revenge

Axios reported Wednesday afternoon that one Cabinet official in President Donald Trump's administration is the reason there hasn't been an espionage investigation into the CEO of Nvidia, who was in a relationship with a woman that U.S. intelligence believed to be a spy.

It was reported this week that members of Trump's Cabinet were briefed on the spy that chip maker Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang admitted to having an extramarital affair with. Now, New York Times journalist Maggie Haberman reports that the president also received a briefing on the matter. Trump previously denied he knew anything about it.

Huang and Trump have built a close relationship as Trump continues to take advantage of the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act. There's now a fear about whether Huang's relationship with Alice Huang (also known as Huang Le), resulted in intelligence being obtained for China.

Alice Huang is a businesswoman for Megaspeed whom U.S. intelligence officials long suspected of spying for China, and her relationship with Jensen Huang could have resulted in an effort to get restricted AI chips to China. Nvidia has worked to persuade Washington to loosen restrictions on exports of its advanced chips to China.

Last week, Trump authorized a crackdown on companies suspected of diverting advanced AI chips to China, including Nvidia's.

One official has been standing in the way: Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

"This standoff illustrates a breakdown in efforts to keep American technology out of China's hands as the world wonders why the Trump administration has not taken action against the company at the center of suspected chip smuggling — and an espionage scandal," Axios said in the Wednesday report.

Lutnick was forced into a Situation Room meeting with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and National Security Adviser and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the report said. There, Bessent hammered Lutnick on why his department hasn't wanted to implement export controls on Alice Huang's Megaspeed. Lutnick was standing on an island over the tech giants, and the other Cabinet officials wanted to know why.

Lutnick finally relented, but then mumbled, "I need to check with the president."

But that comment "raised concerns" for the other Cabinet members, sources told Axios. Officials have waited for the Commerce Department to impose the export controls, but they never have.

"He's stalling it out," one official told Axios. He'd previously met with Trump about it and managed to change his mind on the export limit.

"This is an ongoing concern with Howard and this issue," another official said.

One person in the meeting with the Cabinet members called Lutnick's bluff, announcing, "Great. Why don't we do it today?"

So, they headed to the Oval Office to inform the president.

Trump even had Elon Musk approve the move. Lutnick reportedly complained that it would "start a trade war with China."

"Everyone argued back that China is already doing to us what Lutnick warned would happen," a source told Axios.

Suddenly, Lutnick came up with a new delay tactic, saying he would "develop some options and come back."

"Everyone was like: 'No, no, the decision's been made. Go f—— execute,'" said a source. "Well, it still hasn't happened."

Former U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh on Wednesday warned the Republican Party is making a mistake with its new minority leader Jim Jordan.

“I know Jim Jordan. I know Jim Jordan well. I served with Jim Jordan,” said Walsh, speaking on his Wednesday “Social Contract” podcast. “There was a time when Jim Jordan and I were very, very good friends. Let me tell you about Jim Jordan and MAGA: The 2020 election was stolen; We got to keep brown and Black people out of America; this is a white Christian country; Democrats are evil. That's where Jim Jordan is. That's who Jim Jordan is. Jim Jordan is as extreme as you can want in the Republican caucus in the House.”

Jordan is also not about reaching across the aisle with the new House majority or working with independents, warned Walsh. Jordan is about doubling down and preserving the MAGA base, over all else. “The reason we lost, Jim Jordan thinks, is we just weren't ugly enough. We weren't cruel enough. We weren't angry enough,” he said.

Oddly, Jordan did not originally support Trump when the Trump first came on the scene around 2015. Jordan is a Christian man, said Walsh, who professes to believe in what's right and wrong, good and bad, decent and cruel, the truth and a lie. So, he did not like Trump out of the gate.

But once it became clear Trump was nabbing the 2016 nomination Jordan jumped on Team Trump “like nobody else,” said Walsh.

“Once, just very briefly, I said to him, Jim, Trump's a bad guy. He's a horrible guy,” said Walsh. “He lies every time he opens his mouth. He's like a big government authoritarian. Jim — fellow Tea Party guy, Jim — Donald Trump is the very antithesis of what you and me and the Tea Party said we supported. And I'll never forget Jordan's answer to me. He said, ‘yeah, Joe, yeah, Joe, yeah, Joe, Trump's not perfect, but the Democrats are evil.’"

And “that's how Jordan sees the world,” said Walsh. “The other side is bad. The other side is evil. So nothing more matters than defeating the other side. … House Republicans yesterday put someone to be their leader, chose someone. Who believes Democrats are evil.”

Worse, Jordan in charge means the GOP will “double down” on all the mistakes that got the part routed during the midterms, said Walsh.

“All they're going to be about is opposing Democrats and calling them evil and communists,” lamented Walsh. “They're gonna double down on what they said and did that caused them to lose. They've learned nothing. Jim Jordan, either doesn't understand or will never admit that the American people last week said to the Republican Party, ‘you're too extreme. You're too cruel. You don't give a flying f—— about the issues we care about. You are utterly beholden to Donald Trump and you're letting him break any law and be as corrupt as he wants to be.’ That's what the American people told the Republican Party, and that's why the American people spanked the Republican Party so hard last week.”

But Walsh, who repeats that he “knows Jordan” well, said Jordan “sat in his office a day or two after the election, a day or two after this … whooping, and he said, ‘Look, we're right. We're on the right side. We're good. They're evil.’”

Early in his second term, President Donald Trump would reportedly play a game in which he'd talk about whether Vice President JD Vance or Secretary of State Marco Rubio should be his successor. At that time, the Republican presidential nomination in 2028 seemed like a prize very much worth having. With the 2026 midterm elections setting back Republicans so severely that that year's nominee now seems like a surefire loser, it appears that at least one of those prospective candidates, Rubio, is quietly stepping away from the political limelight.

"Several lawmakers said they’ve spoken to people close to Rubio who have suggested he isn’t interested in pursuing a 2028 bid, even after Tuesday’s results," reported Politico's Meredith Lee Hill and Mia McCarthy on Wednesday. "Rubio himself this week has stood by Trump’s decision to go to war against Iran and told reporters Monday he was 'just not going to talk about 2028 anymore.'"

The journalists added, "Rubio’s supporters say that he’s not as closely associated with the 2026 GOP wipeout as Vance, but he could face his own obstacles. Rubio, unlike Vance, has continued to show strong support for the war in Iran, a conflict he’s tied to as the country’s top diplomat. Some GOP lawmakers have also grown frustrated with the amount of information the Trump administration, including Rubio at times, has been willing to share about the ongoing conflict."

They continued, "Rubio also has his failed 2016 presidential run to contend with, including an infamous debate performance where he awkwardly repeated the same rehearsed line multiple times."

Politico is not the first outlet to report on the possibility that Rubio will distance himself from the Trump administration. Going one step further, Bloomberg reported shortly after the election results came in that the Secretary of State is thinking of resigning.

"Secretary of State Marco Rubio is weighing whether to leave the Trump administration, people familiar with the matter said, as he considers his next moves following Republicans’ midterm elections wipeout this week," Bloomberg's Alan Wickham posted on X at the time. "Rubio and his advisers are going over options for his future, according to the people, who asked not to be identified discussing internal deliberations. He hasn’t made a decision about whether to quit his posts as top US diplomat and national security adviser, and there is no timetable on a possible departure."

Speaking to AlterNet earlier in November, Beauregard Patterson — Election and Voting Rights Counsel at Democracy Defenders Fund — argued that Trump had planned on stealing the 2026 midterm elections but found the pro-Democratic vote and sprawling nature of the contest made it impossible for him to do so.

"One of the challenges here is that, in order to actually overturn this election, the Trump administration would have had to successfully overturn the results in several states simultaneously," Patterson explained to AlterNet. "And look at the past year and a half of litigation efforts to challenge election procedures and to federalize elections, particularly, if you’ll recall, the attempt to use USPS as a federal mechanism for whether ballots are rejected or accepted. Because of the failure of all those dozens of legal challenges and attempts at subversion by the Trump administration, they were left with few tools at this point to meaningfully try to take over and overturn the election results."

Democrats made their second big mistake in less than two days on Wednesday when they allowed a far-right veterans bill to pass the House on a voice vote.

A voice vote is when someone proposes the bill, the parliamentarian asks for the "yays" and the group yells then they ask for the "nays" and they yell. In this case, House Republicans declared the bill passed. A Democrat could have asked for a recorded vote, meaning the parliamentarian must call each name and record their vote.

"Some confusion here about what exactly happened. But this is another black eye for Democrats. Two in two days," said Punchbowl News reporter Jake Sherman on X.

One anonymous Democratic staffer sent a message to a source: "It appears Democratic leadership just let a controversial veterans benefits bill pass by voice vote and didn't request a recorded vote. Hence the disarray on the floor. This is a huge procedural mess-up. Texts in group chats of Dem staff right now include phrases such as: 'How could they have let that happen?' 'We are not off to a good start.' 'This coming right on the heels of the attendance issue last night is incredibly damning of current leadership.'"

The staffers are referring to a Tuesday night vote during which 11 Democrats were stuck in traffic and didn't arrive at the Capitol in time to vote. One Democrat who did make it got out of the car and walked quickly. Another said they had the cab drop them off on the Senate side of the Capitol. Another Democrat was having a minor surgery and arranged it so they could be back in time as well. Two Democrats entered their votes after the fact.

The Nevada Independent's Jon Ralston said that Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.) spoke on the House floor about his absence on Wednesday, saying that there was a “personal emergency” and that he took “full accountability” for having missed the Tuesday impeachment vote.

“The accountability I demand of others applies to me, too,” Horsford said from the floor.

MS NOW reporter Mychael Schnell said on X that other House Democratic group chats asked about the 11 Democrats and questioned the specifics about why they missed the vote, saying that it made the party look bad.

"The text was sent before the list of absences was known. One of the 11 identified themselves and explained what happened. Then a lawmaker responded and said everyone has to be at the Capitol for votes," said Schnell.

In an extensive statement, Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calf.) explained what happened.

"In short, GOP leadership resorted to unprecedented treachery to pass TCAVA because they did not have the votes to pass it otherwise," the Democrat said. "This is an affront to the veterans and servicemembers who now stand to lose access to benefits bcause of this terrible bill. This is also an affront to the workings of the House and we should all be outraged. These acts are made even more stark as we remember that today is Veterans Day."

What happened, he said, is that as they were debating the "Rule" of Takano's discharge petition to consider the Major Richard Star Act, the House began voting on HR 1013.

"During this vote," the statement continues, "the speaker and GOP leadership presented Ranking Member Takano with an engrossment correction and a procedural option to allow the House to have a single vote tomorrow on the Major Richard Star Act, rather than a vote on the rule and a vote on final passage."

Takano and the Democratic leadership stepped away from the floor to review the details of the package and edits at the request of the Republlican leadership.

"The Speaker Pro Tem. gaveled out the final vote on HR 1013 and quietly called up H.R. 9237 for a voice vote (where no members voiced a yay or nay) and gaveled out the vote on H.R. 9237 in a total of 5 seconds," the statement continued. "This is an unprecedented breach of House procedure, all so House Republicans can quietly pass their bill without accountability and putting their names to their willingness to take benefits away from veterans. This evening RM Takano will take the floor to explain this outrageous series of events during the Special Order hour."

The last Democrat to represent Mississipi in the United States Senate, John Stennis, was a staunch segregationist. Now, more than three decades after Stennis left office, an African American district attorney named Scott Colom has become the first Democrat to serve Mississippi in the Senate since the Cold War, CNN reports.

Running against incumbent Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), Colom is a northern Mississippi district attorney who was obscure outside his home state prior to being thrust into the national limelight. Mississippi is an overwhelmingly Republican state where Hyde-Smith served a single term as senator and wished to serve a second one. Raised in a privileged family and attending a segregated private school in Mississippi, Hyde-Smith was a career politician who developed a rivalry with Colom after she blocked the Democrat's nomination to a federal judgeship.

Prior to Colom's surprisingly strong showing, few observers regarded Mississippi as being a potential pick-up state for the United States Senate. Even as President Donald Trump's approval rating plummeted and Republicans became vulnerable in ostensibly conservative states like Iowa, South Carolina, Texas and Kansas, Hyde-Smith was regarded as safe in a state that Trump won by 61 percent to 38 percent for the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris. Like Harris, Colom is a person color running against someone waging an explicitly racial campaign in a state that has not elected a Democrat to statewide office since Gov. Ronnie Musgrove's sole term ended in 2004.

As the results for Colom came in last Wednesday, MS NOW's longtime election analyst Steve Kornacki marveled at the highly unexpected nature of Colom's win.

"Listen, there's like, Lowndes County, 1,200 votes left. Colom is winning that by about 16 points, so he'll net votes from there," Kornacki told MS NOW viewers. "Jackson County, we've got about 1,600 votes. Hyde-Smith — they probably cancel each other out. I'm seeing a lot of counties that will probably cancel each other out. And the big thing that's jumping out at this is that the most remaining vote is in Hinds County. And of all the counties where there's remaining vote, where there's significant remaining vote, it's the one where a candidate has the most lopsided advantage. You know, Colom leading that by 60 points."

He later concluded, in astonishment, "You're looking at, really, a possibility here of Colom, the Democrat, winning this race."

Hyde-Smith's team also struggled to accept that Colom could win, especially as the margin between the two candidates narrowed to two digits.

"With the vast majority of Election Day ballots reported, the margin is measured in just dozens of votes," Hyde-Smith's team wrote during the counting process. "We have thousands of outstanding ballots, including affidavit and absentee ballots, which still must be processed and verified under Mississippi law."

Hyde-Smith added, "Our campaign is closely monitoring the remaining count. We remain confident that when every legally cast vote is fully and accurately counted, Mississippians will have reelected Cindy Hyde-Smith."

James Sample, a professor at Hofstra University Law School, told MS NOW Wednesday that things haven't been going well for federal workers, particularly in the Justice Department.

Attorney General Todd Blanche commented on Fox News that he serves as Stephen Miller's new lawyer and is constitutionally obligated to do so. The office of the Attorney General and the Justice Department aren't in the Constitution. It wasn't started until after the Civil War to enforce the new constitutional amendments.

Democrats have made it clear that they fully intend to investigate corruption in President Donald Trump's administration. The administration responded with a letter saying that if they investigate the administration then the Justice Department could indict members of Congress, which legal analysts caution would have to be related to something that doesn't involve their legislative capacity.

Sample explained that some higher-level lawyers at the DOJ could end up being disbarred, so it's not unusual for staff there to be nervous about their careers.

"We have seen examples of individuals getting fired or individuals leaving because either they wouldn't pursue and therefore got fired or wouldn't pursue, and therefore were faced with the pressure to resign if they weren't willing to pursue those cases that were crossing the line and were going after retribution," said Sample.

"The Lindsey Halligan scenario — you forget that before Lindsey Halligan, there was Eric Siebert declining to engage in that prosecution," he continued. "Then Lindsey Halligan, with no experience and an unlawful appointment, and then a grand jury failed to indict as well. So, you're right there in that little microcosm, you have all three stages."

He also explained that the choke point hasn't been the willingness of the Department of Justice leadership at a political level. The problem has been that civilians were unwilling to support Trump's retribution efforts.

Host Katy Tur asked whether these kinds of things harm people working for the DOJ on the whole and whether they'll be able to find jobs in the next administration or outside of the Trump administration.

As recently as Monday, a lower-level Justice Department lawyer was reprimanded by a judge.

"A federal judge in the Eastern District of New York told a Department of Justice assistant United States attorney that he was barred from participating in a case again and subjected him to Rule 11 sanctions," Sample said.

Rule 11 sanctions are penalties a federal civil court can impose on lawyers, law firms or those presenting filings with frivolous legal arguments or cases, inadequately supported factual claims or improper purposes. Sample explained it's never a word any lawyer wants to hear from a judge.

The other lawyers involved in the case are also subject to similar sanctions because the federal judge said they engaged in gross misrepresentations of facts.

MS NOW justice and intelligence reporter Ken Dilanian said that he spoke to someone in the DOJ recently who complained about "bureaucratic failure, not enough resources and terrible morale.

"And everybody is looking for the exits," said Dilanian. "Anyone who can leave is trying to leave, just about. But in terms of the wartime footing with regard to congressional investigations, what's very clear is that they are preparing to resist congressional subpoenas, and they're also preparing to investigate members of Congress to go on offense."

He said that Blanche has made it clear he wouldn't rule out prosecuting members of Congress even if they can't ultimately get a grand jury to agree to an indictment.

President Donald Trump's newly-appointed chief of staff, Stephen Miller, has been widely described as "paranoid" and fiercely determined to implement his goals. Now a new report reveals the extent to which he exerted his control over the White House even before receiving his new promotion — and it paints a picture that The Daily Beast characterized as "creepy."

"Miles Taylor, the Homeland Security official who wrote as Anonymous for The New York Times in September 2018 saying he was part of a 'quiet resistance' under Trump 1.0, described how working with Miller required taking late-night phone calls and dealing with his surprise appearances during meetings," reported The Daily Beast's Julia Owned on Wednesday. Taylor described Miller as the kind of boss who offered "late-night phone calls every single weeknight to the point that your spouse starts asking you questions.”

Taylor also said that Miller is a “ferocious micromanager” who bores down to the smallest government offices to make his will known “because he knows that’s how you get things done in Washington.”

Taylor added, “That’s something that made Stephen very formidable and very effective, is that he understands the government bureaucracy and he is willing to jump down into meetings where they would never expect him."

Speaking with AlterNet earlier in November, a clinical and forensic psychologist argued that Trump chose Miller to be his chief of staff as a way of demonstrating in an aggressive way his posture of defiance against the Democrats who won the House of Representatives and Senate in the 2026 midterm elections.

"But instead, he is going to double down, triple down, quadruple down," Dr. Alan D. Blotcky, a clinical and forensic psychologist who wrote more than 40 articles for Salon, NY Daily News, and The Independent, told AlterNet. "He’s not gonna be conciliatory. He’s not gonna be someone who works with Democrats. He wants what he wants. He doesn’t want oversight. He doesn’t want accountability. He doesn’t want anybody issuing him subpoenas to look at his behavior. And so he is essentially arming up for a fight, for a huge fight over the next two years, because he knows that oversight and accountability are coming. He’s going to resist it with all his might. And so Stephen Miller, who is the strongest sycophant around, and also the architect of the failed immigration plan, is now gonna be chief of staff."

He added, "So he’s getting ready for the fight. And I think the next two years are going to be messier and more toxic than the first two years."

Jensen Huang, the married founder of NVIDIA, has now admitted to a relationship with a woman who was recently exposed as a groomed and prepared Chinese spy. It’s a tricky relationship because Huang has been one of the major proponents of selling controversial AI chips to Chinese companies that could install them in Chinese military weapons for use against U.S. allies.

But despite Huang’s tight connection to Trump and White House policy, Trump took the quickest route when confronted by the press on his friend’s potential criminality. He denied it’s knowledge.

“I didn't hear about it then," Trump said when asked about Huang’s girlfriend spy. "But a lot of people have heard about it. And Jensen totally denies that. I spoke to him today, just to see if he's feeling all right, how you doing. And I asked him about that. I asked him, ‘Did you have any idea that she was a spy?’ He said, ‘I had no idea that she was a spy.’ And I really believe him."

But Trump biographer Michael Wolff, who has written several books about Trump and has plenty of insight into his mind, said Trump is a consummate liar. So, if Trump says he didn’t know about something — rest easy with the likelihood that he did.

“Donald Trump and Mr. Huang speak often, and seem to have developed quite a close relationship,” said Wolff, speaking with co-host Joanna Coles on a Wednesday podcast. “Mr. Huang seems to have become one of Trump’s main connections to the tech and AI industries, and Donald Trump has become one of Mr. Huang’s major supporters in government. So how is it that Donald Trump was not aware of this?”

“The intelligence services have said that they told Trump,” Coles pointed out, “but he says he has no memory of being told.”

“Of course he knew. Of course he was aware,” said Wolff. “The other fact of this is that this was an investigation that began in the Commerce Department. The relationship and her likely status as working for the Chinese government were, as I understand it, inadvertently established in this investigation. But then this investigation was taken over, was removed from the Commerce Department, and became a Justice Department investigation. Obviously, within the Justice Department, Trump himself would have much more control over this. He and Todd Blanche could have handled this there. Then, from somewhere in the executive branch, it leaked to the New York Times. So, this leak was obviously not good for Mr. Huang, but also not good for Donald Trump.”

A Fox News guest and expert on China warned last week that White House officials could be “taken down” due to their collaboration with the business mogul. Attorney Gordon Chang – a China researcher with the right-wing think tank Galestone Institute – said Huang’s proximity to President Donald Trump represents a “critical national security violation.”

And former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe called the very idea of a spy planting a puppet directly in Trump’s ear “a Grand Slam in the bottom of the ninth.”

“This is unbelievable,” said McCabe. “Huang has been pushing for easing restrictions by the Trump administration on Nvidia selling chips to China. And he got them. He got them in return for the ability to sell Nvidia chips to China in return for giving the United States government 25 percent of that sale. That alone is off the charts.”