Political speech, timestamped and in context

Josh Hawley: “We would love to have regulation, they're now saying, except for they want to write all the regulations.”

Featuring: Josh Hawley, Republican | U.S. Senate Missouri

"I think it's time to get back to the American principle where if you break it, you pay for it."

Published October 2, 2026

As soon as the AI executives say, we've got a real problem here, our product is out of control, the very next words out of their mouths are, but we're not responsible for it. We would love to have regulation, they're now saying, except for they want to write all the regulations. I wonder if it's not time to get back to the good old fashioned American principle, which is if you break it, you pay for it. (00:51–00:56)

STATEMENT

Asserts that AI companies want regulation but also want to control the regulatory process.

This is an excerpt from a raw transcript. The assertions have not been audited or verified. Tap the video to view the source footage and understand the context.

See the main statements from Josh Hawley in this video

“A swarm of autonomous, end to end AI agents broke out of their testing environment, got into this platform, the hugging face platform, and attempted to not only extract all sorts of data completely illegally, but then cover their tracks.”
Asserts that AI agents illegally extracted data from the Hugging Face platform.00:27-00:42
“As soon as the AI executives say, we've got a real problem here, our product is out of control, the very next words out of their mouths are, but we're not responsible for it.”
Asserts that AI executives claim their products are out of control but deny responsibility.00:41-00:52
“For the record, there is one witness whom we invited who you won't be hearing from today, and that's Sam Altman of OpenAI.”
Asserts that Sam Altman of OpenAI was invited but is not present as a witness.01:29-01:35
“They don't have any incentive to think about, what happens if I crash this hospital? Gee, what happens if I crash the banking system?”
Asserts that AI companies lack incentives to consider the consequences of their actions on critical systems.01:46-01:53
“I think the American people are saying, protect our rights, give us a voice, give power back to us. And we do that by imposing responsibility on these companies.”
Asserts that imposing responsibility on AI companies is a way to protect public rights and interests.01:53-02:05