The Times’ Maggie Haberman is currently appearing on CNN to discuss the Jensen Huang story. She confirms that, according to Times reporting, Trump was first briefed on Huang’s relationship with suspected Chinese spy Alice Huang (no relation) late last year. She said about this time last year. So the key details here have been known and seemingly ignored for a whole year.
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It’s hard to know how seriously to take the Pete Hegseth impeachment vote in terms of its eventual outcome. Are we actually going to have a trial? Will he resign? Now outgoing Speaker says he may not send the impeachment article to the senate? What stands out most is what’s not happening. There’s no real defense from the White House or anyone else in the GOP/MAGA sound machine. The White House posted a couple videos on social media. Obviously they’re on record saying they don’t support it. But that’s really about it. You can imagine the thermonuclear (maybe literally) response to anything like this at almost any point in the last two years. But now? The vibe here is something like “rough what happened to Pete. I guess not everyone makes it after a rough midterm like that.” Oh well …
If you missed it this weekend, check out my piece on the remarkably part-time, almost non-existent Cindy Hyde-Smith campaign. Quite stunning.
Last month I had a conversation with a high ranking AI executive who told me that the fundamental reason for the U.S. lead over China in AI development was U.S. access to high-performance NVIDIA processors. The Biden administration placed export controls on those chips targeting China back in 2022. The Trump administration sort of loosened those controls though, for a variety of reasons, that shift in policy hasn’t translated into that much actual change in practice. This struck me at the time: this is a wildly anti-China administration; it’s a wildly pro-AI administration which premises everything on the need to maintain a strategic AI edge over China; but it’s more open to allowing China access to these chips that are central to U.S. dominance in AI? How can that possibly make sense?
This conversation has been on my mind for the last couple weeks as we’ve learned more and more about the spy scandal enveloping NVIDIA co-founder and CEO Jensen Huang. To bring you up-to-date, yesterday, NVIDIA’s board announced that it would investigate Huang’s relationship with Alice Huang (no relation), who U.S. intelligence believes is a Chinese spy. This came shortly after Jensen Huang admitted in an email to NVIDIA employees (immediately made public) that he had carried on an extramarital affair with Alice Huang.
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After two or three days of stupor and disorientation Donald Trump has reverted to form, as predicted, and has reacted to his historic repudiation by leaning into the powers of the presidency to reassert power and dominance. So far, they are mostly assertions and visual, thin performances not so much of power but of aggression, which seem more risible because the power is so clearly draining out of him. Trump appointed Stephen Miller as his new White House chief of staff. Today he has offered the press secretary position to Dana White, CEO of UFC, the mixed martial arts promotion company, who Trump lauds as “the Great Dana White, a violent Fighter and Warrior.” Trump is asking him to take on the press secretary role with a series of MMA fighter “assistants,” one or more of whom is associated with a Chechnyan warlord. We say “offered” because Trump seems to have offered White the job and then asked him via Truth Social to accept the job.
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