Donald Trump has sweeping plans for a second administration. Here’s what he’s proposed

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Vance leads behind-the-scenes Iran deal push

Photo illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Photos: Brandon Bell and U.S. Navy via Getty Images

Vice President Vance has spent the past two weeks personally involved in indirect talks with Iran aimed at reaching a new ceasefire and resuming nuclear negotiations, Axios' Barak Ravid reports. Why it matters: Vance's heavy involvement shows he's taking it upon himself to extract the U.S. from a conflict he blamed for the GOP's staggering losses in this week's election. It also elevates the latest round of indirect talks to the highest levels of the administration. 🔎 State of play: U.S. officials and regional sources say that, for now, Trump is willing to let diplomatic efforts play out and wants to see if any kind of deal is possible. But if he changes his mind, the U.S. military is ready to launch strikes on a relatively short timetable. Go deeper.

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🏗️ Trump arch will include "sniper nest"

Artistic rendering: United States Triumphal Arch Foundation A federal court has temporarily blocked groundbreaking for President Trump's towering memorial arch. But pushing ahead, he launched a glitzy website yesterday that rebrands the arch as a military tribute: The United States Military Triumphal Arch. The 250-foot-tall complex is slated to rise in a mass of blindingly gold ornamentation and stately gray granite on the Virginia side of the Potomac River, between Arlington National Cemetery and the Lincoln Memorial, AP reports. Graphic: AP The website features the huge word "Triumph" in gold cursive script reminiscent of the typeface used at Mar-a-Lago. "Inside the two massive columns will be storage for munitions," the website says. "In addition, areas on the pedestal and Observation Deck will be set aside for snipers, countersnipers, and provisions for a sniper nest. Likewise, the open ground area at the base of the Monument will be designed for launching drones and other homeland security assets, if and when necessary." Keep reading.

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Judge wants former US attorney to investigate whether the government misled her in Trump golf case

A federal judge said Saturday she intends to appoint an ex-top federal prosecutor in the nation's capital during President Donald Trump's first term to investigate whether she was purposefully misled by lawyers and administration officials in a lawsuit challenging one of his prized Washington construction projects, the renovation of a historic public golf course along the Potomac River. Read More.

Trump’s grip on his party is in question as Republicans reel from the midterm wipeout

Republicans aren't holding back. Read More.

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First major Miller shakeup

White House deputy chief of staff Richard Walters is leaving the administration, the first major departure in an expected staff shakeup as incoming chief of staff Stephen Miller takes charge, Axios' Alex Isenstadt reports.

• Why it matters: The exit of one of outgoing chief of staff Susie Wiles' allies signals a changing of the guard inside the West Wing, with Miller's team poised to move into more powerful roles.

Walters was one of Wiles' closest political lieutenants, with a relationship stretching back more than a decade. He's a veteran Republican operative who served as the longest-tenured chief of staff in RNC history.

• Walters resigned Friday, the same day that Trump announced Miller would replace Wiles.

Read on.

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Trump's Jensen loyalty

President Trump stood by Jensen Huang last night, telling reporters that the Nvidia CEO is "an honorable guy" and "probably has an excuse" for his infidelity, Axios' Zachary Basu writes.

• Why it matters: Huang has become one of Trump's closest corporate allies, fashioning himself as a leader with unparalleled clout in Silicon Valley, on Wall Street and inside the White House.

🔭 Zoom in: The New York Times first exposed the suspected Chinese espionage operation on Oct. 29, reporting that a woman believed to be working for Beijing had developed a close relationship with Nvidia's CEO.

• The company portrayed their interactions as routine business dealings — an account now under scrutiny after Huang admitted he was "unfaithful" to his wife.
• U.S. officials believe Beijing's top spy agency recruited Alice Huang, an executive at Nvidia customer Megaspeed, to gather information and potentially influence Nvidia's campaign to expand advanced chip sales to China.

The intrigue: The Trump administration reportedly knew about the suspected Chinese intelligence operation long before it became public.

• Trump was briefed in 2025, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio personally oversaw a classified intelligence memo warning senior officials this spring, according to the Times.
• Yet Trump continued to embrace Huang as a trusted adviser, welcoming him to the White House as the Nvidia chief pressed to loosen restrictions on advanced chip exports to China.

🥊 Reality check: There's no public evidence that Huang's relationship influenced his advocacy for selling to China, a longstanding commercial priority for Nvidia.

• John Rizzo, the company's head of public policy communications, said in a statement yesterday: "Today's news will not slow NVIDIA. Jensen is committed to continuing to lead NVIDIA as CEO without interruption."

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Trump says his deportation policy ‘might have been too tough’ for voters in the election President Donald Trump in his first major interview since the midterm elections told CBS’s “60 Minutes” that he thinks his administration was too aggressive on deportations. He added he thinks he can work with Democrats in the new Congress on some kind of immigration deal. Read more.

What to know: Trump said his deportation policy was part of the reason Republicans lost, in the interview that aired on Sunday. Trump did not give specifics about what a deal with the new Democratic majority would look like — and shortly after taping the interview on Friday, Trump named the key architect of his hard-line immigration agenda, Stephen Miller, as his new chief of staff.   “Apparently, his solution was to put the man responsible for it in charge of the White House. That’s not a course correction. That’s a promotion,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer scoffed on social media Sunday after the interview aired.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤ Democrats face limits in trying to rein in Trump's immigration agenda Trump says he was just kidding about making UFC’s Dana White his press secretary Trump’s war against Iran not ‘necessarily popular’ but needed to stop a nuclear threat, Rubio says Democrats plan to push clean energy to lower bills and challenge Trump’s fossil fuel agenda Native American women made history in tribal, state and federal elections Still hitting refresh on our election results page waiting for the final calls in Alaska and Mississippi? Sign up for news alerts here, and we’ll bring the latest updates to your inbox.

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FBI is looking at Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s affair with an alleged Chinese agent, Trump says

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Monday that the FBI is investigating Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s affair with an alleged Chinese government agent, but said he doesn’t think the executive who has helped to develop artificial intelligence has a reason to worry.

https://apnews.com/article/china-denies-spy-jensen-huang-nvidia-3345b9f05c54d58909e88f6dcb9c1cd8?

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The Joke’s on Him

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When President Trump posted on Saturday that he’d asked Dana White, the head of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, to be the new White House press secretary, it felt like a callback to the freewheeling first-term Trump.

“I am pleased to announce that the Great Dana White, a violent Fighter and Warrior, has been offered the job of Press Secretary of the United States,” the president wrote on Truth Social, adding that he needed White and his band of mixed-martial-arts fighters “to defend us against the Lunatic Left. Dana will be a Press Secretary like none other. Dana, please take the job!”

By weekend’s end, the possibility of the appointment had dissolved, though not without a subplot of speculation that Trump was confusing the impresario with another Dana White who had actually served as a Pentagon spokesperson during his first term. CNN reported that White had declined, and last night, Trump told reporters he never meant it anyway. “I was only kidding, but Dana loves the idea,” he said.

Perhaps. Trump has a long record of launching outlandish ideas and then playing them off as jokes when they don’t work out. If it was all a jape, then the weak stab at humor seems to underestimate the electorate’s frustration with his antics. If he was serious and got rejected, it’s even worse. An old maxim goes that when the president of the United States asks you to do something, you do it. But Trump no longer has the juice he did in the early days of this administration, when billionaire tech CEOs were showering him with attention and the odd bauble. Last Tuesday evening, as election results rolled in, my colleague Jonathan Lemire wrote that “Donald J. Trump is now officially, thoroughly a lame duck.” Now we’re getting a glimpse of what that looks like in practice.

Start with the cool reception that Trump’s elevation of Stephen Miller to White House chief of staff received among Republicans. Representative Marlin Stutzman called it a “horrible decision.” Another legislator told Fox News that his reaction was “utter disbelief.” When a Politico reporter informed one member of the choice, they replied, “Please tell me you’re lying to me right now, just to get a reaction.” Take these statements with a grain of salt—Republicans have often been happy to talk trash about Trump anonymously while going along with him publicly—but whether or not they acquiesce with the president matters less now that the GOP is so outnumbered in Congress.

One test of where House Republicans actually stand will come this week. Thomas Massie, a renegade GOP member who Trump helped defeat in a primary earlier this year, refiled articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth today. Although Speaker Mike Johnson (speaking of lame ducks) had temporarily stymied Massie’s impeachment efforts in September by sending members home until after the midterms, the House is now back in session. Rounding up enough Republican votes to move the articles forward will be difficult but not impossible; a significant number of GOP members lost their seats last week, including many of the more moderate representatives, which means they are less in Trump’s thrall. Assuming that Hegseth is not impeached this month, it seems all but inevitable once Democrats take over. This weekend, presumptive Speaker Hakeem Jeffries said he’s a “hard yes” on impeachment.

Republicans’ losses have produced infighting elsewhere in the party too. As Miller moves to take over, fallout from his predecessor Susie Wiles’s tenure continues. Calley Means, a former aide to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast, where he accused Wiles and James Blair, a top Trump political adviser, of selling the MAHA movement out to corporate interests. The Wall Street Journal reports that, ahead of their public social-media fight, Blair texted Means, “If you are gonna try to knife me, I’m happy to return the favor.” Meanwhile Senator Ron Johnson, a hard-right figure from Wisconsin, has picked up on Means’s comments to accuse the Trump administration of “corruption.”

One person in particular left somewhat unmoored by the results is Vice President Vance, who built his entire profile on closeness to a politician whose toxicity is now made plain. In a long post-election X post, Vance pinned the midterm defeat on the Iran war. This was widely seen as a swipe at the president and an attempt to position himself for 2028, but as The New Yorker’s Jason Zengerle observed, Vance “didn’t so much throw Trump under the bus as try to bring him on board his bandwagon by essentially putting words in Trump’s mouth.”

But Trump does not seem inclined to cooperate. For one thing, he continues to defend the war. On 60 Minutes last night, he acknowledged the political fallout but said, “I think, historically, this will be a very good decision. Is it a good decision for today and tomorrow? Maybe not.” Speaking with reporters last night, he once again declared victory in the unresolved war with Iran and then claimed, falsely and callously, that “we haven’t lost anybody. No soldiers.”

At other times, though, Trump has sounded unusually chastened since Election Day. He told The New York Times that he looks forward to working with the Democrats. He also acknowledged on 60 Minutes that his deportation policy, which “might be too tough,” could explain the GOP’s shellacking. “I think I got an A-plus for closing up the border,” he said, “but I get hurt because we also took people that had good jobs, that created one violation, or breaking of the law, and that was that they came into the country illegally.” A deescalation on immigration enforcement seems unlikely with Miller as chief of staff, given his role in implementing that policy, but the fact that Trump was willing to offer conciliatory remarks suggests that he is beginning to recognize the challenges of life as a lame duck.

Related:

• Repudiation
• ICE after the blowout

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Trump nominates Justice Department official to a EEOC seat that was left open by Democrat's firing

President Donald Trump has nominated a Justice Department official to an open seat on a key civil rights agency, signaling his administration's determination to forge ahead with efforts to dismantle diversity policies it claims discriminate against white workers and others. Read More.

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Too Big to Fail? (Heather Diehl / Getty)

View in browser On Wednesday morning, Americans awoke to the news that the Democrats had retaken both the House and the Senate. The next day, the stock market hemorrhaged $2.5 trillion. The tech sector was hardest hit. Alphabet, Nvidia, and the major semiconductor companies shed billions. Tesla and SpaceX, whose founder, Elon Musk, had spent half a billion dollars trying to keep Democrats out of Congress, were suddenly worth approximately $420 billion less than they had been two days before. In some ways, the election results were a referendum on Big Tech. Recent polls have revealed that most voters want the government to impose new regulations on AI, and many victorious Democrats campaigned on a promise to move away from the unchecked expansionism that has defined the industry during the Donald Trump era. Texas Governor-Elect Gina Hinojosa and Senator-Elect Annie Andrews of South Carolina have both pledged to stop the construction of new data centers, which have been the subject of voter panic across the country in recent months. (These facilities—physical manifestations of the industry’s clout—can raise local electricity costs and pollute the air.) Others vowed to stand up to imperious Silicon Valley elites, or to hold the president accountable for his corruption—much of which is linked to his family’s cryptocurrency ventures. Last week’s sell-off was a sign that the stock market is taking lawmakers at their word. At the same time, the dip hinted at a potential challenge for Democrats. Voters made clear that they were unhappy with the cost of living, and many Democrats who ran on affordability ended up winning big. Widespread fears about what AI might do to jobs only fueled the party’s comeback. The irony is that AI companies are responsible for a sizable chunk of the United States’ GDP growth; AI products have invaded our professional and personal lives, as well as our pension funds and 401(k)s. All Americans now have a stake in the AI economy, whether they’ve opted in or not. It might even be more accurate to say that, at this point, AI is the economy. According to a recent Bloomberg story, “nearly $32 trillion in market value had been added to the S&P 500 Index since OpenAI released ChatGPT, and more than half of that gain came from just 10 companies—all linked to artificial intelligence.” The article also noted that “almost all the growth in US business spending last year came from spending on technology,” much of which is, of course, connected to AI and the ongoing data-center build-out. The technology’s effects on the economy are complex, and not purely positive: Demand for AI is contributing to inflation and helping keep long-term-bond yields relatively high. But AI has become so entrenched that Democrats’ efforts to target the industry could have ripple effects. Their challenge will be to regulate AI in the ways they campaigned on without damaging the economy they’ve promised to protect. It’s no accident that this technology has so thoroughly infiltrated the world of American business. Many companies have been eager to adopt it (despite the lack of proof that it makes workers more productive), and investors are hungry for a piece of what they see as humanity’s next great technical evolution. But the federal government has enabled this expansion too. Even though the industry’s leaders have warned that their technology may destroy the world, and even though AI’s ability to wreak havoc on vital infrastructure, such as banks and power grids, has become clearer and clearer, the Trump administration has refused to implement strict controls on the sector. In fact, the White House has gone out of its way to try to override state-level rule making on AI, asking Congress to adopt its pro-AI policy recommendations. And the president himself has maintained close relationships with Silicon Valley’s leaders and personally invested in AI firms. Recall that the CEOs of Meta, Apple, and Google stood behind Trump at his second inauguration, and that their companies collectively donated tens of millions of dollars to the new White House ballroom. Meanwhile, the administration’s other policies have weakened the economy. Although the stock market has done well during Trump’s second term, the health of the American economy is measured in more than just the valuations of its biggest companies. The president’s decision to implement tariffs and to start a war in Iran have pushed up the cost of living. Energy prices have spiked, and inflation has lately outpaced wage growth, meaning that workers’ dollars aren’t going as far. Now lawmakers have a chance to fight for the kind of changes they’ve been promising, and AI is an important part of their calculus. My colleague Matteo Wong wrote earlier this month that AI is an engine of growth, but it’s also hogging some of the attention and the investments that might have once gone to other sectors. “The industry seems to be holding not just the American economy but our entire society hostage,” he explained. “Nvidia, Google, and the like had better succeed financially, or there go your savings.” (Yesterday, Trump joined Silicon Valley leaders in defending Nvidia’s Jensen Huang after reports emerged that the CEO had cheated on his wife with an alleged Chinese spy—another acknowledgement of the country’s deep reliance on Huang and his company.) It doesn’t help that the Democrats don’t have a coherent plan for reining in AI. As my colleague Rogé Karma has written, individual candidates have proposed some ideas, including a federally controlled kill switch that can shut models down in an emergency and an outright pause on advanced AI development. Some have made the very reasonable point that slowing the growth of AI here in the United States is a moral imperative—a way to safeguard humanity, akin to nuclear disarmament—and that it’s more important than any economic trade-offs. But voters worried about their savings may not ultimately see it that way. There are geopolitical trade-offs, too: Although legislators can choose to hamper AI’s development in the U.S., it’s unlikely that China, the country’s primary tech rival, will choose to do the same. This week, the stock market has been well on the way to recovery. But if AI companies are weakened in the months and years to come, all Americans will eventually be affected—not just the early investors and executives stewarding this industry. Whatever congressional Democrats decide, the interconnectedness of the AI economy ensures that their moves will have consequences that extend well beyond their chosen targets. Related: America can’t afford an AI recession. Democrats have no coherent plan for AI.

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Trump's imperial last act

Photo illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios. Photo: Samuel Corum/Getty Images

President Trump, with the clock ticking and congressional investigators closing in, plans to govern even more imperially, hell-bent on stretching executive power, targeting those on his enemies list, pardoning allies, and daring the courts and Congress to slow him down, Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen write in a "Behind the Curtain" column. Why it matters: Trump and his allies are exploring executive action on new tariffs and immigration restrictions, and asserting greater control over spending. On X over the weekend, Trump discussed targeting and perhaps jailing Democrats who investigate administration officials. He claimed politically motivated harassment. Trump is retooling his White House by elevating the one official who's synonymous with his all-gas-no-brakes style: Stephen Miller, who took over for Susie Wiles as White House chief of staff yesterday. Watch Miller and Russ Vought, the White House budget director, to understand how this approach will unfold. Both are architects and advocates of vastly expanding presidential power, believing there are virtually no restraints on what Trump can do as president. The Swamp can expect tougher sledding: Miller, unlike most of his predecessors, is driven more by ideology than by meetings with lobbyists or industry groups. "Stephen gives zero f*cks what K Street thinks," a Trump confidant told us. 🔎 Between the lines: Midterm losses pushed Presidents Clinton and Obama to the center. Trump's instincts are the opposite: Assert maximal power. The playbook: Restore MAGA. Two years ago, MAGA — mostly its network of podcasts, YouTubers and online activists — was a powerful, united force in media and politics. Today it's a hot, divided mess. Trump's attention to his base drifted. Now Vice President Vance and Miller desperately want to rebuild and rev up MAGA. That's why ending the Iran war, curtailing aid to Israel and pushing harder on RFK Jr.'s MAHA agenda are suddenly top-tier topics. Rule by pen. Miller, Vought and White House lawyers have been drafting executive actions to govern without Congress, with Justice Department opinions ready to defend them, Reuters reported just before the election. Remember: Vought was an architect of the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 blueprint for maximizing executive power in Trump II. Target enemies. Before, it was pure payback. Now, it's also a preemptive warning that the Trump administration will target anyone, including elected members of Congress who target them. Trump ally Roger Stone told us: "Many Democrat lawmakers are going to find themselves under indictment and fighting conviction. Watch." Purge the "deep state." The Supreme Court's ruling in a case about independent agencies, Trump v. Slaughter, widened the president's power to remove officials. "The Slaughter case gives the president tremendous powers," Trump said in an Election Day phone interview with CBS News' Robert Costa. The June ruling handed Trump the power to fire the heads of the FTC and other independent regulators (like FERC) for any reason or no reason. More monuments. Trump's pharaonic need to gild the White House, build a ballroom, erect a triumphal arch and slap his name on buildings is also an exercise in raw power. He told New York Magazine's Ben Terris why he's honoring himself: "Nobody will do it once I'm gone. When I leave here, nobody will." No one can stop him. The Republican resistance: Expect very little inside the new Congress. The reason: Most of Trump's Capitol Hill critics are gone. What's left is a much smaller, but more Trumpian, band of middle-aged and older white Republicans with margins too small to matter much. The Trump bet: Congressional Republicans will quickly feel Democrats are overreaching and unify in solidarity with Trump, even if it's forced or begrudging. 🥊 Yes, but: One of Trump's most predictable attributes is his unpredictability. He said on election night that he'll "work together" with Democrats. What that may look like (with a heavy emphasis on "may"), based on reporting by Axios' Marc Caputo: Soften aspects of immigration enforcement, particularly regarding masked agents harassing U.S. citizens. Find common ground with MAHA's healthy food agenda, which has become the subject of vicious post-election infighting among Trump insiders. Sign legislation from the new Congress that would undo massive Medicaid cuts in his "One Big Beautiful Bill." The bottom line: Trump is still Trump. He's 80 and it shows. But he meets force with force and he'll go down swinging the more Democrats attack him. "Trump and his team are at our best when our backs are against the wall," one adviser told Caputo. "Trump comes out fighting. We're full-throated and full-throttle."

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💥 MAHA's White House revolt

Calley Means quickly rose from wellness entrepreneur to senior Trump health adviser — and now he's attacking the White House and suggesting top aides undermined the president's health agenda, Axios' Caitlin Owens and Adriel Bettelheim write.

• Why it matters: His scorched-earth campaign — which continued yesterday in comments to Axios — marks a stunning turn for one of the administration's most vocal advocates of the "Make America Healthy Again" agenda.

Means, who is widely credited with brokering the alliance between Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and President Trump in 2024, resigned from his administration post late last month.

• He told Axios he's going public with allegations of corruption — particularly involving former White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles — because "it is existential to the survival [of] America that we rid DC of Susie's brand of politics."
• Means launched his attacks Friday on "The Joe Rogan Experience" and continued them Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation" and across social media.

🖼️ The big picture: MAHA leaders have complained for months about a lack of progress on issues around healthy foods and pesticide use.

The intrigue: The MAHA base sees new chief of staff Stephen Miller as an ally. Miller's wife, Katie, hosted Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on her podcast and has posted photos of dishes with ingredients like raw milk.

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FBI is looking at Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s affair with an alleged Chinese agent, Trump says President Donald Trump said Monday that the FBI is investigating Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s affair with an alleged Chinese government agent but that he doesn’t think the executive who has helped to develop artificial intelligence has a reason to worry. Read more.

Why this matters: The sudden emergence of Huang’s infidelity has rocked the political class and America’s tech sector, creating new concerns about whether China has been able to access the cutting-edge chips designed by Nvidia that are powering the development of artificial intelligence. Trump suggested the extraordinary step of directly involving himself in a counterintelligence investigation, a sign of his friendly relationship with Huang and the possible geopolitical stakes. China denied Monday that it engaged in an attempt to ensnare Huang.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤ What we know and don’t about the alleged plot WATCH: Who is Jensen Huang? Investigation puts a spotlight on chip billionaire’s personal life

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Miller's focus: MAGA and men

Stephen Miller wants to use his new role as White House chief of staff to win back young and minority men who helped elect President Trump in 2024 but swung toward Democrats in the midterms, two people familiar with the administration's plans tell Axios' Alex Isenstadt.

• Why it matters: Miller, named last week to replace Susie Wiles, plans to focus on reviving the populist agenda that helped the president build his 2024 coalition, with an emphasis on working-class voters.

Young, working-class and minority men fled the GOP in droves in last week's elections, amid high prices fueled by Trump's tariffs, the war in Iran, and concerns about AI's impact on the job market.

• Trump won men under 30 by 14 points in 2024, according to a Tufts study. Last week, Democrats won them by 22 points in House races — a 36-point shift.
• Latino men also swung sharply toward Democrats, as the administration's hard-line immigration crackdown became an increasingly contentious political issue.

🔎 Zoom in: Miller wants to spend more time highlighting administration policies he believes haven't gotten enough attention, and that will appeal to working-class voters concerned about the economy, insiders tell Axios.

• His priorities will sound familiar to Trump watchers: eliminating what the administration considers "woke" policies from colleges and workplaces, lowering prescription drug prices, and rooting out government and health-care fraud.
• He also wants to emphasize reducing the federal bureaucracy and push for permitting reform, while highlighting how those efforts could help address affordability.
• Sources in the business community say Miller's ideological drive makes him mostly impervious to typical Washington lobbying.

👓 Between the lines: With Democrats taking control of Congress in January, Miller will have to advance that agenda without the help of Republican majorities in either the House or Senate.

• Some of his plans could be pursued through executive orders by Trump. Others, including permitting reform, would require bipartisan cooperation.

Reality check: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), who's in line to become House speaker in January, has said he has "zero interest" in working with Miller, whose immigration policies have made him a frequent target of Democratic attacks.

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🚨 Trump's midair spy warning

Secretary of State Marco Rubio personally warned President Trump about Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's relationship with a suspected Chinese spy during a flight to China in May, The New York Times reports.

• The warning came before Huang boarded Air Force One at a refueling stop in Anchorage.

📝 Behind the scenes: Rubio oversaw the preparation of a highly classified memo detailing Huang's relationship with Alice Huang, whom U.S. intelligence officials believe is a Chinese intelligence agent.

• The memo drew on surveillance of Alice Huang and a chip-smuggling investigation into her company, Megaspeed.

👉 Axios scoop: Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick — who oversees efforts to keep sensitive U.S. technology out of the hands of American adversaries — also received the classified memo, Axios' Maria Curi and Marc Caputo report.

• Keep reading (NYT gift link).

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⚡ Trump's third way on Iran

When Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with his G7 counterparts in Paris yesterday, he told them that President Trump had considered resuming the war with Iran or cutting a deal — but chose a third option: strangling the Iranian regime, Axios' Barak Ravid reports.

• Rubio explained: "It's not just return to war or sign a ridiculous peace deal. We won't do a stupid deal. The third option we have is to continue to do what we do now," Rubio said, according to three people in the room.
• He went on to say that the U.S. is imposing devastating costs on Iran's economy, making it harder for it to fund terrorist organizations or rebuild its military. And there's no end date.

The intrigue: U.S. officials say that Rubio was among the members of Trump's national security team who pushed for the strangulation strategy, along with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Jared Kushner, Trump's adviser and son-in-law.

• Keep reading.

White House faces unusual obstacle on confirming Trump judges: other Republicans

Several Republican senators are complicating a White House plan to leave an enduring imprint on the judiciary long after President Donald Trump leaves office by throwing up obstacles for a handful of his judicial nominees in the final weeks of their Senate majority. Read More.

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Hegseth attacks civilian-led education in Naval War College speech

As calls for his resignation and impeachment grow in Washington, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth came to the U.S. Naval War College in Newport Monday to announce a sweeping effort to strip military education of what he called its overly civilian influences.

https://floridaphoenix.com/2026/11/10/repub/hegseth-attacks-civilian-led-education-in-naval-war-college-speech/?

Chip fight sparks Oval Office drama

For the third time this year, President Trump authorized a crackdown on companies suspected of diverting Nvidia's advanced AI chips to China. Trump even consulted Elon Musk before giving the go-ahead last Thursday, Axios' Marc Caputo and Maria Curi scoop.

• One Cabinet member has repeatedly resisted export controls: Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

Why it matters: The standoff illustrates a breakdown in efforts to keep American technology out of China's hands, as the world wonders why the Trump administration hasn't been tougher on Nvidia.

• This reporting is based on interviews with six high-level sources who were briefed on or participated in the discussions.

Inside the room: On Thursday, as the Nvidia scandal rocked the administration, Lutnick met in the Situation Room with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who's also White House national security adviser.

• During the meeting, Bessent pointedly asked Lutnick why his department has resisted implementing export controls on Megaspeed and other companies, Axios first reported. The group sided with Bessent.
• Lutnick appeared to agree, but then muttered under his breath: "I need to check with the president."

The other side: Commerce Department press secretary Kristen Eichamer denied a confrontation. Lutnick has warned the controls could start a trade war with China.

Friction point: Officials have repeatedly believed the Commerce Department would impose export controls, only to have nothing happen.

• "He's stalling it out," said one official, saying Lutnick had previously met privately with the president to change his mind about the export limit.

This time, a person in the room called Lutnick's bluff by saying: "Great. Why don't we do it today?"

• Around 5 p.m., the group headed to the Oval Office.
• Trump called Elon Musk, then agreed to move forward. Musk supported the other Cabinet members' case for imposing controls. Lutnick warned it "will start a trade war with China."

Behind the scenes: With Lutnick the lone holdout, Trump made his decision. "Let's get it done," he said. But once everyone was outside of the Oval Office, Lutnick proposed a new delay tactic.

• "I'll develop some options and come back," Lutnick said.
• A source said: "Everyone was like: 'No, no, the decision's been made. Go f*cking execute.' ... Well, it still hasn't happened."

Flashback: On at least three occasions — in May, August, and Nov. 5 — Trump approved taking action against suspected diversions of Nvidia chips to China.

• But Lutnick and Commerce Undersecretary Jeffrey Kessler resisted pressure from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and others to move forward.
• In May, a highly classified memo warning about Jensen Huang's relationship with Alice Huang, a Megaspeed employee suspected by U.S. intelligence of being a Chinese agent, was shared with the president and other officials.
• In a subsequent meeting, Bessent, Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton, Hegseth and White House officials pressed Lutnick and Kessler to act, the source said.

Go deeper with a scoop earlier today by Axios' Maria Curi and Marc Caputo, "Bessent confronts Lutnick in Situation Room over China inaction."

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Invidious Decisions

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Sometimes a news story is important because it reveals information for the first time. Other times, it’s a big deal because it confirms what many people already suspected. The latest development in the story of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang falls into the second category.

As news of Huang’s extramarital affair with a suspected Chinese spy rocks Silicon Valley, Washington, and Wall Street, President Trump has pleaded ignorance. In particular, he has said he was unaware of the relationship between Jensen Huang and Alice Huang (no relation) when he traveled to China this past May. “No, I didn’t hear about it then,” he told reporters on Monday.

Almost immediately, The New York Times reported that in fact Trump had been warned by Marco Rubio, the national security adviser and secretary of state, while headed to China on Air Force One, just before Jensen Huang boarded the plane for a state visit. (In fact, Trump may have been told even before then: The paper previously reported that Trump was notified about intelligence findings on the relationship last year as well.) The new White House chief of staff, Stephen Miller, wants to crack down on leaks; he clearly has his work cut out for him.

A few important features of Trump’s approach to the presidency are on display here. First, he has abandoned the pretense of being tough on China, a major talking point during his first presidential run and term. Second, he ignores any intelligence findings that contradict his instincts. Third, this is the latest evidence that, as I wrote last January, Trump does not care about U.S. national security. That doesn’t mean he’s actively hostile to it, or a saboteur; he’s just indifferent to anything but his own interests. In the nearly two years since I first laid out this argument, the president has repeatedly bolstered the case.

When Trump was informed that China had infiltrated a tech company that is widely regarded as essential to the health of the global economy as well as a crucial force for maintaining American power and national security—such that the U.S. bans exports of its most powerful chips to China—Trump opted to do nothing and pretend he hadn’t heard. We can only speculate on the reasons. Trump enjoys closeness with titans like Huang and wouldn’t want to endanger that. Huang clearly relished putting Trump on speakerphone during a podcast taping in September. (A serial philanderer himself, Trump said in recent days that Huang “probably has an excuse for” the affair.) The president may have also worried about the risk to the economy of any Nvidia turmoil—both because of the midterm elections and because his own portfolio has grown enormously during the AI boom.

Trump was similarly indifferent to the national-security risks of the war in Iran. (Some of his advisers reportedly understood this but did little to dissuade him.) The administration couched the war in terms of eliminating the threat of a nuclear Iran, but given that U.S. intelligence had deemed the program moribund, and given that the Trump administration had claimed to have destroyed the program in 2025, the justification made little sense. And by embarking on a war with no clear strategy or planning, the U.S. has badly depleted its stores of missiles and other munitions, which will spell danger in the event of another conflict. The war has created divisions among American allies and shown that the United States is unable to win a war or guarantee freedom of navigation in the Persian Gulf, all of which weaken its long-term strategic positioning.

Not every decision is as consequential as the Iran war, but Trump has repeatedly chosen personal or short-term political gain over American security and national priorities. Accepting the gift of a 747 from Qatar was neither ethical nor a wise security choice—as became clear when Trump had to do his Turkish tarmac turnaround and board a safer plane in August. The president chose his own interests—both flattery and a splashy if minor diesel-fuel deal—in once more embracing Vladimir Putin and distancing himself from Ukraine in October. And as I argued in September, Trump’s decision to treat Venezuela as a vassal state and stifle the popularly supported María Corina Machado is likely to harm American regional interests over time while yielding limited benefits now.

To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, those who would choose some short-term personal benefit over long-term national interest may end up losing both. If Trump hoped that overlooking Huang’s liabilities would prevent turmoil, the bet didn’t pay off. The Wall Street Journal reported this evening that Nvidia’s board is preparing to oust Huang, after a report late today of another affair, this one with a subordinate. Huang’s behavior has become both a political scandal and an economic liability, after Nvidia’s stock slid over the past few days. What harm this whole incident may have done to national security may not be clear for months or years to come.

Related:

• A scandal at the center of the economy
• America can’t afford an AI recession.

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💰 Trump playbook tempts Dems

Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios

Newly emboldened Democrats are warming to a move from President Trump's playbook: Turning the federal government into an investor in private companies, Axios' Amy Harder writes. They're considering investments and aid for clean energy and energy infrastructure. 🎨 The big picture: The Biden administration spent billions subsidizing clean energy and semiconductor manufacturing. The Trump administration has gone further by taking ownership stakes in companies ranging from Intel to critical-mineral producers. It has announced more than $30 billion in investments across nearly 50 deals involving government ownership and related financial arrangements, according to a Council on Foreign Relations tracker. 🔬 Zoom in: Jennifer Granholm, who served as President Biden's energy secretary, said at a gathering of energy and climate experts in Berkeley last month that "the Trump administration has widened the aperture for industrial policy." Granholm, a former Michigan governor, told us the government could take small ownership stakes in companies for national security or global competitiveness reasons. Keep reading ...

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• 🇮🇷 President Trump directed Vice President Vance to turn his "complete and total attention" toward alleged corruption in Democratic-run cities and states, contending that we "don't need a deal with Iran." Go deeper.

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Hindsight Is 2006 (Illustration by The Atlantic. Sources: Brendan Smialowski / AFP / Getty; Timothy A. Clary / AFP / Getty.)

View in browser Last week, Democrats dominated elections as Donald Trump, a lame-duck Republican, waged an unpopular war in Iran that he started and that a majority of Americans want to end. Notice the parallels to 20 years ago: In 2006, Democrats dominated the midterms as George W. Bush, a lame-duck Republican, waged an unpopular war in Iraq that he chose to start and that a majority of Americans wanted to end. Back then, with Democrats in control of both chambers of Congress for the first time in 12 years, The Atlantic asked 44 foreign-policy specialists about withdrawal from Iraq. Most people surveyed for this 2007 article predicted that policy would move in the direction that voters wanted: an end to the war. Around that time, 130,000 to 150,000 U.S. troops were in Iraq. Seventy-three percent of respondents said that America would not have a significant military presence in Iraq (defined as 50,000 troops or more) five years in the future. And they were correct––although that oversimplifies what came next. Revisiting what happened with regard to Iraq is a helpful reminder that winning elections by campaigning against a war is far easier than actually ending the conflict. In January 2007, days after the Democratic-majority Congress was sworn in, Bush gave the anti-war coalition the opposite of what it wanted: He told the public that he had already begun “the surge,” which would increase U.S. troop levels in Iraq to roughly 170,000. Democrats in the House passed a nonbinding resolution disapproving of the policy. Nearly two months later, they passed a $124 billion emergency spending bill for Iraq and Afghanistan, which also mandated that within months the United States would start pulling troops out of Iraq. But Bush vetoed the bill, arguing that “setting a deadline for withdrawal is setting a date for failure,” and that the U.S. should not tell enemies its plans. That December, under pressure to support the troops, Congress approved $70 billion in additional funding for Iraq and Afghanistan. The following year, as conditions in Iraq improved, Bush began reducing America’s military presence and handing security matters over to the Iraqis. Barack Obama, who had campaigned on ending the “dumb war,” won the White House and continued winding down military activity. By 2012, nearly all U.S. forces were gone—but that didn’t last. Obama ended up redeploying troops to Iraq in 2014 to respond to the rise of the Islamic State. President Trump, who also criticized the war in his 2016 campaign, kept soldiers there to continue fighting ISIS. Not until his second term, earlier this year, did the final withdrawal of U.S. forces occur. All told, America’s military stayed in Iraq for years under multiple Congresses and presidents who won elections by appealing to voters who wanted the war to be over. The Atlantic asked the foreign-policy experts one other question back in 2007: How should the United States withdraw from Iraq? The most popular answer (46 percent) urged a phased withdrawal to minimize chaos; the least popular answer (5 percent) favored an “immediate, full-scale withdrawal.” Today, most Americans want the war in Iran to end, but how it should end is less certain. Here the Iraq withdrawal ceases to be a close parallel: America seems less able to dictate events in Iran, because that war is being waged against an intact regime, rather than against insurgents after a military victory, and Iran’s ability to challenge American interests––by closing the Strait of Hormuz, attacking American military bases, and striking U.S. allies in the region––could complicate plans. Plus, America’s enemies in Iraq did not have the capacity to develop a nuclear weapon in 2006. Iran’s ability to go nuclear is contested, and if it obtained “a nuclear weapon during my term,” Trump told 60 Minutes over the weekend, “I would be excoriated far worse than what’s happened.” He may be right. As much as Americans want the war to conclude, they also overwhelmingly agree that Iran should not possess such a weapon. But Trump’s statement elides confident claims he made last year about bygone missile strikes destroying Iran’s nuclear capabilities, undermining his own public rationale for war. Come January, America will once again have a Republican president who maintains that he made the right call by going to war and a congressional majority under pressure to end the war. If Trump presses ahead, knowing he’ll never face voters again, Congress could stop him if it is willing to cut off military funding for Iran operations. But do Democrats have the votes to do so and the willingness to live with the results? As in 2006, lawmakers tend to hesitate when foreseeing potential political risks—in this case, being blamed for an American loss or a nuclear Iran. Instead, they may be tempted to take measures short of actually forcing Trump’s hand. Already in June, the Republican-controlled Congress passed a bipartisan resolution telling Trump to get congressional approval to continue the war or to withdraw the military from Iran. When he ignored the legislation, lawmakers let him keep fighting anyway without consequence. Trump has since acknowledged that the war helped Democrats win the House and the Senate, and said that he expects the conflict to end soon. But today, in announcing that Vance, an Iran-war skeptic, will no longer take part in negotiations, Trump seemed to abandon the idea of a diplomatic resolution. “We don’t need a deal with Iran,” he wrote on Truth Social. “We’ve got their money, Hundreds of Billions of Dollars, and we’ve got their Strait!” It seems possible that Americans will be clashing over Iran policy for years to come. The history of the Iraq War suggests that, even when voters want peace, finishing conflicts that a president favors is far harder than starting them. Related: Trump could leave the Iran mess to his successor. The U.S. and Iran are fighting a massively asymmetrical war.

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Trump bluntly tells JD Vance to shift focus from Iran to targeting ‘corruption and crime’ at home President Donald Trump on Thursday directed Vice President JD Vance to shift his focus away from the Iran war and instead devote himself to fighting what the president says is corruption and crime in Democratic-controlled cities and states. Read more.

What to know: Vance has been blunt in blaming the war — and the economic reverberations it has caused — for Republicans’ sweeping losses in last week’s midterm elections. “We don’t need a deal with Iran,” Trump said in a social media post Thursday. “Those days have long since passed.” Trump earlier this week said he believed the war “militarily is effectively over,” and appeared to double down on that message by pointedly directing Vance “to focus his complete and total attention” on his anti-fraud campaign.   Democrats have promised intense oversight of Trump’s business dealings and other targets when they take control of Congress in January after voters identified corruption as one of their top concerns. Trump’s post about Vance and the Iran war was, in part, responding to a flurry of reports about Democrats’ plans. But it also came after The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday evening that Vance was weighing engaging in a new round of direct talks with a senior Iranian official.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤ Van Hollen to challenge Schumer for Senate Democratic leader Republicans score rare blue-to-red flip in Maine during midterm landslide Mississippi’s first Black senator since Reconstruction is making a statement. Just look at his sweatshirts Trump praises Democrat Scott Colom for showing up to Mississippi rally and courting MAGA supporters Navy has quietly fired some commanders and other officials, drawing congressional pushback Trump’s Justice Department faces a new era of scrutiny under a Democratic-led Congress Senators probe RFK Jr.'s Samoa trip testimony after AP and Guardian showed documents that refute it ps:Well he wont have far to look will he!!!!!

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Election denialism losing steam as Trump flip flops on accepting midterm results

The day after Democrats won sweeping victories in the midterm elections, an Arizona county official delivered a stark warning to his fellow Republicans about election denialism — it needed to stop.

https://floridaphoenix.com/2026/11/13/repub/election-denialism-losing-steam-as-trump-flip-flops-on-accepting-midterm-results/?

• 🇮🇱 The director of Israeli spy agency Mossad is in Washington today for talks with senior Trump administration officials about the war in Iran, according to three sources with knowledge of the matter. More from Barak Ravid.

Trump administration blames ‘overloaded’ systems for ground stop after FAA lets flights resume

WASHINGTON (AP) — Trump administration officials said Friday that new technology being added to the nation’s air traffic control system overloaded antiquated parts of it and caused “intermittent” communications and radar gaps, leading to the longest nationwide ground stop in 25 years.

https://apnews.com/article/flights-halted-airports-faa-f81b0904331dafad6133f291e5f531a8?

US visa restrictions force some African contestants out of Miss Universe competition

Two African contestants will miss this year’s Miss Universe competition in Puerto Rico because of visa restrictions imposed by President Donald Trump’s administration, while two others are struggling to obtain visas. Read More.

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Trump, Xi and Putin plan unprecedented joint meeting on APEC sidelines, White House and Kremlin say

WASHINGTON (AP) — The leaders of the United States, China and Russia plan to meet Thursday on the sidelines of next week’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in China’s tech hub of Shenzhen — an unprecedented gathering of the heads of the world’s biggest nuclear powers.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-xi-putin-summit-china-5fe92253ef38100bae913834a9b74d72?

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An Expectation of Chaos (Aaron M. Sprecher / AP)

View in browser Every civilian airplane in the United States has been told not to fly, owing to a nationwide FAA ground stop. As I write this, very little is known about the nature of the safety risk or the issue underlying it. According to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, “a communication issue impacting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers” necessitated the action, which was undertaken for reasons of safety. The stop could keep planes on the ground for hours, or much longer. Even when the stop ends, unwinding the inevitable backup will take more time. If you’re in the air, your plane will land. But if you are at the airport waiting for one, it might be best to give up and go home. In a sense, chaos such as this arrived long before today. Air travel has become terrible, and it has done so slowly and over a long period of time. In terms of safety, air travel is far less dangerous than driving, although an erosion of oversight, funding, infrastructure, and other factors might be changing that. James Fallows, a longtime contributor to The Atlantic, just wrote a lengthy article for The New York Times Magazine about exactly this risk. Setting aside actual safety, the experience of traveling by commercial airline has been getting worse and worse for years. Once blue with clarity, the American skies are now clouded with uncertainty. Risk and failure are now presumed. My son’s flight from Boston to LaGuardia was delayed earlier today, before the ground stop, by weather. “You should have taken the train,” I texted him. He made it out mere hours before all planes were grounded. New York City–area airports have suffered delays in recent days due to weather—a seemingly constant issue flying in or out of that city. My son and his sister, who both live in Manhattan, decided months ago not to even try to leave town for Thanksgiving, because delays and cancellations have become so commonplace. The reasons are many. Industry consolidation reduced routes to medium-size cities, sending more passengers through a smaller number of hubs. Passengers might have to make connections for routes that once flew direct, or drive longer distances to reach a bigger airport. Extreme weather has worsened flying conditions headed into and out of almost any airport, making arrivals and departures less reliable. Delays and disruptions can mean that equipment and crews don’t arrive for a flight on time or at all. Even when the planes and pilots are available, the Air Route Traffic Control Centers are more sparsely staffed than they once were, while the number of flights each one manages has increased. The ARTCCs are FAA facilities distributed around the country, each one responsible for guiding aircraft through a specific region’s airspace. For example, the Chicago center handles northern Illinois and parts of Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana, and Michigan. That center might hand off traffic bound for Dallas to the Kansas City center, or to Indianapolis for planes en route to Atlanta. What airport-control towers do for takeoff and landing, these centers do for the cruising portion of a flight—keeping aircraft safely spaced out from one another by assigning them altitudes or by guiding pilots around weather. On the internet, where citizens seem to revel in conspiracism, some people have connected today’s FAA ground stop with yesterday’s Microsoft Outlook outage—and the murky notion that advanced AI models might be responsible for both, and more. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told reporters at a news conference that a cyberattack is unlikely to have caused ground stop. Even so, a Government Accountability Office report from September identified threats in certain aspects of FAA communication systems that malicious actors could, in principle, exploit. And just yesterday, the FAA expanded the use of an AI-based air-traffic-management tool to all 22 control centers. The controllers on the ground may not know much about the cause yet, either. “We lost all of our approach frequencies, and other facilities did too,” an air-traffic controller based in the Midwest told The Atlantic. “For this to be affecting multiple facilities nationwide doesn’t make any sort of sense.” Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport has run out of tarmac space already, causing planes to be diverted elsewhere, the controller added. “This is going to be a mess for days, if not weeks.” Whatever the cause, once the delays inevitably happen, even big, newer airports often become inhospitable hosts. Long walks through huge hubs now feel required. Limited seating at gates makes waits of any kind uncomfortable. Frequent flyers don’t fare much better, because long queues to get into overcrowded lounges have turned those spots into marginally less horrible waiting rooms (albeit ones that also offer free cheese). The frequent traveling that would formerly have gotten you into those lounges (or upgraded to first class after leaving them, should your flight actually depart) has become optional; the airlines have found that travelers are willing to pay for those perks instead, or earn them by spending money with their airline-branded credit cards. Customer service can be truculent or impossible, requiring long telephone wait times, confusing and unreliable apps, or the traversal of even more airport hallways to self-service kiosks—none of which are guaranteed to produce results. The entire experience of flying is adversarial. When travelers do get disrupted, like so many have been today and will be this weekend (and perhaps subsequently), they are likely to get limited assistance from the airlines, which now have more limited incentives to help and reduced consequences for failing to do so. This ground stop is not the airlines’ fault, but travelers have become inured to being treated badly no matter the cause of their travel headaches. Almost exactly a year ago, the Department of Transportation withdrew initiatives that the Biden administration had put in place to require compensation, meals, lodging, and rebooking for airline-caused disruptions, such as equipment failures. Penalties for failing to accommodate passengers also began to fall away, in favor of voluntary compliance and faith in capitalism-driven competition—even though only four major airlines (American, Delta, Southwest, and United) now account for more than three-quarters of U.S. airline seats. Eventually, and perhaps soon, Americans will learn more about the cause of today’s nationwide ground stop. According to CNN, some airlines were told that network-router problems at Chicago Midway had cascaded nationwide, but that proximate issue might suggest different ultimate causes. Even after the cause becomes known, let alone put on the path to remedy, the deep and seemingly permanent misery of commercial flight in the United States will still roar into the air above it. Related: Flying is weird right now (From 2024) What happened to JetBlue?