My big hot take of the year has been that Republicans would grow so tired of President Donald Trump’s drag on their party that they would eventually beg Democrats to impeach him, offering the votes to convict.
It’s quite the limb to go out on, and I fully expected to have egg on my face. Just because it would be the smart, logical thing to do doesn’t mean Republicans would do it.
But two recent bits of news have me thinking that my prediction might be moving from simple wishcasting to something legitimately possible.
The first, obviously, is the GOP’s historic defeat on Nov. 3. We expected a blue wave, hoped for a tsunami, and got an extinction-level event. Democrats won control of both chambers of Congress. Trump’s toxic impact on the GOP and its future chances is unmistakable.
But that alone would never be enough. It would take something unconscionably horrible to give Republicans the justification to pull that trigger.
Nvidia designs the powerful computer chips that underpin much of the artificial intelligence industry. That makes access to its technology—and its chief executive—a national security issue.
“A top executive at a Singapore-based data center company was under scrutiny for possibly steering advanced Nvidia A.I. chips to China,” reported The New York Times on Oct. 29. “And now American officials had concluded that she was a Chinese intelligence asset, funneling information to Beijing.”
That company is Megaspeed International, and its executive was Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le. American intelligence discovered that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (no relation) was having an extramarital affair with her.
“The discovery that Beijing was getting reports from someone with direct access to Mr. Huang, one of the most powerful figures in the A.I. revolution as well as an influential ally of President Trump’s, set off alarms at the White House,” the Times reported.
Trump was briefed in October 2025 about the relationship and the intelligence assessment that Alice Huang was a Chinese spy. According to the Times, he did nothing.
To be clear, Trump was told that his rich, powerful pal was having an affair with a Chinese spy, who was then funneling critical information, as well as bypassing export controls to funnel Nvidia chips into China. And he didn’t care.
At the time, the investigation was being vigorously pursued by the Commerce Department. In August 2025, Nvidia general counsel Tim Teter contacted them, invoking permission from their superior, Trump appointee Jeff Kessler, who reports directly to Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick. The outreach alarmed agents.
Then, later that year, the Justice Department asked Commerce to pause its work and took over the case. Again, officials described the handoff as unusual and concerning.
On Sunday, the NY Times reported that Secretary of State Marco Rubio was so alarmed by inaction on this case, that he wrote a memo warning the White House about Huang’s affair with the Chinese spy, drawing on electronic surveillance, and presented it before Trump’s May trip to China.
Interestingly, Huang was initially absent from that delegation. The Times said it was unclear whether his exclusion was connected to the memo, while reporting that, “a number of people inside the administration were concerned about Mr. Huang’s influence on the president’s policy of only lightly regulating A.I.”
When Trump learned Huang wasn’t going, he invited him to join Air Force One during its Alaska layover.
Oh, and assuredly not-coincidentally, Nvidia committed $25 million to Trump’s ballroom in October 2025 and requested anonymity, according to The Washington Post .
Seems pretty obvious that Jensen Huang paid a bribe to get the case transferred from the Commerce Department, which was working on cutting off the flow of restricted chips to China, to the Justice Department where it has seemingly gone nowhere in the year since.
We don’t know who supplied the Times with its information. Frustrated Commerce officials? People around Rubio? Others with access to the intelligence? Regardless, it’s clear that there is massive concern inside the White House about Trump cavorting with compromised individuals.
And beyond the national security implications, there is a very clear political narrative here:
Trump receives a warning about a suspected Chinese spy’s access to Nvidia’s CEO. Nvidia pays a $25 million bribe to his ballroom. Commerce’s investigation is halted after the company intervened. And even after Rubio’s classified warning, Trump brings Huang along to China.
National security alarms keep sounding and Trump doesn’t care. Huang keeps his access.
Republicans may have quit worrying about Russia at Trump’s behest, but China has remained a fixation.
Are they really going to look the other way when their president disregards intelligence warnings about a powerful donor’s CEO—and then brings him into the traveling entourage anyway?
The answer is probably yes. Republicans will do nothing because they stand for nothing and are absolute cowards.
But if anything might move them, this would be a good one.
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