) models and AI-enabled technologies in the United States Government, especially in the context of national security systems (NSS), while protecting human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, privacy, and safety in AI-enabled national security activities.  A classified annex to this memorandum addresses additional sensitive national security issues, including countering adversary use of AI that poses risks to United States national security.

     (b)  United States national security institutions have historically triumphed during eras of technological transition.  To meet changing times, they developed new capabilities, from submarines and aircraft to space systems and cyber tools.  To gain a decisive edge and protect national security, they pioneered technologies such as radar, the Global Positioning System, and nuclear propulsion, and unleashed these hard-won breakthroughs on the battlefield.  With each paradigm shift, they also developed new systems for tracking and countering adversaries’ attempts to wield cutting-edge technology for their own advantage.

     (c)  AI has emerged as an era-defining technology and has demonstrated significant and growing relevance to national security.  The United States must lead the world in the responsible application of AI to appropriate national security functions.  AI, if used appropriately and for its intended purpose, can offer great benefits.  If misused, AI could threaten United States national security, bolster authoritarianism worldwide, undermine democratic institutions and processes, facilitate human rights abuses, and weaken the rules-based international order.  Harmful outcomes could occur even without malicious intent if AI systems and processes lack sufficient protections.

     (d)  Recent innovations have spurred not only an increase in AI use throughout society, but also a paradigm shift within the AI field — one that has occurred mostly outside of Government.  This era of AI development and deployment rests atop unprecedented aggregations of specialized computational power, as well as deep scientific and engineering expertise, much of which is concentrated in the private sector.  This trend is most evident with the rise of large language models, but it extends to a broader class of increasingly general-purpose and computationally intensive systems.  The United States Government must urgently consider how this current AI paradigm specifically could transform the national security mission.

     (e)  Predicting technological change with certainty is impossible, but the foundational drivers that have underpinned recent AI progress show little sign of abating.  These factors include compounding algorithmic improvements, increasingly efficient computational hardware, a growing willingness in industry to invest substantially in research and development, and the expansion of training data sets.  AI under the current paradigm may continue to become more powerful and general-purpose.  Developing and effectively using these systems requires an evolving array of resources, infrastructure, competencies, and workflows that in many cases differ from what was required to harness prior technologies, including previous paradigms of AI.

     (f)  If the United States Government does not act with responsible speed and in partnership with industry, civil society, and academia to make use of AI capabilities in service of the national security mission — and to ensure the safety, security, and trustworthiness of American AI innovation writ large — it risks losing ground to strategic competitors.  Ceding the United States’ technological edge would not only greatly harm American national security, but it would also undermine United States foreign policy objectives and erode safety, human rights, and democratic norms worldwide.

     (g)  Establishing national security leadership in AI will require making deliberate and meaningful changes to aspects of the United States Government’s strategies, capabilities, infrastructure, governance, and organization.  AI is likely to affect almost all domains with national security significance, and its use cannot be relegated to a single institutional silo.  The increasing generality of AI means that many functions that to date have been served by individual bespoke tools may, going forward, be better fulfilled by systems that, at least in part, rely on a shared, multi-purpose AI capability.  Such integration will only succeed if paired with appropriately redesigned United States Government organizational and informational infrastructure.

     (h)  In this effort, the United States Government must also protect human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, privacy, and safety, and lay the groundwork for a stable and responsible international AI governance landscape.  Throughout its history, the United States has been a global leader in shaping the design, development, and use of new technologies not only to advance national security, but also to protect and promote democratic values.  The United States Government must develop safeguards for its use of AI tools, and take an active role in steering global AI norms and institutions.  The AI frontier is moving quickly, and the United States Government must stay attuned to ongoing technical developments without losing focus on its guiding principles.

     (i)  This memorandum aims to catalyze needed change in how the United States Government approaches AI national security policy.  In line with Executive Order 14110, it directs actions to strengthen and protect the United States AI ecosystem; improve the safety, security, and trustworthiness of AI systems developed and used in the United States; enhance the United States Government’s appropriate, responsible, and effective adoption of AI in service of the national security mission; and minimize the misuse of AI worldwide.

Sec. 2.  Objectives.  It is the policy of the United States Government that the following three objectives will guide its activities with respect to AI and national security.

     (a)  First, the United States must lead the world’s development of safe, secure, and trustworthy AI.  To that end, the United States Government must — in partnership with industry, civil society, and academia — promote and secure the foundational capabilities across the United States that power AI development.  The United States Government cannot take the unmatched vibrancy and innovativeness of the United States AI ecosystem for granted; it must proactively strengthen it, ensuring that the United States remains the most attractive destination for global talent and home to the world’s most sophisticated computational facilities.  The United States Government must also provide appropriate safety and security guidance to AI developers and users, and rigorously assess and help mitigate the risks that AI systems could pose.

     (b)  Second, the United States Government must harness powerful AI, with appropriate safeguards, to achieve national security objectives.  Emerging AI capabilities, including increasingly general-purpose models, offer profound opportunities for enhancing national security, but employing these systems effectively will require significant technical, organizational, and policy changes.  The United States must understand AI’s limitations as it harnesses the technology’s benefits, and any use of AI must respect democratic values with regard to transparency, human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, privacy, and safety.

     (c)  Third, the United States Government must continue cultivating a stable and responsible framework to advance international AI governance that fosters safe, secure, and trustworthy AI development and use; manages AI risks; realizes democratic values; respects human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, and privacy; and promotes worldwide benefits from AI.  It must do so in collaboration with a wide range of allies and partners.  Success for the United States in the age of AI will be measured not only by the preeminence of United States technology and innovation, but also by the United States’ leadership in developing effective global norms and engaging in institutions rooted in international law, human rights, civil rights, and democratic values.

Sec. 3.  Promoting and Securing the United States’ Foundational AI Capabilities.  (a)  To preserve and expand United States advantages in AI, it is the policy of the United States Government to promote progress, innovation, and competition in domestic AI development; protect the United States AI ecosystem against foreign intelligence threats; and manage risks to AI safety, security, and trustworthiness.  Leadership in responsible AI development benefits United States national security by enabling applications directly relevant to the national security mission, unlocking economic growth, and avoiding strategic surprise.  United States technological leadership also confers global benefits by enabling like-minded entities to collectively mitigate the risks of AI misuse and accidents, prevent the unchecked spread of digital authoritarianism, and prioritize vital research.

     3.1.  Promoting Progress, Innovation, and Competition in United States AI Development.  (a)  The United States’ competitive edge in AI development will be at risk absent concerted United States Government efforts to promote and secure domestic AI progress, innovation, and competition.  Although the United States has benefited from a head start in AI, competitors are working hard to catch up, have identified AI as a top strategic priority, and may soon devote resources to research and development that United States AI developers cannot match without appropriately supportive Government policies and action.  It is therefore the policy of the United States Government to enhance innovation and competition by bolstering key drivers of AI progress, such as technical talent and computational power.

     (b)  It is the policy of the United States Government that advancing the lawful ability of noncitizens highly skilled in AI and related fields to enter and work in the United States constitutes a national security priority.  Today, the unparalleled United States AI industry rests in substantial part on the insights of brilliant scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs who moved to the United States in pursuit of academic, social, and economic opportunity.  Preserving and expanding United States talent advantages requires developing talent at home and continuing to attract and retain top international minds.

     (c)  Consistent with these goals:

(i)    On an ongoing basis, the Department of State, the Department of Defense (DOD), and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shall each use all available legal authorities to assist in attracting and rapidly bringing to the United States individuals with relevant technical expertise who would improve United States competitiveness in AI and related fields, such as semiconductor design and production.  These activities shall include all appropriate vetting of these individuals and shall be consistent with all appropriate risk mitigation measures.  This tasking is consistent with and additive to the taskings on attracting AI talent in section 5 of Executive Order 14110.

(ii)   Within 180 days of the date of this memorandum, the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers shall prepare an analysis of the AI talent market in the United States and overseas, to the extent that reliable data is available.

(iii)  Within 180 days of the date of this memorandum, the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and Director of the National Economic Council shall coordinate an economic assessment of the relative competitive advantage of the United States private sector AI ecosystem, the key sources of the United States private sector’s competitive advantage, and possible risks to that position, and shall recommend policies to mitigate them.  The assessment could include areas including (1) the design, manufacture, and packaging of chips critical in AI-related activities; (2) the availability of capital; (3) the availability of workers highly skilled in AI-related fields; (4) computational resources and the associated electricity requirements; and (5) technological platforms or institutions with the requisite scale of capital and data resources for frontier AI model development, as well as possible other factors.

(iv)   Within 90 days of the date of this memorandum, the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (APNSA) shall convene appropriate executive departments and agencies (agencies) to explore actions for prioritizing and streamlining administrative processing operations for all visa applicants working with sensitive technologies.  Doing so shall assist with streamlined processing of highly skilled applicants in AI and other critical and emerging technologies.  This effort shall explore options for ensuring the adequate resourcing of such operations and narrowing the criteria that trigger secure advisory opinion requests for such applicants, as consistent with national security objectives.

     (d)  The current paradigm of AI development depends heavily on computational resources.  To retain its lead in AI, the United States must continue developing the world’s most sophisticated AI semiconductors and constructing its most advanced AI-dedicated computational infrastructure.

     (e)  Consistent with these goals:

(i)    DOD, the Department of Energy (DOE) (including national laboratories), and the Intelligence Community (IC) shall, when planning for and constructing or renovating computational facilities, consider the applicability of large-scale AI to their mission.  Where appropriate, agencies shall design and build facilities capable of harnessing frontier AI for relevant scientific research domains and intelligence analysis.  Those investments shall be consistent with the Federal Mission Resilience Strategy adopted in Executive Order 13961 of December 7, 2020 (Governance and Integration of Federal Mission Resilience).

(ii)   On an ongoing basis, the National Science Foundation (NSF) shall, consistent with its authorities, use the National AI Research Resource (NAIRR) pilot project and any future NAIRR efforts to distribute computational resources, data, and other critical assets for AI development to a diverse array of actors that otherwise would lack access to such capabilities — such as universities, nonprofits, and independent researchers (including trusted international collaborators) — to ensure that AI research in the United States remains competitive and innovative.  This tasking is consistent with the NAIRR pilot assigned in section 5 of Executive Order 14110.

(iii)  Within 180 days of the date of this memorandum, DOE shall launch a pilot project to evaluate the performance and efficiency of federated AI and data sources for frontier AI-scale training, fine-tuning, and inference.

(iv)   The Office of the White House Chief of Staff, in coordination with DOE and other relevant agencies, shall coordinate efforts to streamline permitting, approvals, and incentives for the construction of AI-enabling infrastructure, as well as surrounding assets supporting the resilient operation of this infrastructure, such as clean energy generation, power transmission lines, and high-capacity fiber data links.  These efforts shall include coordination, collaboration, consultation, and partnership with State, local, Tribal, and territorial governments, as appropriate, and shall be consistent with the United States’ goals for managing climate risks.

(v)    The Department of State, DOD, DOE, the IC, and the Department of Commerce (Commerce) shall, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, use existing authorities to make public investments and encourage private investments in strategic domestic and foreign AI technologies and adjacent fields.  These agencies shall assess the need for new authorities for the purposes of facilitating public and private investment in AI and adjacent capabilities.

     3.2.  Protecting United States AI from Foreign Intelligence Threats.  (a)  In addition to pursuing industrial strategies that support their respective AI industries, foreign states almost certainly aim to obtain and repurpose the fruits of AI innovation in the United States to serve their national security goals.  Historically, such competitors have employed techniques including research collaborations, investment schemes, insider threats, and advanced cyber espionage to collect and exploit United States scientific insights.  It is the policy of the United States Government to protect United States industry, civil society, and academic AI intellectual property and related infrastructure from foreign intelligence threats to maintain a lead in foundational capabilities and, as necessary, to provide appropriate Government assistance to relevant non-government entities.

     (b)  Consistent with these goals:

(i)   Within 90 days of the date of this memorandum, the National Security Council (NSC) staff and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) shall review the President’s Intelligence Priorities and the National Intelligence Priorities Framework consistent with National Security Memorandum 12 of July 12, 2022 (The President’s Intelligence Priorities), and make recommendations to ensure that such priorities improve identification and assessment of foreign intelligence threats to the United States AI ecosystem and closely related enabling sectors, such as those involved in semiconductor design and production.

(ii)  Within 180 days of the date of this memorandum, and on an ongoing basis thereafter, ODNI, in coordination with DOD, the Department of Justice (DOJ), Commerce, DOE, DHS, and other IC elements as appropriate, shall identify critical nodes in the AI supply chain, and develop a list of the most plausible avenues through which these nodes could be disrupted or compromised by foreign actors.  On an ongoing basis, these agencies shall take all steps, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, to reduce such risks.

     (c)  Foreign actors may also seek to obtain United States intellectual property through gray-zone methods, such as technology transfer and data localization requirements.  AI-related intellectual property often includes critical technical artifacts (CTAs) that would substantially lower the costs of recreating, attaining, or using powerful AI capabilities.  The United States Government must guard against these risks.

     (d)  Consistent with these goals:

(i)  In furtherance of Executive Order 14083 of September 15, 2022 (Ensuring Robust Consideration of Evolving National Security Risks by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States), the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States shall, as appropriate, consider whether a covered transaction involves foreign actor access to proprietary information on AI training techniques, algorithmic improvements, hardware advances, CTAs, or other proprietary insights that shed light on how to create and effectively use powerful AI systems.

     3.3.  Managing Risks to AI Safety, Security, and Trustworthiness.  (a)  Current and near-future AI systems could pose significant safety, security, and trustworthiness risks, including those stemming from deliberate misuse and accidents.  Across many technological domains, the United States has historically led the world not only in advancing capabilities, but also in developing the tests, standards, and norms that underpin reliable and beneficial global adoption.  The United States approach to AI should be no different, and proactively constructing testing infrastructure to assess and mitigate AI risks will be essential to realizing AI’s positive potential and to preserving United States AI leadership.

     (b)  It is the policy of the United States Government to pursue new technical and policy tools that address the potential challenges posed by AI.  These tools include processes for reliably testing AI models’ applicability to harmful tasks and deeper partnerships with institutions in industry, academia, and civil society capable of advancing research related to AI safety, security, and trustworthiness.

     (c)  Commerce, acting through the AI Safety Institute (AISI) within the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), shall serve as the primary United States Government point of contact with private sector AI developers to facilitate voluntary pre- and post-public deployment testing for safety, security, and trustworthiness of frontier AI models.  In coordination with relevant agencies as appropriate, Commerce shall establish an enduring capability to lead voluntary unclassified pre-deployment safety testing of frontier AI models on behalf of the United States Government, including assessments of risks relating to cybersecurity, biosecurity, chemical weapons, system autonomy, and other risks as appropriate (not including nuclear risk, the assessment of which shall be led by DOE).  Voluntary unclassified safety testing shall also, as appropriate, address risks to human rights, civil rights, and civil liberties, such as those related to privacy, discrimination and bias, freedom of expression, and the safety of individuals and groups.  Other agencies, as identified in subsection 3.3(f) of this section, shall establish enduring capabilities to perform complementary voluntary classified testing in appropriate areas of expertise.  The directives set forth in this subsection are consistent with broader taskings on AI safety in section 4 of Executive Order 14110, and provide additional clarity on agencies’ respective roles and responsibilities.

     (d)  Nothing in this subsection shall inhibit agencies from performing their own evaluations of AI systems, including tests performed before those systems are released to the public, for the purposes of evaluating suitability for that agency’s acquisition and procurement.  AISI’s responsibilities do not extend to the evaluation of AI systems for the potential use by the United States Government for national security purposes; those responsibilities lie with agencies considering such use, as outlined in subsection 4.2(e) of this memorandum and the associated framework described in that subsection.

     (e)  Consistent with these goals, Commerce, acting through AISI within NIST, shall take the following actions to aid in the evaluation of current and near-future AI systems:

(i)    Within 180 days of the date of this memorandum and subject to private sector cooperation, AISI shall pursue voluntary preliminary testing of at least two frontier AI models prior to their public deployment or release to evaluate capabilities that might pose a threat to national security.  This testing shall assess models’ capabilities to aid offensive cyber operations, accelerate development of biological and/or chemical weapons, autonomously carry out malicious behavior, automate development and deployment of other models with such capabilities, and give rise to other risks identified by AISI.  AISI shall share feedback with the APNSA, interagency counterparts as appropriate, and the respective model developers regarding the results of risks identified during such testing and any appropriate mitigations prior to deployment.

(ii)   Within 180 days of the date of this memorandum, AISI shall issue guidance for AI developers on how to test, evaluate, and manage risks to safety, security, and trustworthiness arising from dual-use foundation models, building on guidelines issued pursuant to subsection 4.1(a) of Executive Order 14110.  AISI shall issue guidance on topics including:

(A)  How to measure capabilities that are relevant to the risk that AI models could enable the development of biological and chemical weapons or the automation of offensive cyber operations;

(B)  How to address societal risks, such as the misuse of models to harass or impersonate individuals;

(C)  How to develop mitigation measures to prevent malicious or improper use of models;

(D)  How to test the efficacy of safety and security mitigations; and

(E)  How to apply risk management practices throughout the development and deployment lifecycle (pre-development, development, and deployment/release).

(iii)  Within 180 days of the date of this memorandum, AISI, in consultation with other agencies as appropriate, shall develop or recommend benchmarks or other methods for assessing AI systems’ capabilities and limitations in science, mathematics, code generation, and general reasoning, as well as other categories of activity that AISI deems relevant to assessing general-purpose capabilities likely to have a bearing on national security and public safety.

(iv)   In the event that AISI or another agency determines that a dual-use foundation model’s capabilities could be used to harm public safety significantly, AISI shall serve as the primary point of contact through which the United States Government communicates such findings and any associated recommendations regarding risk mitigation to the developer of the model.

(v)    Within 270 days of the date of this memorandum, and at least annually thereafter, AISI shall submit to the President, through the APNSA, and provide to other interagency counterparts as appropriate, at minimum one report that shall include the following:

(A)  A summary of findings from AI safety assessments of frontier AI models that have been conducted by or shared with AISI;

(B)  A summary of whether AISI deemed risk mitigation necessary to resolve any issues identified in the assessments, along with conclusions regarding any mitigations’ efficacy; and

(C)  A summary of the adequacy of the science-based tools and methods used to inform such assessments.

     (f)  Consistent with these goals, other agencies specified below shall take the following actions, in coordination with Commerce, acting through AISI within NIST, to provide classified sector-specific evaluations of current and near-future AI systems for cyber, nuclear, and radiological risks:

(i)    All agencies that conduct or fund safety testing and evaluations of AI systems shall share the results of such evaluations with AISI within 30 days of their completion, consistent with applicable protections for classified and controlled information.

(ii)   Within 120 days of the date of this memorandum, the National Security Agency (NSA), acting through its AI Security Center (AISC) and in coordination with AISI, shall develop the capability to perform rapid systematic classified testing of AI models’ capacity to detect, generate, and/or exacerbate offensive cyber threats.  Such tests shall assess the degree to which AI systems, if misused, could accelerate offensive cyber operations.

(iii)  Within 120 days of the date of this memorandum, DOE, acting primarily through the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and in close coordination with AISI and NSA, shall seek to develop the capability to perform rapid systematic testing of AI models’ capacity to generate or exacerbate nuclear and radiological risks.  This initiative shall involve the development and maintenance of infrastructure capable of running classified and unclassified tests, including using restricted data and relevant classified threat information.  This initiative shall also feature the creation and regular updating of automated evaluations, the development of an interface for enabling human-led red-teaming, and the establishment of technical and legal tooling necessary for facilitating the rapid and secure transfer of United States Government, open-weight, and proprietary models to these facilities.  As part of this initiative:

(A)  Within 180 days of the date of this memorandum, DOE shall use the capability described in subsection 3.3(f)(iii) of this section to complete initial evaluations of the radiological and nuclear knowledge, capabilities, and implications of a frontier AI model no more than 30 days after the model has been made available to NNSA at an appropriate classification level.  These evaluations shall involve tests of AI systems both without significant modifications and, as appropriate, with fine-tuning or other modifications that could enhance performance.

(B)  Within 270 days of the date of this memorandum, and at least annually thereafter, DOE shall submit to the President, through the APNSA, at minimum one assessment that shall include the following:

(1)  A concise summary of the findings of each AI model evaluation for radiological and nuclear risk, described in subsection 3.3(f)(iii)(A) of this section, that DOE has performed in the preceding 12 months;

(2)  A recommendation as to whether corrective action is necessary to resolve any issues identified in the evaluations, including but not limited to actions necessary for attaining and sustaining compliance conditions appropriate to safeguard and prevent unauthorized disclosure of restricted data or other classified information, pursuant to the Atomic Energy Act of 1954; and

(3)  A concise statement regarding the adequacy of the science-based tools and methods used to inform the evaluations.

(iv)   On an ongoing basis, DHS, acting through the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), shall continue to fulfill its responsibilities with respect to the application of AISI guidance, as identified in National Security Memorandum 22 of April 30, 2024 (Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience), and section 4 of Executive Order 14110.

     (g)  Consistent with these goals, and to reduce the chemical and biological risks that could emerge from AI:

(i)    The United States Government shall advance classified evaluations of advanced AI models’ capacity to generate or exacerbate deliberate chemical and biological threats.  As part of this initiative:

(A)  Within 210 days of the date of this memorandum, DOE, DHS, and AISI, in consultation with DOD and other relevant agencies, shall coordinate to develop a roadmap for future classified evaluations of advanced AI models’ capacity to generate or exacerbate deliberate chemical and biological threats, to be shared with the APNSA.  This roadmap shall consider the scope, scale, and priority of classified evaluations; proper safeguards to ensure that evaluations and simulations are not misconstrued as offensive capability development; proper safeguards for testing sensitive and/or classified information; and sustainable implementation of evaluation methodologies.

(B)  On an ongoing basis, DHS shall provide expertise, threat and risk information, and other technical support to assess the feasibility of proposed biological and chemical classified evaluations; interpret and contextualize evaluation results; and advise relevant agencies on potential risk mitigations.

(C)  Within 270 days of the date of this memorandum, DOE shall establish a pilot project to provide expertise, infrastructure, and facilities capable of conducting classified tests in this area.

(ii)   Within 240 days of the date of this memorandum, DOD, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), DOE (including national laboratories), DHS, NSF, and other agencies pursuing the development of AI systems substantially trained on biological and chemical data shall, as appropriate, support efforts to utilize high-performance computing resources and AI systems to enhance biosafety and biosecurity.  These efforts shall include:

(A)  The development of tools for screening in silico chemical and biological research and technology;

(B)  The creation of algorithms for nucleic acid synthesis screening;

(C)  The construction of high-assurance software foundations for novel biotechnologies;

(D)  The screening of complete orders or data streams from cloud labs and biofoundries; and

(E)  The development of risk mitigation strategies such as medical countermeasures.

(iii)  After the publication of biological and chemical safety guidance by AISI outlined in subsection 3.3(e) of this section, all agencies that directly develop relevant dual-use foundation AI models that are made available to the public and are substantially trained on biological or chemical data shall incorporate this guidance into their agency’s practices, as appropriate and feasible.

(iv)   Within 180 days of the date of this memorandum, NSF, in coordination with DOD, Commerce (acting through AISI within NIST), HHS, DOE, the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), and other relevant agencies, shall seek to convene academic research institutions and scientific publishers to develop voluntary best practices and standards for publishing computational biological and chemical models, data sets, and approaches, including those that use AI and that could contribute to the production of knowledge, information, technologies, and products that could be misused to cause harm.  This is in furtherance of the activities described in subsections 4.4 and 4.7 of Executive Order 14110.

(v)    Within 540 days of the date of this memorandum, and informed by the United States Government Policy for Oversight of Dual Use Research of Concern and Pathogens with Enhanced Pandemic Potential, OSTP, NSC staff, and the Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy, in consultation with relevant agencies and external stakeholders as appropriate, shall develop guidance promoting the benefits of and mitigating the risks associated with in silico biological and chemical research.

     (h)  Agencies shall take the following actions to improve foundational understanding of AI safety, security, and trustworthiness:

(i)   DOD, Commerce, DOE, DHS, ODNI, NSF, NSA, and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) shall, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, prioritize research on AI safety and trustworthiness.  As appropriate and consistent with existing authorities, they shall pursue partnerships as appropriate with leading public sector, industry, civil society, academic, and other institutions with expertise in these domains, with the objective of accelerating technical and socio-technical progress in AI safety and trustworthiness.  This work may include research on interpretability, formal methods, privacy enhancing technologies, techniques to address risks to civil liberties and human rights, human-AI interaction, and/or the socio-technical effects of detecting and labeling synthetic and authentic content (for example, to address the malicious use of AI to generate misleading videos or images, including those of a strategically damaging or non-consensual intimate nature, of political or public figures).

(ii)  DOD, Commerce, DOE, DHS, ODNI, NSF, NSA, and NGA shall, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, prioritize research to improve the security, robustness, and reliability of AI systems and controls.  These entities shall, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, partner with other agencies, industry, civil society, and academia.  Where appropriate, DOD, DHS (acting through CISA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and NSA (acting through AISC) shall publish unclassified guidance concerning known AI cybersecurity vulnerabilities and threats; best practices for avoiding, detecting, and mitigating such issues during model training and deployment; and the integration of AI into other software systems.  This work shall include an examination of the role of and vulnerabilities potentially caused by AI systems used in critical infrastructure.

     (i)  Agencies shall take actions to protect classified and controlled information, given the potential risks posed by AI:

(i)  In the course of regular updates to policies and procedures, DOD, DOE, and the IC shall consider how analysis enabled by AI tools may affect decisions related to declassification of material, standards for sufficient anonymization, and similar activities, as well as the robustness of existing operational security and equity controls to protect classified or controlled information, given that AI systems have demonstrated the capacity to extract previously inaccessible insight from redacted and anonymized data.

Sec. 4.  Responsibly Harnessing AI to Achieve National Security Objectives.  (a)  It is the policy of the United States Government to act decisively to enable the effective and responsible use of AI in furtherance of its national security mission.  Achieving global leadership in national security applications of AI will require effective partnership with organizations outside Government, as well as significant internal transformation, including strengthening effective oversight and governance functions.

     4.1.  Enabling Effective and Responsible Use of AI.  (a)  It is the policy of the United States Government to adapt its partnerships, policies, and infrastructure to use AI capabilities appropriately, effectively, and responsibly.  These modifications must balance each agency’s unique oversight, data, and application needs with the substantial benefits associated with sharing powerful AI and computational resources across the United States Government.  Modifications must also be grounded in a clear understanding of the United States Government’s comparative advantages relative to industry, civil society, and academia, and must leverage offerings from external collaborators and contractors as appropriate.  The United States Government must make the most of the rich United States AI ecosystem by incentivizing innovation in safe, secure, and trustworthy AI and promoting industry competition when selecting contractors, grant recipients, and research collaborators.  Finally, the United States Government must address important technical and policy considerations in ways that ensure the integrity and interoperability needed to pursue its objectives while protecting human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, privacy, and safety.

     (b)  The United States Government needs an updated set of Government-wide procedures for attracting, hiring, developing, and retaining AI and AI-enabling talent for national security purposes.

     (c)  Consistent with these goals:

(i)   In the course of regular legal, policy, and compliance framework reviews, the Department of State, DOD, DOJ, DOE, DHS, and IC elements shall revise, as appropriate, their hiring and retention policies and strategies to accelerate responsible AI adoption.  Agencies shall account for technical talent needs required to adopt AI and integrate it into their missions and other roles necessary to use AI effectively, such as AI-related governance, ethics, and policy positions.  These policies and strategies shall identify financial, organizational, and security hurdles, as well as potential mitigations consistent with applicable law.  Such measures shall also include consideration of programs to attract experts with relevant technical expertise from industry, academia, and civil society — including scholarship for service programs — and similar initiatives that would expose Government employees to relevant non-government entities in ways that build technical, organizational, and cultural familiarity with the AI industry.  These policies and strategies shall use all available authorities, including expedited security clearance procedures as appropriate, in order to address the shortfall of AI-relevant talent within Government.

(ii)  Within 120 days of the date of this memorandum, the Department of State, DOD, DOJ, DOE, DHS, and IC elements shall each, in consultation with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), identify education and training opportunities to increase the AI competencies of their respective workforces, via initiatives which may include training and skills-based hiring.

     (d)  To accelerate the use of AI in service of its national security mission, the United States Government needs coordinated and effective acquisition and procurement systems.  This will require an enhanced capacity to assess, define, and articulate AI-related requirements for national security purposes, as well as improved accessibility for AI companies that lack significant prior experience working with the United States Government.

     (e)  Consistent with these goals:

(i)    Within 30 days of the date of this memorandum, DOD and ODNI, in coordination with OMB and other agencies as appropriate, shall establish a working group to address issues involving procurement of AI by DOD and IC elements and for use on NSS.  As appropriate, the working group shall consult the Director of the NSA, as the National Manager for NSS, in developing recommendations for acquiring and procuring AI for use on NSS.

(ii)   Within 210 days of the date of this memorandum, the working group described in subsection 4.1(e)(i) of this section shall provide written recommendations to the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council (FARC) regarding changes to existing regulations and guidance, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, to promote the following objectives for AI procured by DOD and IC elements and for use on NSS:

(A)  Ensuring objective metrics to measure and promote the safety, security, and trustworthiness of AI systems;

(B)  Accelerating the acquisition and procurement process for AI, consistent with the Federal Acquisition Regulation, while maintaining appropriate checks to mitigate safety risks;  

(C)  Simplifying processes such that companies without experienced contracting teams may meaningfully compete for relevant contracts, to ensure that the United States Government has access to a wide range of AI systems and that the AI marketplace is competitive;

(D)  Structuring competitions to encourage robust participation and achieve best value to the Government, such as by including requirements that promote interoperability and prioritizing the technical capability of vendors when evaluating offers;

(E)  Accommodating shared use of AI to the greatest degree possible and as appropriate across relevant agencies; and

(F)  Ensuring that agencies with specific authorities and missions may implement other policies, where appropriate and necessary.

(iii)  The FARC shall, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, consider proposing amendments to the Federal Acquisition Regulation to codify recommendations provided by the working group pursuant to subsection 4.1(e)(ii) of this section that may have Government-wide application.

(iv)   DOD and ODNI shall seek to engage on an ongoing basis with diverse United States private sector stakeholders — including AI technology and defense companies and members of the United States investor community — to identify and better understand emerging capabilities that would benefit or otherwise affect the United States national security mission.

     (f)  The United States Government needs clear, modernized, and robust policies and procedures that enable the rapid development and national security use of AI, consistent with human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, privacy, safety, and other democratic values.

     (g)  Consistent with these goals:

(i)    DOD and the IC shall, in consultation with DOJ as appropriate, review their respective legal, policy, civil liberties, privacy, and compliance frameworks, including international legal obligations, and, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, seek to develop or revise policies and procedures to enable the effective and responsible use of AI, accounting for the following:

(A)  Issues raised by the acquisition, use, retention, dissemination, and disposal of models trained on datasets that include personal information traceable to specific United States persons, publicly available information, commercially available information, and intellectual property, consistent with section 9 of Executive Order 14110;

(B)  Guidance that shall be developed by DOJ, in consultation with DOD and ODNI, regarding constitutional considerations raised by the IC’s acquisition and use of AI;

(C)  Challenges associated with classification and compartmentalization;

(D)  Algorithmic bias, inconsistent performance, inaccurate outputs, and other known AI failure modes;

(E)  Threats to analytic integrity when employing AI tools;

(F)  Risks posed by a lack of safeguards that protect human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, privacy, and other democratic values, as addressed in further detail in subsection 4.2 of this section;

(G)  Barriers to sharing AI models and related insights with allies and partners; and

(H)  Potential inconsistencies between AI use and the implementation of international legal obligations and commitments.

(ii)   As appropriate, the policies described in subsection 4.1(g) of this section shall be consistent with direction issued by the Committee on NSS and DOD governing the security of AI used on NSS, policies issued by the Director of National Intelligence governing adoption of AI by the IC, and direction issued by OMB governing the security of AI used on non-NSS.

(iii)  On an ongoing basis, each agency that uses AI on NSS shall, in consultation with ODNI and DOD, take all steps appropriate and consistent with applicable law to accelerate responsible approval of AI systems for use on NSS and accreditation of NSS that use AI systems.

     (h)  The United States’ network of allies and partners confers significant advantages over competitors.  Consistent with the 2022 National Security Strategy or any successor strategies, the United States Government must invest in and proactively enable the co-development and co-deployment of AI capabilities with select allies and partners.

     (i)  Consistent with these goals:

(i)  Within 150 days of the date of this memorandum, DOD, in coordination with the Department of State and ODNI, shall evaluate the feasibility of advancing, increasing, and promoting co-development and shared use of AI and AI-enabled assets with select allies and partners.  This evaluation shall include:

(A)  A potential list of foreign states with which such co-development or co-deployment may be feasible;

(B)  A list of bilateral and multilateral fora for potential outreach;

(C)  Potential co-development and co-deployment concepts;

(D)  Proposed classification-appropriate testing vehicles for co-developed AI capabilities; and

(E)  Considerations for existing programs, agreements, or arrangements to use as foundations for future co-development and co-deployment of AI capabilities.

     (j)  The United States Government needs improved internal coordination with respect to its use of and approach to AI on NSS in order to ensure interoperability and resource sharing consistent with applicable law, and to reap the generality and economies of scale offered by frontier AI models.

     (k)  Consistent with these goals:

(i)  On an ongoing basis, DOD and ODNI shall issue or revise relevant guidance to improve consolidation and interoperability across AI functions on NSS.  This guidance shall seek to ensure that the United States Government can coordinate and share AI-related resources effectively, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law.  Such work shall include:

(A)  Recommending agency organizational practices to improve AI research and deployment activities that span multiple national security institutions.  In order to encourage AI adoption for the purpose of national security, these measures shall aim to create consistency to the greatest extent possible across the revised practices.

(B)  Steps that enable consolidated research, development, and procurement for general-purpose AI systems and supporting infrastructure, such that multiple agencies can share access to these tools to the extent consistent with applicable law, while still allowing for appropriate controls on sensitive data.

(C)  Aligning AI-related national security policies and procedures across agencies, as practicable and appropriate, and consistent with applicable law.

(D)  Developing policies and procedures, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, to share information across DOD and the IC when an AI system developed, deployed, or used by a contractor demonstrates risks related to safety, security, and trustworthiness, including to human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, or privacy.

     4.2.  Strengthening AI Governance and Risk Management.  (a)  As the United States Government moves swiftly to adopt AI in support of its national security mission, it must continue taking active steps to uphold human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, privacy, and safety; ensure that AI is used in a manner consistent with the President’s authority as Commander in Chief to decide when to order military operations in the Nation’s defense; and ensure that military use of AI capabilities is accountable, including through such use during military operations within a responsible human chain of command and control.  Accordingly, the United States Government must develop and implement robust AI governance and risk management practices to ensure that its AI innovation aligns with democratic values, updating policy guidance where necessary.  In light of the diverse authorities and missions across covered agencies with a national security mission and the rapid rate of ongoing technological change, such AI governance and risk management frameworks shall be:

(i)    Structured, to the extent permitted by law, such that they can adapt to future opportunities and risks posed by new technical developments;

(ii)   As consistent across agencies as is practicable and appropriate in order to enable interoperability, while respecting unique authorities and missions;

(iii)  Designed to enable innovation that advances United States national security objectives;

(iv)   As transparent to the public as practicable and appropriate, while protecting classified or controlled information;

(v)    Developed and applied in a manner and with means to integrate protections, controls, and safeguards for human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, privacy, and safety where relevant; and

(vi)   Designed to reflect United States leadership in establishing broad international support for rules and norms that reinforce the United States’ approach to AI governance and risk management.

     (b)  Covered agencies shall develop and use AI responsibly, consistent with United States law and policies, democratic values, and international law and treaty obligations, including international humanitarian and human rights law.  All agency officials retain their existing authorities and responsibilities established in other laws and policies.

     (c)  Consistent with these goals:

(i)  Heads of covered agencies shall, consistent with their authorities, monitor, assess, and mitigate risks directly tied to their agency’s development and use of AI.  Such risks may result from reliance on AI outputs to inform, influence, decide, or execute agency decisions or actions, when used in a defense, intelligence, or law enforcement context, and may impact human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, privacy, safety, national security, and democratic values.  These risks from the use of AI include the following:

(A)  Risks to physical safety:  AI use may pose unintended risks to human life or property.

(B)  Privacy harms:  AI design, development, and operation may result in harm, embarrassment, unfairness, and prejudice to individuals.

(C)  Discrimination and bias:  AI use may lead to unlawful discrimination and harmful bias, resulting in, for instance, inappropriate surveillance and profiling, among other harms.

(D)  Inappropriate use:  operators using AI systems may not fully understand the capabilities and limitations of these technologies, including systems used in conflicts.  Such unfamiliarity could impact operators’ ability to exercise appropriate levels of human judgment.

(E)  Lack of transparency:  agencies may have gaps in documentation of AI development and use, and the public may lack access to information about how AI is used in national security contexts because of the necessity to protect classified or controlled information.

(F)  Lack of accountability:  training programs and guidance for agency personnel on the proper use of AI systems may not be sufficient, including to mitigate the risk of overreliance on AI systems (such as “automation bias”), and accountability mechanisms may not adequately address possible intentional or negligent misuse of AI-enabled technologies.

(G)  Data spillage:  AI systems may reveal aspects of their training data — either inadvertently or through deliberate manipulation by malicious actors — and data spillage may result from AI systems trained on classified or controlled information when used on networks where such information is not permitted.

(H)  Poor performance:  AI systems that are inappropriately or insufficiently trained, used for purposes outside the scope of their training set, or improperly integrated into human workflows may exhibit poor performance, including in ways that result in inconsistent outcomes or unlawful discrimination and harmful bias, or that undermine the integrity of decision-making processes.

(I)  Deliberate manipulation and misuse:  foreign state competitors and malicious actors may deliberately undermine the accuracy and efficacy of AI systems, or seek to extract sensitive information from such systems.

     (d)  The United States Government’s AI governance and risk management policies must keep pace with evolving technology.

     (e)  Consistent with these goals:

(i)   An AI framework, entitled “Framework to Advance AI Governance and Risk Management in National Security” (AI Framework), shall further implement this subsection.  The AI Framework shall be approved by the NSC Deputies Committee through the process described in National Security Memorandum 2 of February 4, 2021 (Renewing the National Security Council System), or any successor process, and shall be reviewed periodically through that process.  This process shall determine whether adjustments are needed to address risks identified in subsection 4.2(c) of this section and other topics covered in the AI Framework.  The AI Framework shall serve as a national security-focused counterpart to OMB’s Memorandum M-24-10 of March 28, 2024 (Advancing Governance, Innovation, and Risk Management for Agency Use of Artificial Intelligence), and any successor OMB policies.  To the extent feasible, appropriate, and consistent with applicable law, the AI Framework shall be as consistent as possible with these OMB policies and shall be made public.

(ii)  The AI Framework described in subsection 4.2(e)(i) of this section and any successor document shall, at a minimum, and to the extent consistent with applicable law, specify the following:

(A)  Each covered agency shall have a Chief AI Officer who holds primary responsibility within that agency, in coordination with other responsible officials, for managing the agency’s use of AI, promoting AI innovation within the agency, and managing risks from the agency’s use of AI consistent with subsection 3(b) of OMB Memorandum M-24-10, as practicable.

(B)  Covered agencies shall have AI Governance Boards to coordinate and govern AI issues through relevant senior leaders from the agency.

(C)  Guidance on AI activities that pose unacceptable levels of risk and that shall be prohibited.

(D)  Guidance on AI activities that are “high impact” and require minimum risk management practices, including for high-impact AI use that affects United States Government personnel.  Such high-impact activities shall include AI whose output serves as a principal basis for a decision or action that could exacerbate or create significant risks to national security, international norms, human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, privacy, safety, or other democratic values.  The minimum risk management practices for high-impact AI shall include a mechanism for agencies to assess AI’s expected benefits and potential risks; a mechanism for assessing data quality; sufficient test and evaluation practices; mitigation of unlawful discrimination and harmful bias; human training, assessment, and oversight requirements; ongoing monitoring; and additional safeguards for military service members, the Federal civilian workforce, and individuals who receive an offer of employment from a covered agency.

(E)  Covered agencies shall ensure privacy, civil liberties, and safety officials are integrated into AI governance and oversight structures.  Such officials shall report findings to the heads of agencies and oversight officials, as appropriate, using existing reporting channels when feasible.

(F)  Covered agencies shall ensure that there are sufficient training programs, guidance, and accountability processes to enable proper use of AI systems.

(G)  Covered agencies shall maintain an annual inventory of their high-impact AI use and AI systems and provide updates on this inventory to agency heads and the APNSA.

(H)  Covered agencies shall ensure that whistleblower protections are sufficient to account for issues that may arise in the development and use of AI and AI systems.

(I)  Covered agencies shall develop and implement waiver processes for high-impact AI use that balance robust implementation of risk mitigation measures in this memorandum and the AI Framework with the need to utilize AI to preserve and advance critical agency missions and operations.

(J)  Covered agencies shall implement cybersecurity guidance or direction associated with AI systems issued by the National Manager for NSS to mitigate the risks posed by malicious actors exploiting new technologies, and to enable interoperability of AI across agencies.  Within 150 days of the date of this memorandum, and periodically thereafter, the National Manager for NSS shall issue minimum cybersecurity guidance and/or direction for AI used as a component of NSS, which shall be incorporated into AI governance guidance detailed in subsection 4.2(g)(i) of this section.

     (f)  The United States Government needs guidance specifically regarding the use of AI on NSS.

     (g)  Consistent with these goals:

(i)  Within 180 days of the date of this memorandum, the heads of the Department of State, the Department of the Treasury, DOD, DOJ, Commerce, DOE, DHS, ODNI (acting on behalf of the 18 IC elements), and any other covered agency that uses AI as part of a NSS (Department Heads) shall issue or update guidance to their components/sub-agencies on AI governance and risk management for NSS, aligning with the policies in this subsection, the AI Framework, and other applicable policies.  Department Heads shall review their respective guidance on an annual basis, and update such guidance as needed.  This guidance, and any updates thereto, shall be provided to the APNSA prior to issuance.  This guidance shall be unclassified and made available to the public to the extent feasible and appropriate, though it may have a classified annex.  Department Heads shall seek to harmonize their guidance, and the APNSA shall convene an interagency meeting at least annually for the purpose of harmonizing Department Heads’ guidance on AI governance and risk management to the extent practicable and appropriate while respecting the agencies’ diverse authorities and missions.  Harmonization shall be pursued in the following areas:

(A)  Implementation of the risk management practices for high-impact AI;

(B)  AI and AI system standards and activities, including as they relate to training, testing, accreditation, and security and cybersecurity; and

(C)  Any other issues that affect interoperability for AI and AI systems.

Sec. 5.  Fostering a Stable, Responsible, and Globally Beneficial International AI Governance Landscape.  (a)  Throughout its history, the United States has played an essential role in shaping the international order to enable the safe, secure, and trustworthy global adoption of new technologies while also protecting democratic values.  These contributions have ranged from establishing nonproliferation regimes for biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons to setting the foundations for multi-stakeholder governance of the Internet.  Like these precedents, AI will require new global norms and coordination mechanisms, which the United States Government must maintain an active role in crafting.

     (b)  It is the policy of the United States Government that United States international engagement on AI shall support and facilitate improvements to the safety, security, and trustworthiness of AI systems worldwide; promote democratic values, including respect for human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, privacy, and safety; prevent the misuse of AI in national security contexts; and promote equitable access to AI’s benefits.  The United States Government shall advance international agreements, collaborations, and other substantive and norm-setting initiatives in alignment with this policy.

     (c)  Consistent with these goals:

(i)  Within 120 days of the date of this memorandum, the Department of State, in coordination with DOD, Commerce, DHS, the United States Mission to the United Nations (USUN), and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), shall produce a strategy for the advancement of international AI governance norms in line with safe, secure, and trustworthy AI, and democratic values, including human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, and privacy.  This strategy shall cover bilateral and multilateral engagement and relations with allies and partners.  It shall also include guidance on engaging with competitors, and it shall outline an approach to working in international institutions such as the United Nations and the Group of 7 (G7), as well as technical organizations.  The strategy shall:

(A)  Develop and promote internationally shared definitions, norms, expectations, and standards, consistent with United States policy and existing efforts, which will promote safe, secure, and trustworthy AI development and use around the world.  These norms shall be as consistent as possible with United States domestic AI governance (including Executive Order 14110 and OMB Memorandum M-24-10), the International Code of Conduct for Organizations Developing Advanced AI Systems released by the G7 in October 2023, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Principles on AI, United Nations General Assembly Resolution A/78/L.49, and other United States-supported relevant international frameworks (such as the Political Declaration on Responsible Military Use of AI and Autonomy) and instruments.  By discouraging misuse and encouraging appropriate safeguards, these norms and standards shall aim to reduce the likelihood of AI causing harm or having adverse impacts on human rights, democracy, or the rule of law.

(B)  Promote the responsible and ethical use of AI in national security contexts in accordance with democratic values and in compliance with applicable international law.  The strategy shall advance the norms and practices established by this memorandum and measures endorsed in the Political Declaration on Responsible Military Use of AI and Autonomy.

Sec. 6.  Ensuring Effective Coordination, Execution, and Reporting of AI Policy.  (a)  The United States Government must work in a closely coordinated manner to make progress on effective and responsible AI adoption.  Given the speed with which AI technology evolves, the United States Government must learn quickly, adapt to emerging strategic developments, adopt new capabilities, and confront novel risks.

     (b)  Consistent with these goals:

(i)    Within 270 days of the date of this memorandum, and annually thereafter for at least the next 5 years, the heads of the Department of State, DOD, Commerce, DOE, ODNI (acting on behalf of the IC), USUN, and USAID shall each submit a report to the President, through the APNSA, that offers a detailed accounting of their activities in response to their taskings in all sections of this memorandum, including this memorandum’s classified annex, and that provides a plan for further action.  The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), NSA, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and NGA shall submit reports on their activities to ODNI for inclusion in full as an appendix to ODNI’s report regarding IC activities.  NGA, NSA, and DIA shall submit their reports as well to DOD for inclusion in full as an appendix to DOD’s report.

(ii)   Within 45 days of the date of this memorandum, the Chief AI Officers of the Department of State, DOD, DOJ, DOE, DHS, OMB, ODNI, CIA, DIA, NSA, and NGA, as well as appropriate technical staff, shall form an AI National Security Coordination Group (Coordination Group).  Any Chief AI Officer of an agency that is a member of the Committee on National Security Systems may also join the Coordination Group as a full member.  The Coordination Group shall be co-chaired by the Chief AI Officers of ODNI and DOD.  The Coordination Group shall consider ways to harmonize policies relating to the development, accreditation, acquisition, use, and evaluation of AI on NSS.  This work could include development of:

(A)  Enhanced training and awareness to ensure that agencies prioritize the most effective AI systems, responsibly develop and use AI, and effectively evaluate AI systems;

(B)  Best practices to identify and mitigate foreign intelligence risks and human rights considerations associated with AI procurement;

(C)  Best practices to ensure interoperability between agency deployments of AI, to include data interoperability and data sharing agreements, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law;

(D)  A process to maintain, update, and disseminate such trainings and best practices on an ongoing basis;

(E)  AI-related policy initiatives to address regulatory gaps implicated by executive branch-wide policy development processes; and 

(F)  An agile process to increase the speed of acquisitions, validation, and delivery of AI capabilities, consistent with applicable law.

(iii)  Within 90 days of the date of this memorandum, the Coordination Group described in subsection (b)(ii) of this section shall establish a National Security AI Executive Talent Committee (Talent Committee) composed of senior AI officials (or designees) from all agencies in the Coordination Group that wish to participate.  The Talent Committee shall work to standardize, prioritize, and address AI talent needs and develop an updated set of Government-wide procedures for attracting, hiring, developing, and retaining AI and AI-enabling talent for national security purposes.  The Talent Committee shall designate a representative to serve as a member of the AI and Technology Talent Task Force set forth in Executive Order 14110, helping to identify overlapping needs and address shared challenges in hiring.

(iv)   Within 365 days of the date of this memorandum, and annually thereafter for at least the next 5 years, the Coordination Group described in subsection (b)(ii) of this section shall issue a joint report to the APNSA on consolidation and interoperability of AI efforts and systems for the purposes of national security.

     Sec. 7.  Definitions.  (a)  This memorandum uses definitions set forth in section 3 of Executive Order 14110.  In addition, for the purposes of this memorandum:

(i)     The term “AI safety” means the mechanisms through which individuals and organizations minimize and mitigate the potential for harm to individuals and society that can result from the malicious use, misapplication, failures, accidents, and unintended behavior of AI models; the systems that integrate them; and the ways in which they are used.

(ii)    The term “AI security” means a set of practices to protect AI systems — including training data, models, abilities, and lifecycles — from cyber and physical attacks, thefts, and damage.

(iii)   The term “covered agencies” means agencies in the Intelligence Community, as well as all agencies as defined in 44 U.S.C. 3502(1) when they use AI as a component of a National Security System, other than the Executive Office of the President.

(iv)    The term “Critical Technical Artifacts” (CTAs) means information, usually specific to a single model or group of related models that, if possessed by someone other than the model developer, would substantially lower the costs of recreating, attaining, or using the model’s capabilities.  Under the technical paradigm dominant in the AI industry today, the model weights of a trained AI system constitute CTAs, as do, in some cases, associated training data and code.  Future paradigms may rely on different CTAs.

(v)     The term “frontier AI model” means a general-purpose AI system near the cutting-edge of performance, as measured by widely accepted publicly available benchmarks, or similar assessments of reasoning, science, and overall capabilities.

(vi)    The term “Intelligence Community” (IC) has the meaning provided in 50 U.S.C. 3003.

(vii)   The term “open-weight model” means a model that has weights that are widely available, typically through public release.

(viii)  The term “United States Government” means all agencies as defined in 44 U.S.C. 3502(1).

     Sec. 8.  General Provisions.  (a)  Nothing in this memorandum shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:

(i)   the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or

(ii)  the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

     (b)  This memorandum shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

     (c)  This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

                              JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR.

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