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Update (1450ET): House Foreign Affairs Chairman Brian Mast (R-FL) is prepared to subpoena Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang if he doesn't respond by Wednesday to a request from House Republicans for a closed-door briefing on his relationship with an alleged Chinese spy, Mast told ABC News on Tuesday.

As we previously noted, Mast, Rep. John Moolenaar (R-MI) and Rep. Rick Crawford (R-AR), who chair the Foreign Affairs, China Select and Intelligence committees, asked Huang last week to brief all three panels on Nov. 18 - the day after Nvidia reports third-quarter earnings - and gave him until Nov. 11 to accept or propose another date.

Separately, the New York Times reported that Secretary of State Marco Rubio briefed Trump on the intelligence about Huang aboard Air Force One in May, shortly before Huang joined the presidential trip to Beijing. That contradicts what Trump told reporters Monday when asked whether he knew about the relationship at the time: "No, I didn't hear about it then." The White House disputed the Times report on background without elaborating.

Trump, who returns to China next week, said Monday that Huang won't be making that trip.

* * *

President Trump said Monday that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told him he had no idea the woman he had a relationship with was a Chinese spy, and that Huang should not worry about the FBI. "I asked him that question: 'Did you have any idea that she was a spy?'" Trump told reporters at a surprise White House briefing. "He said, 'I had no idea that she was a spy.' And I really believe him."

"I know the FBI is looking into it in terms of something else, and I think that he'll be in good shape," Trump said.

He added that he spoke to Huang Monday "just to see if he's feeling alright" and called him "an honorable man."

The FBI's work does not appear to be a probe of Huang's affair. The Justice Department is running a criminal investigation into Megaspeed, a Singapore-based company suspected of smuggling Nvidia AI chips into China, led by its National Security Division with the FBI and the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security, a source told NBC News. Alice Huang, a former Megaspeed executive, is believed by U.S. intelligence officials to be a Chinese spy; she is not related to Jensen Huang. The Justice Department declined to comment.

All The Way To The Top?

According to Bloomberg, Nvidia's general counsel intervened in a US government probe of smuggling by Megaspeed - raising questions over whether the Trump administration was involved in the alleged spy's detention. As we reported, the feds' Megaspeed probe was derailed after Nvidia came knocking.

In late summer 2025, Nvidia's Tim Teter called Commerce Under Secretary Jeffrey Kessler, who oversees US chip export curbs, to ask about the Megaspeed investigation, according to people familiar with the matter.

Specifically, Teter wanted to know whether Kessler's Bureau of Industry and Security was involved in the Singapore government's recent detention of Alice Huang, a Megaspeed executive, according to the people.

Singapore police had brought Alice in for questioning and restricted her from leaving the country. BIS was not involved in that action, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity owing to the sensitivity of the matter.

It's unclear whether Teter made any specific requests of Kessler related to his agency's investigation into Megaspeed, which was separate from Singapore's. But in the weeks that followed, BIS staff were muzzled in their ability to look into the company, including a mandate that they route all requests of Nvidia through Kessler or seek his approval for outreach - a highly unusual step that remains unique to the chipmaker, the people said. -Bloomberg

The FBI's probe comes amid a broader "Singapore washing" trend in which Chinese companies set up shop in Singapore to bypass US restrictions and provide access to global markets and technology - a practice which has spread across multiple industries, including technology, biotechnology, and critical minerals, the Epoch Times notes.

"The central questions are whether intellectual property or sensitive information was compromised, whether customer relationships or export approvals are affected, and whether there is a material change in leadership," Ken Mahoney, president and CEO of Mahoney Asset Management, told the outlet.

The White House implemented strict export controls on the company's most advanced AI chips to Beijing, forcing Nvidia to produce China-specific chips to comply with U.S. regulations.

Chinese AI companies have increasingly turned to domestic alternatives, including chips developed by Huawei and other local firms.

Huang has been highly critical of U.S. export controls, calling them a "failure." -Epoch Times

"Four years ago, Nvidia had 95 percent market share in China. Today, it is only 50 percent," Huang said last year at a press conference in Taipei. "The rest is Chinese technology. They have a lot of local technology they would use if they didn't have Nvidia."

As we've noted, China is adapting with locally developed chips.

Sex Scandal PR Firm

According to Wired, Huang hired a crisis management firm known for handling sex scandals a year before the Chinese spy scandal erupted. The firm, Heller, has been handling Huang's 'behind-the-scenes communication' for over a year, according to two sources.

Heller's public relations consultants were initially believed to be hired for matters related to Huang's personal life, including his family's philanthropic endeavors, according to people familiar with the arrangement. The firm frequently communicated with Huang and his daughter Madison, a product marketing director at Nvidia who has become an increasingly prominent figure within the company, sources tell WIRED. It's not clear whether Heller's early work with the Huang family involved Huang's affair.

...

Before founding her firm, Risa Heller worked for Jane Harman, then a Democratic congresswoman from California, and later served as Democratic senator Chuck Schumer's New York City press secretary. Rizzo, Nvidia's head of public policy communications, also previously worked for Schumer, serving as his deputy communications director.

And what's this?

Nvidia's board has opened an independent investigation after reports that Huang "has been the target of a foreign intelligence effort." In a note to staff, Huang wrote: "I was unfaithful to my wife. My actions hurt her and our children. There is no excuse for what I did. I am deeply sorry."

Here's what Nvidia's Jensen Huang sent to staff, admitting to affair: 
"To my colleagues at NVIDIA,
I owe my family and all of you an apology.
I was unfaithful to my wife. My actions hurt her and our children. There is no excuse for what I did. I am deeply sorry.
Throughout my...

— Hadas Gold (@Hadas_Gold) November 8, 2026

Nvidia shares closed down 4.2% Monday, the worst performer in both the Dow and the Nasdaq while the broader market held up.

China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun called the allegations "unsubstantiated. It is nothing but smears against China." On Capitol Hill, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, expected to become Speaker, asked for "a full briefing," and Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Jim Banks issued a joint statement calling on Congress to "take decisive action" on oversight of AI-linked companies.

Meanwhile, lawmakers are all over this - and have requested a closed-door briefing over Nvidia's security protocols as well as Huang's interactions with the alleged spy.

"We are writing to request that you appear before our committees for a joint, closed-door briefing on Nvidia's security protocols against foreign adversary espionage and your interactions with a publicly reported People's Republic of China (PRC) intelligence asset," reads the chairmen's letter.

"We need to get to the bottom of what was exchanged with this Chinese intelligence agent," Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) told the Epoch Times.

Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) told the outlet that to see the CEO of "one of the most important, cutting-edge AI companies clearly in a relationship" with an alleged Chinese agent raises significant national security risks.

Needless to say, Jensen just handed Democrats a box of ammunition following the blue wave.

Maryland's Democrat Gov. Wes Moore's own Army supervisor in Afghanistan says the governor never led troops in combat, calling his years of claims "disingenuous" and, asked whether he thinks Moore is a liar, he said "I do," according to Spotlight on Maryland.

Retired Lt. Col. James "Jamie" Gottschling, then a major and the 82nd Airborne brigade's fire support coordinator, supervised Moore daily at Forward Operating Base Salerno. "His service in Afghanistan was good. He was a valued member of the brigade staff," he said. "It's disingenuous to say that you led paratroopers in combat or that you did what would be direct action activities in a combat zone." 

In a post on X May 8, 2022, Moore wrote of "when I was an Army captain and led soldiers into combat in Afghanistan." 

Meanwhile, in a March 2021 podcast interview with David Rubenstein, he said, "I went over and led a group of paratroopers as a special operations officer over there." His 2015 book, "The Work," describes bullets striking the ground around him in a firefight. Gottschling says none of it matches the job Moore actually held: Moore worked for him "exclusively on information operations coordination," was never involved in employing any weapons system, and "didn't have any troops assigned to him."

"You don't really lead staff officers. You coordinate with staff officers," Gottschling said. "I like to say that we're combat veterans, but we're not veterans of combat," he said of their brigade headquarters. He said Moore sometimes left the base to meet Afghan officials, but those trips never produced hostile action.

Moore's Combat Action Badge was for a minor indirect rocket attack at FOB Salerno on Dec. 9, 2005 that injured no soldiers, not for a firefight. His military records show him qualified only as a Military Police officer, not infantry, special operations or information operations, though he told the USO's "On Patrol" magazine in 2014 that he "became special ops" with the 82nd. The Army's records put him in country for six months and 27 days, Aug. 15, 2005 to March 14, 2006, while Moore has put the deployment anywhere from 10 to 13 months in various interviews.

Moore, who is airborne qualified, did not train with the brigade beforehand or make training jumps, Gottschling said, and was not in jump status or drawing jump pay. "He's not a paratrooper," he said.

He was just as blunt about the glowing 2006 evaluation Moore received, which called him a "Top 1% officer." Gottschling, who was Moore's rater, said evaluations routinely carried inflated praise to help soldiers advance: "There's a lot of embellishment with that, but that's just how the system was." His objection is to what came after Moore came home, when he "began falsely portraying himself as a paratrooper and combat leader," in Spotlight's words, to build a political career. "It's the embellishment of the actions that really just contribute to his narrative, to his story, to his accolades, and it's self-promotion, it's self-aggrandizement," Gottschling said.

In August 2024, after The New York Times reported that Moore had listed the medal on a White House Fellows application, Moore said, "I take full accountability for an honest mistake that was made on an application that I sent out nearly 20 years ago," as FOX 5 reported. He received a retroactive Bronze Star that December. Spotlight's June 28 report quoted Gottschling saying a photo from the March 1, 2006 awards ceremony at Salerno shows Moore receiving an Army Commendation Medal, not a Bronze Star, and that "they clearly wanted to fix a political problem." Gottschling told Spotlight he was not consulted in the 2024 retroactive process and would not have concurred with it.

The Washington Free Beacon, which has followed the series, reported in May that Spotlight found Moore did not meet the degree and officer-training deadlines attached to his 1998 reserve commission. As we reported when Spotlight's editors said the series was coming, Moore's team had already been attacking the reporting before it ran.

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA), who once proudly declared himself the "gayest" member of Congress, has comparing himself to Pennywise, the murderous clown from Stephen King's It, as Democrats prepare to launch a wave of investigations targeting President Donald Trump and his allies.

Garcia, who is expected to chair the powerful House Oversight Committee in January, posted an image on X showing the sinister clown lurking inside a storm drain.

"When they go low this is me," Garcia wrote.

when they go low this is me pic.twitter.com/UYr4vlreKw

— Robert Garcia (@RobertGarcia) November 7, 2026

The disturbing image depicts a scene from the horror story in which Pennywise lures a young boy named Georgie toward a sewer before brutally murdering him.

The strange comparison comes as Garcia and his fellow Democrats appear increasingly eager to wield their newfound congressional power against Trump's administration.

Speaking recently at Crooked Media's Crooked Con event, Garcia openly acknowledged that personal grudges could fuel his investigations.

"Maybe it's because I'm gay, but like, you know, like pettiness is a thing," Garcia told the cheering crowd.

"Maybe it's because I'm gay, but pettiness is a thing. We're not going to forget these crimes." - Rep. Robert Garcia on prosecuting Trump's administration pic.twitter.com/HhitypiGz4

— Crooked Media (@CrookedMedia) November 7, 2026

"We're not going to forget," he declared, naming former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and former Attorney General Pam Bondi among those Democrats intend to investigate.

Shortly after Democrats' midterm election victory, Garcia sparked backlash from conservatives by issuing an ominous warning to Republicans to "lawyer up."

Attorney General Todd Blanche blasted the threats, accusing Democrats of turning congressional oversight into political intimidation.

"You honestly think that all they're doing is talking about their oversight obligations, when they're talking about going after basically every member of the Cabinet? They're talking about impeachments," Blanche told CNN. "They're talking about going after companies, private companies, who happen to have made investments in this country over the past couple years. That is not oversight. I welcome oversight. Oversight is exactly something they should be doing."

Trump also denounced the Democrats' threats, branding them "extortion at the highest level."

"The Democrats are going around threatening a lot of people, including the Attorney General of the United States, and others, with Impeachment and many other forms of punishment, even though they admit they have no reason to do so, and there have been no impeachable acts committed, or even thought of, by the victims of this illegal process," the president wrote on Truth Social. This is extortion at the highest level, and they should be held accountable for this. Also, they're threatening our Donors, some of the most respected people anywhere in the World, with imprisonment, and many other levels of punishment, just because they happen to be Republicans, or Republican supporters. This is Weaponization and Lawfare at another level. The Senator from Michigan, Elissa Slotkin, is 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! Threatening letters have been sent to many people, all innocent, from Democrat Political Leaders," the president concluded.

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

The Department of Labor is proposing stricter rules for Americans trying to get unemployment benefits.

To receive unemployment compensation (UC) benefits under the proposed rules, people would have to carry out a minimum of five unique job searches per week, unless exceptions are met.

"This action is necessary to reduce inconsistencies beyond those created by local labor markets in State-level requirements for individuals to actively seek work," the department said in the proposal, which was published on Nov. 10.

"The intended effect is to hold States accountable for administering a UC program that provides temporary wage replacement to eligible individuals while they are actively seeking work through a meaningful engagement with the labor market."

Work search activities include contacting companies to seek work and participating in job interviews.

Currently, some states require just one search per week. Others require two to four searches every week. A few mandate at least five per week.

The different number of searches required across states can create confusion, lead to uneven enforcement, and increase the likelihood that people otherwise eligible for unemployment may fail to meet requirements, the department said. Work search errors are a primary driver of improper payments, officials said.

The unemployment program, also known as unemployment insurance, is designed to provide partial wage replacement for unemployed people as they seek their next job. States work with the federal government to provide the money to unemployed workers.

If the new requirement is finalized, every state would be required to only pay unemployment to people who complete five or more work searches per week or complete activities in a points-based system, unless exceptions apply.

Under the system, states could assign one to three points for a work search activity. The activity, if it gives more than one point, must link people to specific industries and locations that need workers, or "has strong evidence for directly leading to reemployment," according to the department. Participants would need five points or more.

Exceptions might apply if an individual has a certain attachment to the labor force, such as being enrolled in a state-approved training program, according to the proposal.

"The purpose of unemployment insurance is to provide temporary support while people proactively search for a new job or upskill to meet the needs of employers restoring critical supply chains," Secretary of Labor Keith Sonderling said in a statement.

"This proposed rule helps jobseekers find work faster and ensures efficient use of taxpayer resources while improving the overall integrity of our unemployment system."

The unemployment rate dipped slightly to 4.1 percent in October, according to recently released government statistics. The percentage of unemployed workers who have been without a job for at least 27 weeks has been rising, though, and hit 27.6 percent in October, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The new proposal could temporarily increase the number of improper payments as states and individuals adjust to the new requirements, but the risk is necessary to ensure the system is working as intended, the department said.

People can submit comments on the proposal on or before Jan. 11, 2027.

GE Vernova and Bloom Energy shares plunged Tuesday after SoftBank Group disclosed a $3.7 billion charge tied to power equipment procurement. We asked whether this write-down, cancellation, or "revised procurement strategy" in the AI spending boom could signal trouble ahead in a note titled "Masa's $3.7 Billion Bonfire: SoftBank Posts $7 Billion Loss After Torching Deposits On AI Power Gear As Interest Costs Double."

SoftBank's disclosure followed Elon Musk's claim last week on X that Masayoshi Son's investment group was "defaulting on their turbine orders," an allegation SoftBank denied.

For GE Vernova, however, the cancellation scare runs into a massive backlog. The company had 122 gigawatts of orders at the end of the third quarter, is targeting at least 130 gigawatts by year-end and is booking projects through 2031.

GE Vernova and Bloom Energy are under pressure as traders price in the risk that SoftBank's procurement woes could signal a bigger retreat and/or spread ... 

UBS industrials and materials sector specialist Allyson Gordon addressed SoftBank woes and the selling pressure on GE Vernova and related stocks in a note: 

GE Vernova is under pressure after SoftBank took a $3.7bn write-down on data center equipment, with the market extrapolating that news to potential turbine cancellations. 

The counterargument is that GE Vernova is already booking projects through 2031 and had 122GW of backlog as of 3Q, versus a year-end target of at least 130GW, suggesting it could absorb some cancellations. Given current demand, there are also likely plenty of customers willing to take available turbines, potentially at higher prices. 

Some client feedback is also questioning how much should be extrapolated from SoftBank specifically. That said, the market is clearly not in a forgiving mood, with concerns that this could be the first shoe to drop and lead to broader contagion.

Importantly, while AI Industrials are under pressure today, several individual names, including Comfort Systems USA, Johnson Controls, and Trane Technologies, are holding in relatively well. As a result, weakness in GE Vernova and Semiconductors (SOX) is not dragging the entire AI complex aggressively lower.

Long before Musk's comments about SoftBank's turbine orders and today's $3.7 billion power equipment charge, we identified some of the first cracks in the "Powering Up America" theme when SoftBank subsidiary SB Energy delayed an IPO targeting a valuation of $50 billion after bankers struggled to attract demand.

In fact, Goldman's "Power Up America" basket topped out over the summer, along with odds of Democrats winning both chambers of Congress. As of last week, the worst-case scenario unfolded for data centers in a Democratic sweep. The basket is down roughly 25% from its spring and early-summer highs near 265 to about 199. 

Well, the collapse in token prices this summer and the surge in Chinese open-weight models, which have grabbed market share from US frontier models, such as OpenAI, may have also had something to do with it. 

Separately, JPMorgan analyst Julian Mitchell said the write-downs could weigh on sentiment across energy equipment suppliers exposed to AI spending. GE Vernova's 2031 backlog may allow it to redirect equipment to other buyers if customers delay or cancel orders. Still, cancellations raise serious questions about the spending commitments underpinning the AI boom. 

On Tuesday the Houthis launched another major missile salvo deep inside Saudi Arabia, however Saudi authorities have yet to acknowledge the fresh attack, or to publicly assess possible damage - though there are reports of missile alerts in the kingdom.

The Houthi military spokesperson, Yahya Saree, announced the group once again targeted King Khalid International Airport, as well as multiple pumping stations along the kingdom's East-West pipeline.

Saree further claimed fresh attacks on an Aramco facility in Abqaiq and the Riyadh's financial district.

He added that the Houthis "targeted Saudi enemy troop concentrations overseen by the Saudi officer Badr al-Harbi in the al-Mudharabah and Ras al-Arah districts, resulting in a large number of dead and wounded."

It's unclear whether the financial district attack was a reference from the day prior, when a Houthi attack damaged an Aramco office in Riyadh.

What's clear is that these cross-border attacks are coming daily, and the Saudis seem powerfless to stop them, and there's been no major military help coming from Western allies like the US or UK (only minimal assistance, for example - intelligence cooperation).

The Saudis on Tuesday confirmed missile defenses are active:

Air defences have intercepted and destroyed several missiles launched towards southern Saudi Arabia and Riyadh, according to the Saudi-led coalition currently fighting the Houthis in Yemen.

The coalition also indicated that it intercepted a drone over Saudi Arabia's oil-rich Eastern Province.

This is having a serious impact on the kingdom's economy, at a sensitive moment that Gulf states in general are seeking to present themselves as places of 'stability' and ripe for investment.

Saree warns investors and companies against "keeping their investments in Saudi Arabia".

In the meantime, standard and high profile events hosted in the kingdom continue getting canceled, due to spillover from Yemen and the ever-present Houthi aerial attack threat.

Already dozens of major international events which were supposed to take place in September, and October and November have been suspended or else postponed. 

Damage in financial district from a prior assault which kicked off the week:

The wartime situation related to both Iran and Yemen is likely to cost Saudi Arabia billions in losses, including given the attacks on Aramco facilities.

The Houthis are also meanwhile blocking all Saudi and Israeli-related shipping off Yemen's coast in the Red Sea, and the situation shows no signs off an offramp.