Bessent Publicly Throws Lutnick Under the Bus as Nvidia Scandal Grows

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent placed blame for the Trump administration’s inaction regarding Megaspeed, the Chinese firm at the center of the Nvidia spying scandal, solely on Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

“There’ve been reports that there was some tension between you and Secretary Lutnick about why Megaspeed was not placed on the Entity List,” Bessent was asked on Friday morning on CNBC. “Could Treasury have done that? Was it only Lutnick that could’ve done that?”

“I can tell you there was coordination. It was Treasury, War, [the U.S. trade representative], and State. They were in favor of putting Megaspeed on the entity list for months. But Commerce has the pen,” Bessent replied. “You will have to ask [Lutnick] about their internal process.”

Questions are swirling about Lutnick’s close relationship with former Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who recently stepped down over reports of his affair with Megaspeed executive (and suspected Chinese intelligence asset) Alice Huang. The Commerce Department did not list Megaspeed on its Entity List, which restricts U.S. technology from foreign businesses believed to pose a national security risk. In fact, the department has added no businesses to the list since October 2025, despite Megaspeed long being under investigation.

The Trump administration was aware for at least a year that Alice Huang was likely working on behalf of the Chinese government. And yet, according to Bessent and multiple other sources, Lutnick actually spent the year going out of his way not to target Megaspeed and stop it from sending Nvidia chips to China. Lutnick has finally agreed to testify in Congress about the scandal.

“The obvious question is why did [Lutnick] choose to sell advanced chips?” Republican Senator John Kennedy told Politico Wednesday. “Secretary Lutnick needs to answer that in front of God and country. If I were he, I’d call a press conference this afternoon and explain what happened and why he agreed to sell them chips, and I would stop doing it.”

Attorney General Todd Blanche has admitted that there was absolutely nothing illegal about Democratic Senator Elissa Slotkin’s supposedly “extortionist” remark about working for Donald Trump.

During an interview on SiriusXM’s The Dan Abrams Show Thursday, Abrams cornered Blanche about Trump’s demand that Slotkin be investigated by the Department of Justice over comments she made at the University of Chicago last week. Slotkin said at the time that she wanted to send a message of “deterrence” to young people who might consider working for the Trump administration.

“I want them to be like, ‘Lord, that might be buying myself a ton of problems that I don’t want. And so let me avoid participating in that,’” she said.

In a post on Truth Social shortly after, Trump claimed that Slotkin was “saying that she is going to go after all young people that believe in Republican Values, and that give even the slightest inclination to be a Republican.”

“The imprisonment should be against these EXTORTIONISTS, and Republicans should get smart, fast!” Trump wrote, adding: “By copy of this statement, I am ordering the Department of Justice to look into this criminal act, immediately!”

But in the radio interview Thursday, Blanche couldn’t explain what crime Slotkin had supposedly committed. “Whether that’s a smart thing to say or not a smart thing to say, how is that even potentially criminal?” Abrams asked.

Initially, Blanche was extremely defensive, but eventually admitted: “Of course what the senator said in and of itself is absolutely not a crime.”

“However, if leadership in the Senate are working together to try to stop young people from going to work in the administration by basically threatening them, saying you should be worried that you’re going to be open to investigations,” Blanche said. “That is totally wrong, and again, there’s no evidence that people are threatening young people, right? And again, maybe not criminal, but we should be worried if that’s happening.”

“Right, but there’s no evidence that people are threatening young people,” Abrams said. “She’s talking about trying to have accountability, and it serving as a deterrent. I don’t even see, when the president is referring to her as an extortionist, and you’ve cited it as well, it just doesn’t seem to me to even be in the ballpark for crime.”

“The difference between something being okay and being criminal is huge, right?” Abrams added. Blanche nodded silently.

Abrams then pressed Blanche on whether Slotkin had actually committed extortion, as the president had claimed.

“Her comments alone are absolutely not a crime. There is no criminal investigation here, and I’ve never said that there is,” Blanche eventually admitted.

Let’s hope this lesson sticks. Earlier this week, Blanche claimed that it was his role to defend the Trump administration from the “vile rhetoric” of Democratic lawmakers. Following sweeping Democratic victories in the midterms, lawmakers have warned the Trump administration to “lawyer up,” and clearly, its lawyer has responded by threatening free speech.

The midterms may have been more than a week ago, but the Democrats are still racking up wins.

Democrats won the governorships of Kansas and Alaska Thursday night, holding on to the seat in the normally GOP-dominated prairie and flipping a Republican position up north. Cindy Holscher defeated Republican Ty Masterson in Kansas on a narrow 50.3 percent to 49.7 percent margin with 98 percent of votes counted, according to the Associated Press, to take over from fellow Democrat Laura Kelly, who is term-limited.

In Alaska, CNN called the race for Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tompkins, who has 50.2 percent of the vote in his favor in a crowded field. He dwarfed Republican Bernadette Wilson, who only had 28.7 percent with 88 percent of the votes counted. With these two victories, more than 75 percent of Americans will live in states with Democratic governors.

Democrats also control the majority of state legislatures, and have trifectas (control of state legislatures and governorships) in 22 states. That opens the door to progressive legislation including joining the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which could nullify the Electoral College.

The 2026 midterms have proven to be a sea change in American politics, with Democrats not just gaining power in Congress, but also at the state level with majorities they haven’t seen in decades. The question is how they will exercise this power and whether they will seek to undo entrenched conservative policies across the country.

Vice President JD Vance is seriously considering shelving his dreams of a 2028 presidential campaign, as GOP hopefuls are rushing to distance themselves from President Donald Trump.

Vance was once considered the GOP frontrunner for 2028, but people close to him told CNN Friday that the Ohio Republican has become less than convinced of his own candidacy, following sweeping Republican losses in the midterm elections last week.

“The question isn’t if JD can do it. It’s: If the Iran war is still happening, can any Republican do it?” one Vance ally told CNN. “If they don’t end the war in Iran, no Republican has a shot at 2028.”

Republicans are already turning on Vance’s nascent presidential run. As Election Day results rolled in last week, Vance received a text from one of his confidants advising him to consider sitting out of the next presidential race.

Another Vance ally noted that a lot could change in two years: “Just look at how far Trump has fallen since his win.”

Meanwhile, Rich Baris, a pollster closely connected to the MAGA movement, had a more dreadful analysis: “MAGA is dead.”

“The problem the vice president is going to have is that he has to motivate [MAGA voters] and make them believe again, because the Republican brand has completely lost credibility with them,” he said.

Vance’s soul-searching comes as he and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have rushed to distance themselves from the Trump administration. After Trump suffered a stunning rebuke in the midterm elections, Rubio and Vance have begun leaking to publications “like crazy,” according to Majority Report podcast host Emma Vigeland on X.

Vigeland observed that The New York Times coverage of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s reported affair with a Chinese spy “emphasized that Rubio told Trump about Huang and the spy, but Trump let him on the plane anyway.”

Meanwhile, Vance had stepped out of line to criticize Trump’s war in Iran in the wake of the midterms, citing it as a major reason for Republican losses. “Vance’s alleged resistance to the Iran War is repeatedly noted,” Vigeland added.

U.S. intelligence officials reportedly concluded Alice Huang—the woman whom Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang had an affair with—is a Chinese government spy one year ago. But now, when pressed for further answers, the Justice Department is suggesting that she might not have been a spy at all.

“When did the Justice Department learn, with regard to Nvidia, that Alice Huang might be a suspected Chinese asset?” a reporter asked Attorney General Todd Blanche at a Thursday press conference. “There’s been concerns raised that the Commerce Department was giving favoritism to Nvidia and Megaspeed, which was Alice Huang’s company. Do you share the concerns that maybe the Commerce Department was impeding the ability to uncover the smuggling network that Alice Huang was involved in?”

“Well, your first question assumes something that I have never said, and that I don’t know to be true,” Blanche replied. “So you assume that DOJ learns that she is in fact a spy—I have not, nobody said that, I certainly haven’t said that. All I said … is that of course DOJ’s investigators are looking at it. There’s no conclusions reached … around who she is or is not.”

This raises further questions about the Trump administration’s handling of the scandal. According to The New York Times, President Trump reportedly knew about the intelligence reports on Huang’s affair—and the fact that she was an alleged honeypot—for months. U.S. intelligence had had Alice Huang under surveillance for more than a year, and State Secretary Marco Rubio personally informed Trump about it again after the president invited Huang to join him on his trip to Beijing. The two traveled together to China anyway. Meanwhile, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has reportedly spent the last year trying to avoid targeting Megaspeed.

Nvidia is the most powerful artificial intelligence company in the world, with 90 percent of the market share of the chips that power the vast majority of AI. The Trump administration knew that U.S. intelligence was reporting that Jensen Huang was likely compromised by the Chinese government. But Blanche’s answers suggest that the Trump administration is moving to protect Huang, who is a good friend of Trump—even as he resigned from his post at Nvidia on Thursday as his third cheating scandal was exposed.