“What they did was pretty extreme, and I’d want to see what the basis was, as opposed to all the other issues that are swirling around in cybersecurity,” Sen. Angus King said, adding that he was “a little skeptical because of their otherwise announced antipathy to this company.”
The export-control order and Anthropic’s disabled models
The Trump administration issued a Friday export-control order that Anthropic said forced the company to disable its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 artificial intelligence models. The administration described the step as prompted by national security concerns; the report says a large number of cybersecurity professionals have dismissed those concerns as ill-founded. The move spotlights a rare use of export-control tools against an AI developer and immediately drew scrutiny on Capitol Hill.
House Homeland Security: Chairman Garbarino’s two-pronged response and Bennie Thompson’s rebuke
House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.) offered a cautious endorsement paired with warning. “The administration is right to treat advanced AI cyber capabilities as a national security issue, especially when foreign adversaries and cybercriminals are actively looking for ways to weaponize these tools,” he said in a statement. At the same time, Garbarino cautioned that “we need to make sure our response does not unintentionally disadvantage American companies, allied partners, or critical infrastructure defenders who need access to the best secure tools available in order to protect our networks here at home.” He also wrote that the United States, not China, needs to set standards for trusted AI.
By contrast, the committee’s top Democrat, Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, criticized the order sharply. Thompson told CyberScoop the action adds to “the appearance that the Trump administration doesn’t have a coherent plan for mitigating the cybersecurity risks” of frontier AI models and argued that “AI regulations should rely on standards and procedures that provide confidence to the public that decisions are based on the evidence and not on politics.” He said the administration had adopted “an ad hoc approach where decisions are made by political appointees in the White House rather than experts and where companies are left guessing on how to comply.”
Senators voice skepticism and seek justification: Angus King, Mark Warner, and Democrats
Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, said he had not yet seen a full justification and expressed skepticism about the administration’s motives. Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, had previously highlighted the administration’s quarrel with Anthropic in response to the order, the report noted. Several Hill Democrats told CyberScoop they were concerned the administration’s decision might be driven by other considerations rather than strictly technical national security evidence. The source reports a broader pattern of elected Democrats seeking clearer rationale for the action.
Behind the scenes: truce talks and a rocky executive-order rollout
According to the report, the administration and Anthropic were continuing to try to forge a truce on Tuesday. The export-control action did not occur in isolation: the article notes an ongoing feud between the administration and Anthropic over alleged uses of the company’s models for domestic surveillance and for fully autonomous weapons. Separately, the administration’s broader AI executive order experienced a rocky rollout as officials “swung back-and-forth on how involved the government should be,” the piece says.
What this means for cybersecurity professionals, U.S. defenders, and Anthropic
- Cybersecurity professionals: The report states that a large number of cybersecurity professionals have dismissed the administration’s stated national security concerns as ill-founded — a direct indicator that at least part of the security community is publicly skeptical of the technical justification offered for the export controls.
- U.S. defenders and allied partners: Chairman Garbarino warned that defenders and allies could be disadvantaged if the order restricts access to “the best secure tools available,” signaling congressional attention to operational impacts on network defense and critical infrastructure protection.
- Anthropic: The company said it was forced to disable Fable 5 and Mythos 5 and, per the report, remains in negotiations with the administration amid an existing quarrel over domestic surveillance and autonomous-weapons usage.
Other lawmakers took a wait-and-see posture. Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rand Paul (R-Ky.) told CyberScoop he did not have anything to say on the order. Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), who chairs the Armed Services Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, said he had “not had the opportunity to get a brief specifically as to the logic, the reasoning behind it,” and planned to “withhold judgment until I get an opportunity to get the rest of the story.”
The episode leaves lawmakers divided: some endorse treating advanced AI cyber capabilities as a national security priority while others demand clearer, evidence-based justifications and worry about political motives and unintended operational impacts. For now, Anthropic’s disabled models and the reported truce talks are the most immediate developments to watch as Capitol Hill seeks the administration’s underlying rationale.
