It’s Friday, November 13. Following Trump’s midterm shellacking, there is now turmoil inside his own cabinet. Let me run through what we’re tracking at the moment:
Iran and the U.S. trade competing claims over a strike in Bahrain and a downed drone over Hormuz
Bessent tells CNBC “F the Iranian leadership,” then admits he’s moved onto a military base
Mossad’s chief is in Washington as Ehud Barak warns Netanyahu may stage a provocation
The Nvidia spy scandal reaches the cabinet, and the White House weighs firing Lutnick
Congressional Democrats open a probe into Nvidia chip sales to China
Chris Van Hollen challenges Chuck Schumer for Majority Leader
Democrats flip the Kansas and Alaska governorships, and Peltola leads for Senate
CNN reports JD Vance is considering skipping 2028
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Iran War Updates
The Gulf got hotter overnight and we’ve been tracking this closely. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said, per Iranian state media, that it “targeted and destroyed” a U.S. early warning radar on “Bahrain Island.” Bahrain Island is what the main island was called under Persian rule, so Iran was sending a message about its old territorial claim. CENTCOM pushed back with a “Fact Check” saying the IRGC launched two one-way attack drones at Bahrain, U.S. forces shot both down, and there was no damage. The two governments are telling very different stories.
Iran’s navy also says it shot down a U.S. MQ-1 drone over the Strait of Hormuz and released debris photos. This also has not been confirmed.
So why the heck are we still in this war? Trump told Stephen A. Smith that it’s about protecting “the people that we’re looking to protect, and that includes Israel,” whom he called “tremendous investors in our country” who “spend trillions of dollars” here.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent went on CNBC’s Squawk Box and said “F the Iranian leadership,” promising a “long, cold winter for the Iranians.” The tough-guy act got awkward fast. In the same appearance he said Iran had issued death threats against him and that he’d followed Secret Service instructions to move out of his house and onto a military base. He also blamed The Wall Street Journal for publishing a photo of his home.
His argument boils down to this: make Iranian civilians suffer through the winter and the regime will come to the table. In the same interview he said Iran “will eventually want to make a deal” and that Trump “doesn’t think we need a deal.” He also claimed that on some nights more crude moves through Hormuz now than before the war, and that Iran broke the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding this summer.
The “squeeze” isn’t working anyway. Iraq’s Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein told France 24 that the blockade plan was “developed in Washington DC,” that it amounts to “a kind of sanction against the Iraqi people,” and that Iraq hasn’t implemented it because “it is not possible.” He described the situation as “no war and no peace,” and said it can’t go on. Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Turkmenistan aren’t complying either, and Iran has deepened its cooperation with Russia and China, even though Trump insists there is no coordination between them.
Netanyahu is pushing for more. Axios’ Barak Ravid reports that Mossad chief Roman Gofman is in Washington while Netanyahu presses Trump to restart full-scale war, and that Trump has so far preferred economic pressure and the blockade. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak then wrote in Haaretz that Netanyahu may stage a provocation, possibly through the Mossad, to draw an Iranian missile response and use it as a pretext for war. Barak says the move could also wreck Gadi Eisenkot’s effort to form a new government. I find the timing of all this notable. You have Mossad’s chief in Washington in the same week a former prime minister warns that Mossad could be the tool for a provocation.
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The Nvidia Spy Scandal Hits the Cabinet
This is getting ugly, and as I’ve been saying on the MeidasTouch Podcast, this is MUCH bigger than just a CEO sex scandal. The New York Times reports that Trump urged Jensen Huang to fight for his job before Huang was pushed out as Nvidia CEO over his affair with Alice Huang, a Megaspeed employee and suspected Chinese spy. According to the Times, Trump waved off the national security concerns because he was worried about the stock market. Huang had also persuaded Trump to allow some Nvidia chip sales to China over the objections of national security hawks.
Axios’ Maria Curi and Marc Caputo report that Bessent confronted Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in the Situation Room about why Megaspeed was never added to the Commerce entity list. Lutnick said he’d “look into it.” Then Bessent threw Lutnick under the bus CNBC, saying that Treasury, Defense, USTR, and State all wanted Megaspeed blacklisted for months, but “Commerce has the pen.” In other words, we all wanted to take care of this, but Lutnick didn’t act.
Reuters reports senior White House officials are discussing whether to fire Lutnick. A White House official says Trump still has “complete confidence” in him, though we’ve heard that line a million times before admin officials are ultimately fired.
I can’t emphasize this enough. The affair is the tabloid part. The bigger story is billions of dollars in GPUs allegedly routed through Singapore and Malaysia into China in violation of export controls. This raises some other obvious questions, in my opinion. Which other chips got licenses? Who was tracking the Blackwell chips the administration sent to the UAE? And Ben pointed out that Trump sold his Nvidia shares in late August, before the stock fell about 29%.
Now there’s an investigation. Congressional Democrats have opened a probe into the administration’s handling of Nvidia, alleging it sought to “take a cut” of chip sales to Chinese companies. Their letter demands that records about the Section 232 semiconductor investigation and Nvidia’s export licenses be preserved, and it reminds the recipient that destroying records relevant to a congressional investigation is a federal crime. I really think this will continue to be a MAJOR story as Democrats take control of both chambers of Congress.
Van Hollen vs. Schumer
Sen. Chris Van Hollen is officially running for Majority Leader. In his statement he said voters called for change from Trump’s policies and from “the status quo that isn’t working for working people,” and on MS NOW he told Jen Psaki that the moment calls for “new leadership.” Meanwhile, Schumer, touting the Democrats’ midterm success, says he has enough support to remain Leader.
Under Democratic Conference rules the vote is by secret ballot, it’s expected in early December, and newly elected senators who haven’t been sworn in yet also get a vote.
TAKE OUR POLL AND LET US KNOW WHO YOU THINK SHOULD BE LEADER HERE.
The Midterm Map Keeps Getting Bluer
Kansas: CNN projects Democrat Cindy Holscher will be the next governor. More than 75% of Americans now live in states with Democratic governors.
Alaska: Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins flipped the governorship with just over 50% of the vote. In the Senate race, Mary Peltola leads incumbent Dan Sullivan by about 5,800 votes with 88% in. It’s ranked choice and nobody has crossed 50% yet.
On the other side, CNN reports JD Vance is thinking about sitting out 2028 after publicly blaming the Iran war for the losses, which reportedly made Trump angry.
That’s where things stand as of now. We’ll be back with much more throughout the day. Spread the word, like, and re-stack. And thank you to all our paid subscribers!
