US Court Upholds Trump Administration’s Blacklist of Anthropic AI

In a 2‑to‑1 decision, the U. S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit confirmed the Trump administration’s authority to blacklist Anthropic for refusing to enable certain Claude features, even absent malicious intent. The panel highlighted the tension between the risks of overly constrained AI models that could unexpectedly shut down during critical military operations and the dangers of unconstrained models that might hallucinate inappropriate targets for lethal force. The court affirmed that the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, acted within the limits of the Supply Chain Security Act and the Constitution, and denied Anthropic’s petitions for review. A prior emergency stay motion by Anthropic was also rejected earlier in the year.