Trump disputes midterms as Nvidia chip probe draws scrutiny

Marcus Bennett

Democrats held a 92-seat House majority in the latest live count, with 19 races still uncalled, after the Associated Press counted 91 Democrats and 86 Republicans on Monday.

Donald Trump then questioned the count after initially accepting the result. He wrote on Truth Social: “Does anybody really believe that this ‘Election’ was honest,” followed by: “How could the Polls be so wrong??? Some early voting ‘dumps’ were so large that it was impossible to win, no matter how many people went to vote.”

Trump also wrote: “It’s all about the machines, which are far more important than the voter!” Before reversing course, he told The New York Times that his administration would “look forward” to working with Democrats and: “We’ll probably work something out.” He was “absolutely willing” to accept the results.

Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer said Trump’s “return to election denialism was inevitable.” Schumer added: “He can whine all he wants, but nothing will stop this inescapable truth: For the last two years of his presidency, Trump will face the largest Democratic congressional majorities in decades, all because he has been an unprecedented failure”.

Voting-rights experts had initially expected Trump and Republican allies to contest the midterms, but the live update said he appeared to concede after Democrats flipped dozens of seats and took both chambers.

Congress returned to Washington with a funding deadline of 11 December. The government’s current funding, extended through a continuing resolution (temporary spending extension) in September, will lapse unless both chambers pass another stopgap bill before the new year. The live update said the remaining session will likely prove ineffective.

The incoming freshman Senate class, whose members won elections last week, also held orientation meetings on Capitol Hill. The live update said several newly elected Democrats made history.

What did Nvidia do in the China chip inquiry?

The New York Times reported that the Commerce Department halted an investigation into Megaspeed, a data company led by Singaporean executive Alice Huang, after Nvidia general counsel Tim Teter intervened. Commerce officials were examining whether Megaspeed had smuggled Nvidia artificial-intelligence chips into China.

The intervention links an AI-chip smuggling inquiry to the private defense of Nvidia’s CEO, whom Shaun Maguire called irreplaceable for America’s AI leadership.

Nvidia had opened its own inquiry into CEO and founder Jensen Huang after he disclosed a marital relationship with Alice Huang, whom U.S. authorities suspected of working for the Chinese government. The two Huangs are unrelated.

Teter contacted Commerce Department investigators to say that his boss, top official Jeff Kessler, had authorized him to request details about the Megaspeed probe. Current and former government officials told The Times that Kessler’s contact with Nvidia violated government procedure and could have tainted the investigation.

The case moved to the Justice Department late last year. The Times reported a criminal inquiry into Megaspeed and unresolved questions over what Kessler told Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick or the wider Trump administration.

Why did technology leaders back Jensen Huang?

After the relationship became public, Elon Musk posted “I agree” in response to venture capitalist Shaun Maguire’s defense of Jensen Huang. Maguire argued that Huang “did something incredibly dumb” but was “one of the greatest entrepreneurs of this generation”.

Maguire also wrote: “Two mistakes don’t make a right, and I believe Jensen is irreplaceable for America’s AI leadership,” and: “Let’s also not nuke our AI industry because China ran a successful intel op.”

Bill Ackman, the U.S. hedge-fund manager and pro-Trump billionaire, said Huang was “human” and deserved public support. He posted: “He is an incredible human. Even incredible humans make mistakes,” and: “He takes full responsibility as he should. We should all support him and his family. Onward.”

Ackman later clarified that he was not suggesting Huang “gets a free pass.” He said he was “hoping for a simple affair, not a risk to our national security.” His position put private backing against the government’s national-security allegation.

What are the eight articles against Pete Hegseth?

Outgoing Republican Representative Thomas Massie reintroduced eight articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday and is trying to force a vote as soon as Wednesday. Massie lost his primary earlier this year.

One article alleges that Hegseth “abused the powers of the Department of Defense,” causing more than 175 civilian deaths after U.S. strikes on an elementary school in Minab, Iran, in February. The Pentagon has not confirmed responsibility for that specific attack, although independent analyses found that the United States conducted the strikes.

The Defense Department’s own preliminary inquiry found Washington responsible for the deadly missile strike, according to The New York Times. The package also alleges that Hegseth launched and continued an unauthorized war in Iran, violating the War Powers Resolution without seeking congressional approval.

The live update said many House Democrats support the resolution and some Republicans also favor it. Democrats’ new-year majority gives Massie a larger bloc for the proposed vote.

The Associated Press reported that Democrats flipped the Georgia state House on Monday, ending Republican control dating to 2005. Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms won Georgia’s governorship last week.

Hegseth said he would hold a Pentagon press conference on Tuesday morning, the first since May. Asked whether he had enough Republican votes to defeat the articles, he said: “We’re not worried about that.”

He continued: “Actually, I hope all of you will join us, we’re going to do a press conference tomorrow morning at the Pentagon on that very topic. So I’ll save my remarks there.”

Republican Representative Don Bacon of Nebraska said he was “weighing” the articles while “not very sympathetic” to them. He told CNN: “We have eight articles, and I’m not very sympathetic to those articles, I feel like Iran’s waged war against us for 47 years,”

“I don’t think the president’s done a good job at times, he never sought bipartisan support, which is a mistake, but I see a need to have gone into Iran.”

Bacon said: “But the areas that concern me most about the secretary aren’t in the articles of impeachment,