Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pressed Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick at a Situation Room meeting over why Commerce hasn’t blacklisted Nvidia buyer Megaspeed, Axios reports.
The meeting was Thursday, Nov. 5. Trump then authorized a crackdown on firms diverting Nvidia chips to China, and officials told Axios that Lutnick is stalling it. A Commerce spokesperson said the exchange never happened.
Megaspeed, a Singapore firm, bought nearly $5 billion in Nvidia AI chips and hardware over three years, per CBS. U.S. investigators say Alice Huang, who is tied to the firm, obtained 240,000 export-banned chips through shell companies. Lutnick had received a classified memo on Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s ties to her, and Commerce had held off blacklisting Megaspeed even as other departments pushed for it.
In the room on Nov. 5, per Axios
- Bessent
- Asked why Megaspeed was not on the entity list.
- Hegseth, Greer, Rubio
- Sided with Bessent.
- Lutnick
- Warned the controls “will start a trade war with China,” then said, “I need to check with the president.”
- Someone in the room
- “Great. Why don’t we do it today?”
Trump consulted Elon Musk, who backed the controls, then authorized the crackdown. One official said of Lutnick, “He’s stalling it out.”
- 1Commerce, the committee’s chair, circulates a proposalThe step where a secretary can sit on a case
- 2A 30-day voting clock starts
- 3A majority vote of the committee decides
- CommerceChairLutnick warned of a trade war
- StateRubio sided with Bessent
- DefenseHegseth sided with Bessent
- EnergyNo position reported
- TreasurySometimesBessent pressed for it
- 4On the list, selling to the firm requires a U.S. license
Under each department, where its secretary stood at the Nov. 5 meeting, per Axios. These are not committee votes.
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White House counsel Will Scharf warns Rep. Robert Garcia, the likely Oversight chair, that Democrats’ planned investigations “may cross the line into blatant criminality.”
The three-page letter, dated Monday, Nov. 9, became public Wednesday. Garcia, a California Democrat, is likely to chair the House’s main investigating panel once Democrats take the majority they won on Nov. 3. Politico says the Justice Department, not the White House, usually leads oversight fights with Congress.
The letter, and the answers
- The letter
- Threats or subpoenas meant to “instill fear” “may cross the line into blatant criminality.” Unlawful subpoenas “may warrant further investigation” by the executive branch.
- Garcia
- Congress’s power comes from Article I, “not from the permission of the White House.”
- Hakeem Jeffries
- The likely speaker called the letter “outrageous” and legally wrong.
“I take this letter to basically mean, we intend to fight every subpoena you send us.”New York Times reporter Devlin Barrett, on PBS
Scharf cites Supreme Court rulings, including Watkins v. United States, that say an investigation needs a legitimate legislative purpose. Courts have long deferred to congressional investigators, Politico notes.
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Scott Colom beats Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith in Mississippi, 49.2% to 48.7%, giving Democrats at least 55 Senate seats.
The AP called the race just before 6 p.m. ET Wednesday, with Colom, a 43-year-old district attorney, ahead by 4,669 votes out of 962,237 counted. Hyde-Smith conceded in a video. Colom is Mississippi’s first Democrat elected to the Senate since 1982 and its first Black senator since Reconstruction.
- 55 Democrats
- Lit: the 8 seats Democrats flipped this year, per NBC News
- Gold: Mississippi, the eighth. Colom 49.2%, Hyde-Smith 48.7%
- 44 Republicans
- Outline: Alaska, uncalled
It is Democrats’ biggest midterm Senate gain since 1986, per the AP. Trump carried Mississippi by about 23 points in 2024, and Colom raised about $3.6 million to Hyde-Smith’s $5.3 million before the election, per The Guardian. Mississippi has no recount law, so only a court could order a review.
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Nvidia’s board met Wednesday on whether to oust CEO Jensen Huang after a second affair surfaced; by 10 p.m. ET, it had announced no decision.
The Wall Street Journal reported first that the board is preparing to oust him; Reuters, citing one source, says it met to decide whether to. Under Nvidia’s bylaws, a majority of the 11 directors can remove him. Shares fell more than 8% after hours.
The New York Times reports the second affair was with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of health care, who reports to him.
Two weeks at Nvidia
- Oct. 29
- The Times reports U.S. intelligence believes Alice Huang, a Megaspeed executive close to Huang, was gathering information for Beijing.
- Nov. 8
- Huang admits an affair, reportedly with Alice Huang. The board opens an independent probe and says it has confidence in him.
- Nov. 11
- Shares close at $173.73, down about 19% from before the Oct. 29 report. The board meets, per Reuters.
Bloomberg reports the board has worked with an outside firm to find replacements. Semafor says finance chief Colette Kress is being weighed as interim CEO.
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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent moved from his Georgetown home to a military base after Iranian threats against his life.
He runs the U.S. sanctions campaign against Tehran, called “Operation Economic Outcast.” The New York Times first reported the move and said it was not clear how severe the threats were. A senior official told Fox the threats had reached “more than an advanced stage.”
On bases or in protected housing
- Already
- Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Stephen Miller.
- Now
- Bessent, at least the fifth Trump official to move, by the Washington Examiner’s count.
A source told CBS News and The Hill that worry grew after a January 2025 Wall Street Journal article ran an aerial photo that let readers locate his home. Treasury said he “will not be deterred by the Iranian regime’s threats.”
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Energy aid directors project the average winter heating bill will rise 7.1% to $1,002, and oil-heated homes face increases of up to 70%.
The National Energy Assistance Directors Association, the state officials who run federal heating aid, released the forecast Wednesday. Heating oil tracks crude prices, and the group ties part of the rise to oil disruptions from the Iran war. Nearly 5 million households heat with oil.
Average household
Typical oil-heated home, New York and nearby states
Homes heated by natural gas or electricity see modest increases. Oil heats 50% of homes in Maine and 36% in Vermont and New Hampshire. HHS released an initial $3.632 billion in federal heating aid for fiscal 2027 on Oct. 9, below the first $3.714 billion release for fiscal 2026.