Why a CEO's affair may have national security implications

The CEO of a major tech company has admitted he has had an extra marital affair with a suspected spy for China. It cost him his job running a tech company that produces goods vital to US national security interests. Today on the pod, the implications for US politics and national security with the scandal plaguing and video. It's the NPR Politics podcast. I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover voting. I'm Deepa Shiverham. I cover the White House. And I'm Dominico Montenoro, senior political editor and correspondent. All right, Deepa. Before we dig into the news of what's happening within video, the chip maker, can you tell us first what they do besides just they make chips? Yeah, yeah. So for starters, this is a US based company. They make these chips. So these micro pieces of technology that are really crucial to high powered computing, big pieces of tech think like lots of AI technology among other things. And keep in mind, we're talking about this as like there is an ongoing global race between the US and China over AI, right? The US has prohibited Nvidia from selling these chips to China on national security grounds. But last year, after lobbying from Jensen Wong, the former CEO of Nvidia, Trump did make some changes to allow one of Nvidia's chips to be sold to some Chinese companies. It's not the most powerful chip. But that move still raised a lot of questions from lawmakers and national security folks in Washington. Yeah, I'm guessing especially because it's sort of known that CEO or former CEO, Jensen, Wong has this like really close relationship, not just to the White House, like Howard Luckenick, the Commerce Secretary's old, but like Trump himself, like they have a very tight relationship. Can you tell us more about it? Yeah, for sure. I mean, look, this is a president who likes to be really close to rich and powerful people, especially people in Silicon Valley. Trump is very friendly towards tech companies. This is an administration that has been extremely hesitant to place any kind of regulations on AI and on AI. The US and China are in this very competitive global race on AI. This is something that has dominated the Trump administration, Trump's rhetoric about AI. He's always kind of trying to point out that the US is ahead on AI is beating China on AI. This is a very central part of his messaging and his relationship with China. So that's where the president stands on this. And Jensen Wong, the former CEO of NVIDIA, is one of the players in that game. He's very close to Trump. On the last trip that Trump took to China in May, he picked up Jensen Wong in Alaska on the way to China. He literally gave him a ride to China, Wong and NVIDIA have given millions, talking tens of millions of dollars to Trump's ballroom project, as he still advances that in the former East Wing of the White House. So there's a money relationship here. And there's also like this lobbying relationship here. Like I mentioned earlier, Wong being the person who really was pushing Trump and Howard Lutnik, the Commerce Secretary, like you mentioned, and all these players in the Trump administration to try and expand essentially in NVIDIA's chip access to Chinese companies, which is definitely not the norm. Yeah, and I mean, look, this is the risk when you have so much of the economy wrapped up in one thing with AI. And Jensen Wong, having been the face of this being a founder of NVIDIA, you know, and certainly cozying up to Trump. And as we've seen with all these, you know, tech barons or oligarchs, however you want to put it, really trying to figure out ways to get close to Trump. And we know that a lot of that has to do, obviously, with money. And corruption was a big piece of what people said in this election that they were concerned about. One of the things that, you know, people were looking at is the fact that really wealthy people seem to be doing just fine and having access to power while regular people aren't. And we know that Jensen Wong was at a million dollar a plate, Mar-a-Lago dinner. And this is what Trump has been soliciting. And, you know, now we're in a situation where the country is trying to balance this competition with China, the portfolios that people have, whether that's their 401Ks or just general stock portfolios. And, uh, you know, whether or not they want things like AI guardrails and data centers, which Trump has certainly pushed back against. Deepa, can you tell us what you know about what the White House knew about this woman that Jensen Wong was having in a fair with? Yeah, so I'll start with this. So on Monday, President Trump held like a surprise press conference at the White House. He fielded several questions about this affair, about Jensen Wong, like we stated, who he's very close with. And he said that he did not know about this affair or this woman when he was headed off to China earlier this year. However, the New York Times has reporting out that Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, did sound the alarm on this to the president before Wong came on Air Force One on that trip to China. So that really contrasts with what the president was saying in his press conference earlier this week. Yeah. I will also say like Trump has been a little dodgy in his responses on this. Like when he was asked on Monday, like repeatedly about this, you know, what was the timeline of, you know, when did you first learn about this? Like how long have you had this intelligence? He was kind of just like, oh, I have to check with people. Like I'm not, I don't really have an exact timeline. And so it sounded like he was very evasive about it. And in the middle of all of this, you know, he's defending Wong. He's very close with them. He's done a couple interviews and taken questions lately where he's called him, you know, an honorable guy. He's really going through it. He's really, you know, close with this person. And that's throwing a lot of questions into the relationship that, you know, Trump has with these individuals. Yeah. And also with other administration folks, I mean, there's a lot of questions for commerce secretary Howard Letnick earlier today. He said that he would come forward to the Senate Banking Committee and answer questions because there's lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who are saying, what is going on? Yeah. What is happening here? And who has access to the president to make these kinds of influential pitches and decisions that are massively impacting national security? Yeah. And you know, it's interesting. Trump also said that Wong is hurting right now. You know, as opposed to this being a situation of Wong's own causing. Yeah. And this happens repeatedly with Trump with people who he will say are victims of one piece of society or the other. And it does speak to Trump's ethics. And I think part of his political issue. Yeah. But I mean, also like a very weird thing to have the president's first posture being protecting this man and like defending him. But instead of being like, this could be potentially a national security issue. Like not that not being the sort of first thing to worry about. Like in another White House, another president wouldn't the first thing be like, if there are like national security implications here, obviously that comes first. Yeah. It's definitely says something that Nvidia is launching an independent investigation. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have questions they want to ask and the White House is kind of just waiting for President Trump to post something on social media. Yeah. And then the expectation is I know obviously the banking committee is having a couple hearings about this. Tim Scott has called Howard Lutnik to come in for a hearing as well as Jensen Huang. But like this likely will not end with Republicans. Like I'm assuming Democrats will probably be taking this up. Yeah. And that balance of accountability versus affordability that the new democratic majority is going to have to figure out. Yeah. All right. I think it's also worth noting that this is coming like literally right before President Trump heads to China. I was talking to you deeper about you going along this trip and that being very coming pretty close. Can you suffice to say like this might come up, right? Yeah. You know, it's interesting because I was really wondering that too. And in the process of preparing for this trip, I was talking to some folks who are experts in the region about, you know, does this play a role? This is a meeting that's this is the third time that Trump and Xi Jinping that Chinese leader will be meeting this year. It's going to be on the sidelines of the Apex summit that's taking place in Shenzhen in China. So it's not just the US that's coming as a delegation. There are several other partners and countries in the area that are all gathering in Shenzhen next week. So there will be some kind of a, you know, likely one-on-one meeting with Xi and Trump. But the degree to which this situation with Jensen Huang is going to play a major role in that meeting between the two of them. Experts, I talk to kind of downplay that instead of actually going to make and already is making a bigger impact in Washington. One person I talked to said it provides more tailwind for folks in Washington who want to further technology denial towards China. Yeah. Basically the policy in the stance that the US should, like we were talking about earlier, limiting Nvidia chips to China essentially saying that like the US's best technology should be kept in our hands and not shared for, you know, for the purposes of national security, but also like maintaining an edge in this AI race. There are some folks who disagree with that posture, but that's generally been the stance and it sort of provides more ump for folks in Washington who want to further that. Well, I am curious what you guys both think might happen next year. This is a big US tech company. I mean, was the biggest company in the world for a little bit now? It's like second to Apple. Possibly vital secrets were compromised here. This is not small. What do you think could possibly come of all this? Well, the CFO of Nvidia has been named the at least interim CEO and she's going to have a quite challenge in front of her to try to write the ship and and make investors feel like it's still a good bet. The technology that Nvidia has is the reason why they've had such a, you know, stranglehold on the market here. And you know, that's, it's a lot harder to have a new company come along and say, oh, yeah, we're going to capitalize on this vulnerability that Nvidia has. The fact is the country, the world is depending on a lot of these Nvidia chips in many different kinds of ways, whether it's politically or economically or even just for usage of AI. Well, the president has weighed in. He posted on social media earlier this week and said that he thinks that former Apple CEO Tim Cook should be the new leader of Nvidia. Tim Cook has not responded, Apple has not responded. I don't think Nvidia has even responded to that, but I find it interesting that the president maybe thinks that he plays some kind of role in deciding who the next leader of this major tech company might be. But there's a lot of backlash as Domenico mentioned earlier, to AI data centers, these big tech companies. The American public is very skeptical and very afraid on a lot of these issues and at the same time has clearly voted with corruption and this idea of major, you know, powerholders being such a small group of people. And so I wonder like going forward if there's more of a, at least public separation, right? Like maybe these tech leaders don't start to come, you know, just casually have dinner at the White House as much anymore if that separation starts to happen in a more public-facing way. Yeah, let's see. Okay, time for a break. More of the week's political news in a moment. Welcome back. And before we dive into some more news, I want to take a moment to say we are recording this and every episode of the politics podcast mere hours before you hear it because the news is always changing so fast. We try to get new episodes out as quickly as possible. And the best way to make sure you hear those episodes right when they're available is to follow the show wherever you listen on Apple. That means look for the big plus sign on our show page on Spotify and the MPR app. There's a big follow button you can hit. Do that and make sure you are always up to date with the latest show. All right, let's talk about some big news on Capitol Hill this week. There were efforts to impeach defense secretary Pete Hegseth. If you want the background on that, check out Tuesday's episode. But the big news of that push lately was that it failed. Domenico, this was a close vote. But like, I think there was like a lot of, there was a lot that was surprising about what happened here. Well, number one, that 11 Democrats missed the vote. Now, I do think it's fair to ask why only one Republican, Thomas Massey of Kentucky, who's been certainly a Trump antagonist who has been the person pushing for this impeachment. You know, if you think that the war in Iran was the main thing that side tracked Republicans in this midterm elections. And if a lot of members on Capitol Hill, maybe privately have some issues one way or another with Hegseth, you have to ask why then was only one Republican willing to go forward with this while now the focus will be on the 11 Democrats. You know, and I think that's a major Democratic test that starts with this, you know, the Democrats don't have a majority until January. But this was sort of like a first pre-test. And it seems like a pretty big failure for someone like Hakeem Jeffries who's supposed to be the heir apparent to be speaker when Democrats have that majority. Because if there's one thing that Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker was really good at, was knowing if she had the votes. And clearly there was some kind of failure here. Well, I mean, I got to say I was surprised when I saw the notification on my phone that it had failed because of a attendance issue. I had assumed it was Republicans because the big expectation coming out of the big walloping they got during the election was that a lot of Republicans wouldn't be showing up because they had lost their job. Like senioritis would kick in. So I'm kind of curious like what happened here? Well, some of them said that they were attending a different event in DC and that they ran into traffic. Nancy Pelosi was one of the 11 ironically who didn't vote. And she said she was on a plane back to San Francisco for a veterans event. But again, that's a place where what is the failure of whipping there, right? I mean, like what you're supposed to know which people are going to be there, which people are not. And that just again, just I don't think gives people a lot of confidence a week and a half or two weeks after the election who may be voted for Democrats or want Democrats to push forward on accountability and weren't able to help advance this. Here's one of the members of Congress, Melanie Stans, Barry of New Mexico, who missed the vote. Let me start by saying, I am so sorry, there is no one who is more disappointed in myself than me. But I was not here that the moment that gavel dropped as the Republicans were trying to bury this impeachment of Pete Higgs. Well, and look, Republicans control the majority and can say whether or how long a vote stays open, right? So clearly Democrats were caught perhaps by surprise on some of this. Yeah. Debel, I wonder what the White House is saying, like are they seeing this as a victory? Yeah, I think more like a moment to brag maybe if anything else. Pete Higgs, for his part, you know, gave remarks when this all happened. And after he spoke, the president, you know, came onto social media and defended his defense secretary. He called this basically a failure by Democrats. He said, quote, every single Republican except Thomas Massey, a major loser voted in favor of Pete. And he cited, you know, what he sees as the U.S.'s victories in Venezuela. He names Iran as a victory. And he credits Pete Higgs with high recruitment numbers for the military. So all things that the president has been bragging about for a long time now was a big selling point when he was traveling the country, you know, stumping for Republican candidates ahead of the midterm elections. He's a big fan of his defense secretary and was quick to defend him and basically point fingers at Democrats and say that they're weaponizing and abusing the government. And even if there are some misgivings with Hegseth, like we said, politics is often, some would say too often, a team sport, you know, and no group is more conditioned to put the D-shirt on and run the playbook than team red. And that's certainly what happened in this situation. Yeah, well, I mean, kind of, right? But this, this whole thing was started by a fellow Republican, as Trump pointed out. Like, there are some fractures. I mean, he's on his way out because he's split with Trump arguably. But, you know, this is a sign that there's still some fractures. Well, again, it is someone who Trump targeted and won in a Republican primary by targeting Massey. So he's been able to put him in a corner and say he's not on our team. In fact, he's, you know, a member of the other side, right? And that's something that Trump has been able to wield his power on considerably in primaries. But certainly we saw that backfire in the general election for Trump. But look, this is a Congress that's going to become more conservative. Like you said, because when you have a tsunami like this, it takes out moderates or anyone who was even potentially could have been a moderate. But I will say there's also questions here on whether this is what voters even want, right? Because I think that it gave Republicans some oxygen to talk about something that they think voters don't want, that they were able to go on offense here. Certainly Democrats want it. But, you know, there's numbers to suggest from polling that came out after the election that there's some real question on whether or not this is something that voters large want. Yeah, I think it also as, you know, Dems in Disarray. I remember being such a talking point in the 2018, like post midterms of 2018 and Democrats coming into power and realizing all the fractures and differences and priorities in their party. I'm curious how things go over come January when this new Congress is sworn in. How it plays out, I think, also lays some of the groundwork maybe for how Democrats start running in 2028 as well and what those fissures and fractures end up looking like and how they explain what potentially could be like a messy Congress to voters who are now looking at them as potential presidential candidates. Yeah. And there are some real decisions that Huckim Jeffries has to make if he is in fact going to be speaker of the House. Because, you know, he was on PBS NewsHour this week, for example, and was asked about whether or not he's going to pursue more impeachments and he said, well, cross that bridge when we come to it. Well, as the speaker, you're basically building the legislative bridges. You're in charge of the agenda. And Reuters-Ipsos poll that was taken after the election found that nine and 10 people said that they think Democrats focus in the first 100 days should be on surprise, surprise, the cost of living. Three-quarter said that lowering health care costs should be the focus. Seven in 10 said lowering gas prices. Six in 10 said ending the war in Iran and eliminating Trump's tariffs. Only 40 percent said investigating the Trump administration should be a priority in these early days. 71 percent of Democrats, though, do want to see that be a focus in that time. Only 36 percent of independents do. So look, Democrats, Hakeem Jeffries is going to have to balance what the energy and the base wants versus what voters want more broadly. All right. One more break and then can't let it go. Welcome back. Now it's time for can't let it go. That's the part of the show where we talk about the things from the week. We just can't stop thinking about politics or otherwise. Okay. I'm going to start first. It is a political one, but it's kind of fun. So I can't get over the fact that James Talleriko, the incoming Democratic Senator from Texas, which is a sentence I'd never thought I'd say in my life. The name of his chief of staff is Gina Hosa, which also happens to be the name of the incoming Democratic governor of Texas, Gina Hosa. Another sentence I thought I'd would never say, "It's just what a crazy. " coincidence. I mean, after the Dan's Sullivan situation in Alaska, I'm just like, "Man, I'm seeing a double everywhere." I feel like this means we need to hire another Ashley Lopez. It takes at NPR just so we can like do it for the bit. Yeah. Like every time I come in the office, we give each other like the Spider-Man pointing. Yes. There has to be two ways where it's like, "And now I'm Ashley Lopez and joining me next is Ashley Lopez." Like that. I mean, no better way. I have to say if I was Chief of Staff, you know, as I would insist on James Tallerico calling me governor. Yeah. It was funny to see like one Texas reporter like responded to a tweet about this showing in her phone how she had to like very clearly delineate which Gina, you know, so was in her phone. Oh my gosh. Just so funny. I can't get over it. Okay. Domenico, what is your cantletico this week? Well, mine is politics adjacent and that's maybe I have had my head in the sand, but I did not realize or was not following this meme of Rob Sands' history as a model. Yeah. So he's now going to be governor of Iowa. He has been thought to have run one of the best campaigns of anybody in the country, but he was apparently a Prada model. Yeah. Incredible. The photos are great. The photos are great and then he leaned into it and put out on Blue Sky. I'm disappointed to learn images of me modeling for Prada are circulating because this shot from Italian Vogue is much better. That's so funny. And said, buy a shirt here. Oh man. The millennials that are making their way into office right now is so good at social media. That's so funny. Yeah. I mean, those photos, I mean, people have you seen them? I think they're like pretty striking. I've seen like scrolling through it with my feet, but I have not actually taken the time to like sit and take a gander at this and I'm very excited too. Yeah. I mean, no, I don't mean this as any sort of offense because like, I mean, I'm not going to comment on his attractiveness, but he does look like a Prada model in that there's something that's not like obviously like traditionally beautiful, just sort of like interesting looking and he definitely fits that bill, but it's so interesting that his pivot from modeling was, I don't know, running a Midwestern state. Yeah. I mean, I'm just really surprised that I didn't notice him on my days walking the Gucci runway. Oh, sure. Yeah. Wait. I just googled. I just googled. This is Rob's. That's crazy. Yeah, serving face, looking good, very, very fancy. Oh, my God. And the photo that he had put out, you know, looks like something out of like Steve McQueen meets, you know, Jackie Onassis or something, right? Or Audrey Hepburn. It's quite the shot. And now he's just in like farm attire basically all the time because America anything can happen. Yeah. Is this not the American dream? I don't know. I agree. All right, Deepa, what can't you let go of this week? I'm going to take a hard pivot and move away from politics. Thank you. Mainly just because I'm really sad for our friends across the pond who live in the UK and other parts of Europe, their Rice Krispies are no longer crispy. Snap Crockland pop is dead. Apparently, this is something I learned in the process of learning about this. Two separate companies like head up Rice Krispie Treats, for example, in North America versus in Europe and the UK and stuff like that. So not affecting us here in the US, thankfully, but over across the pond, Rice Krispies and cocoa pops are no longer being made with whole rice grains. So you're not going to get the snap crackle prop anymore. They now are these little puffs that are made with corn flour and rice flour instead. Partly, you guys, because we can't have nice things because of climate change. Climax change. It's just like the crops for like rice crops in Southeast Asia, things like that because of El Nino, because of all these weather patterns. It's been really difficult. And so they are changing their recipe and people are angry. Because they're less crunchy. Yeah, they don't have the same crunch. People said it doesn't even taste like Rice Krispies anymore. I'm reading a BBC article about this. And it just doesn't have that sound. You know, when you would pour them in the bowl and you would pour the milk, it doesn't even do the like crackle thing anymore. Especially in this day and age of ASMR expectations. Oh my gosh, for sure. Imagine being an influencer and maybe your whole career was around Rice Krispies. No more. Oh my God, guys, listen to this. Everyone's just going to do. Do you hear that sound? Nothing. Everyone's just going to do pop rocks from here on out. They can't change the recipe because that's just all right. Speaking of battery, I was just going to say. All right, that's all for today. Our executive producer is Mithoney Maturi, Casey Morell at its The Podcast. Our producer is Bria Suggs. Special thanks to Dana Farrington. I'm Ashley Lopez, a cover voting. I'm Tifa Shiverham. And I'm Domenico Montenoro, Senior Political Editor and Correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.