Columnist Predicts ‘Brutal Huangover.’ Official: Van Hollen Challenges Schumer. Strassel: Jim Jordan is Mr. Right. Lefty War on Gig. DC Shooting. And More
The shock resignation of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang sent stocks in the chip giant dramatically downward.
New York Post financial writer Charles Gasparino is brutal—and not only to Jensen Huang, whose romantic liaison with an alleged Chinese spy triggered the whole mess:
Nvidia’s board finally woke up on Thursday morning – and the brutal “Huangover” is likely to last for a while.
If you feel sorry for these clowns for their dyspepsia, you shouldn’t. Yes they are clowns. This whole sordid mess goes beyond their wayward CEO and his sex life, and it was one of their own making.
Recall: The chipmaker’s directors had spent the previous week insisting that there was nothing to see here – all business as usual, really – as the headlines multiplied about its CEO Jensen Huang’s affair with an alleged Chinese spy.
It’s spent the past year sidestepping questions about Huang’s wonky business dealings with the woman, the questionable firm she repped and how oddly this company pushed to sell its most advanced, national security sensitive chips to China, a foreign adversary.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is fighting for his job amid the repercussions. The New York Times notes that Lutnick could be in trouble because he hasn’t been tough enough with Nvidia:
There is broad agreement among most senior Trump administration officials that the United States should more aggressively tighten controls on Nvidia’s advanced chips to keep China from using them to catch up in the race to dominate artificial intelligence.
Then there is Howard Lutnick, who runs the Commerce Department.
“The Fallout from the Fall of Jensen Huang” is the headline of a Wall Street editorial, which argues that export controls can be instituted but that care must be taken not to harm American AI:
Jensen Huang’s resignation Thursday as the rock-star CEO of Nvidia was necessary following reports that he had affairs with a suspected Chinese spy and a subordinate. But it also does regrettable harm to the company and America’s AI industry, and maybe that was China’s plan. …
All of this is fair game, but the tragedy would be compounded if politicians use the episode to destroy Nvidia or damage the tech industry. Progressives point to Mr. Huang’s mistakes as evidence of corrupt tech “oligarchs.” Yet his self-combustion is a corrective to their claim that billionaires and CEOs can break rules with impunity….
Mr. Trump said he doesn’t plan to raise the Huang honey trap with Xi Jinping when they meet next week. This would resemble Joe Biden’s mistake of downplaying the Chinese spy balloon caught flying over the U.S. It would encourage Beijing to think it can target U.S. businesses and executives with impunity.
Mr. Xi may make great trade promises at the summit to get Mr. Trump to ease export controls on Nvidia’s most advanced chips. Don’t fall for this honey trap, Mr. President.
“Before His Ouster, Jensen Huang Belittled the Executive Replacing Him.” She is acting CEO Colette Kress, who questioned some of Huang’s dealmaking. President Trump urged Huang to fight for his job, but when he didn’t, Trump quickly switched to former Apple head Tim Cook, whom he touted in a Truth Social post.
It’s Friday the 13th, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer must be in the appropriate mood. Lefty darling Senator Chris Van Hollen from Maryland has announced that he will challenge Schumer for the Senate Majority Leader job. Axios observes:
Van Hollen’s bid gives grassroots activists nearly three weeks to pressure Senate Democrats before they cast secret ballots in the Dec. 1 leadership election.
The attempt to oust Schumer (D-N.Y.) underscores that deep divisions are plaguing the Democratic Party despite its overwhelming midterm success.
Right Man for the Right Job. That’s what the Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley Strassel suggests is the case with Rep. Jim Jordan, newly elected as House Minority Leader (“Jim Jordan’s MIGA Moment“):
Mr. Jordan is a wrestler, both literally and figuratively. Yet the headlines ignore what more he has become during nearly 20 years in Congress. The Jordan fighting spirit remains, and it will matter in a GOP Washington under a Democratic assault. But it’s Mr. Jordan’s principles and relationships—and his credibility—that offer the GOP its best shot at coming back from a midterm humiliation….
What Mr. Jordan has going for him is his conservative credibility—try casting a “pugilistic” “bomb thrower” as a RINO. The question is how aggressively he uses his selling skills to convince his crew to tackle the issues Americans want tackled—healthcare, spending, government reform, welfare. That, and how well he can use his trusted relationship with Mr. Trump to waylay bad ideas and carve out space for his conference to forge a brighter path.
The election of Mr. Jordan at least raises the possibility of a twist on the mantra: MIGA. Make Ideas Great Again. It’s overdue.
“Democrats Will Certainly Overreach.” Matthew Continetti argues the Democrats “are making the usual mistake of confusing their big win with an endorsement of their agenda.” Continetti writes:
House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D., Mass.) visited the liberal Center for American Progress Action Fund on Nov. 5 to discuss the blue tsunami. She called the midterm election a “peaceful popular uprising” over the Iran war, deportations and corruption. Then she went further. Democratic victories weren’t only a rebuke of President Trump, Ms. Clark said. “We were elected to transform a system that has been failing people for decades.”
Whoa, Nelly. The “t”-word—transformation—is invariably used by politicians about to overread their mandates. …
If voters were looking for major change last week, it was in President Trump’s conduct….
Hence Democrats have an opportunity to maintain and even grow their majorities in the next election. First, they must understand that their victory was broad, but their mandate narrow. Voters want them to check Mr. Trump and reduce inflation. Go too far, and it’s back to the minority before you can say “transform.”
DC Shooting. One person was killed and five injured in a shooting in Washington’s gentrified Logan Circle neighborhood. The shooter was a doctor, Matt Lambert, whose motive was furor over mold in his ritzy, million-dollar apartment. It was a bizarre attack that began in a gym and took the life of the manager of Lambert’s building:
Less than 10 minutes before the first calls about the gunfire came in, according to the Associated Press, Lambert appeared to post “My manifesto is an engineering report” on an X account named “OfMiceandMold” with screenshots from that report.
Additional details from the Washington Post and Axios.
“The Left’s War on Gig.” The Left wages war on the gig economy through regulations and mandates that end up hurting the very people progressives purportedly want to help:
A 20-cent delivery tax, or marginally higher food prices after a minimum-wage hike, may hardly register with a D.C. attorney ordering lunch at his K Street office or a Wall Street financier expensing a catered work banquet. But it matters to a retired janitor in Anacostia or the Bron x who can no longer drive and relies on grocery delivery. In Minnesota and Colorado—two blue states that enacted gig-delivery taxes in recent years—about a third of voters reported being less likely to order food delivery because of the new fees.
Progressives show little sign of backing down from the War on Gig.
But perhaps the most vocal anti-gig advocate is New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. As a candidate, Mamdani pledged a crackdown on gig platforms. Once in office, he turned the city’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection into an aggressive gig-economy enforcer.
“Who’s Afraid of Books for Boys?” Emma Camp writes at Free Expression about debate on the internet over whether publishers need to provide more books written specifically for boys:
These arguments betray a frustratingly obvious double standard: If a book is enjoyed by mostly boys, that means that the book is actively harmful to the girls who are required to read it. But if a book is preferred by girls, the fact that boys don’t like it is a sign of their latent sexism….
Deciding to see men and women as individuals, rather than representatives of homogeneous, competing forces, allows us to remember that gender equality is gained not through revenge but by furthering the equal dignity of all human beings. Men’s and women’s destinies are tied up in each other’s welfare. If we want to make the world better, we have to do it together. And that might involve publishing a few more books for boys.
Two for the Road. Discover the benefits of colonialism (there were many—this is not a joke) in “Malawi hails British Empire as ‘liberators’ who saved Africans from slavery.” “Michel Houellebecq must not be silenced” is about yet another attempt to prosecute the great French novelist for daring to criticize Islam:
Even if Michel Houellebecq is acquitted, champions of free speech will have little to celebrate. A society whose most celebrated writer is constantly defending himself from Islamic grievances – whether by lawyers or armed police – has already lost a crucial battle.
