Blue Wave Gets Bigger as Scott Colom Wins Mississippi Race

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0:33Still wearing those old cargo shorts? If your wardrobe's due for an upgrade, but you don't know where to start, you need Stitch Fix. Your stylist learns your size, your style, and your budget, then sends a box pick just for you. They always nail the fit. No store, no hassle, no subscription required. Get started today at Stitch Fix dot com. That's Stitch Fix dot com. Tonight, the blue wave gets bigger as Mississippi elects its first Democratic senator since the world first heard Thriller. Plus, the White House threatens Democrats. Your looming investigations could be a crime. Give me a break. They cannot take any sort of heat.

1:19Also, a spy, a CEO, a power company, and now the who knew what when at the White House in a potential honeypot scandal. Trump did nothing about it? What a dereliction of duty. And The Atlantic calls them scapegals. Why many of the officials, advisors and aides pushed out during Donald Trump's second term are women. Live at the table, Caroline Sunshine, Yemesi Ekbowale, Joe Borelli, Joe Cunningham and Rebecca Abu Shadid. Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here they do.

2:06Good evening. I'm Lulu Garcia Navarro in New York for Abby. The blue wave keeps getting bigger, this time crashing over deep red Mississippi. In a historic win and a massive upset, CNN projects Democrat Scott Colom will win the state's Senate race, defeating GOP incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith. Cologne is now set to be the state's first black U.S. senator since the Reconstruction era and the first Democrat to hold a Mississippi Senate seat in more than four decades. Cologne's victory further underscores the grim environment Republicans faced in last week's midterms as voters grappled with a war overseas and high prices at home.

2:45It also expands Democrats' incoming majority to 55 seats, with one seat still outstanding in Alaska, where the Democrat continues to lead. Colom is set to speak any moment now following his historic win. We'll keep an eye on that for you and bring it to you live. And before we open it up to the table here, we invite you at home to join the debate. Head to CNN.com slash Abby and weigh in. We'll get to some of your comments throughout the show. All right. While we wait for Senator-elect Colom from the great state of Mississippi, I mean, whoever thought we were going to be saying those words. not me for sure.

3:23Just talk me through what this actually means. You know, the thing about the Senate is that it's six years. And so this is not just an ephemeral win. This is a win that will really change the map. Am I wrong in thinking that, Joe? Yeah, I mean, I think, well, first of all, you missed an opportunity. You posted Thriller as the last time a Democratic held. That's the year that Joe Cunningham and I were born. So that's how long it's been since Democrats been elected to the Senate. But look, big picture, this gives Democrats a beachhead in a state where they didn't have a beachhead before. And we saw how that is happening now in Texas and in a number of places.

4:00The wave is a word we use to describe the now, the midterm. The problem going forward is that in some of these states that were reliably red, now you'll have some elected officials who can build the party base, who can be competitive, who can build an operation that can last much longer than them. I just want to give a few reactions that were given on X. Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear wrote, for too long, Southern Democrats have been overlooked, left out, and even looked down upon, but we are on the rise. And then Chuck Schumer had a word because he's obviously facing a pretty difficult road ahead, perhaps.

4:37And he said, Blue Mississippi is here. Scott Colom is the only person who have gotten this done. I knew it from the moment I met it. Rebecca, what do you think he was implying there that he might be the person who actually made this happen? Yeah, he might have been implying that. But Scott Colom has made clear that it's the people of Mississippi who deserve this win. And I think the thing that really stands out when you listen to him is that he loves his state. He, you know, in an election where people have been telling their elected officials that they are suffering, They're paying more at the pump.

5:07They can't afford to get sick. They're buried in school debt. What Scott Colom said to them was that you matter. You're not invisible. And that is why he won. You don't win races like these across the country if you don't have Republicans voting for the Democrat. And they did that because they believed that he was going to go to Washington and fight for them. You know, is this just a really bad year for Republicans, a very unpopular president in a war that is not going well with high prices? That's a long laundry list there. Or is it something fundamental that has shifted? I've heard a lot of discussion about how MAGA now has had its moment.

5:52The president's on his way out. And this is just a real recalibration. There was a sense after 2024 election when Trump comes storming back that this was the moment. Trump was resurgent and America was a right-leaning country and Democrats were out of touch and all they, you know, that they were elitist. And what we've seen is something completely different. Well, I'm sure that's the obituary that everybody would like to write. But I will say the coalition that President Trump built in 2024 had the potential to govern for 25 years in this country. When you look at all the different voters that he gained, when you look at the states that he flipped.

6:27Blacks, Latinos, men, mostly young men. And it was done with a very specific playbook. It was running on a very specific message, and then tactically it was going out and using social media and TikTok and going out to speak to the podcast audience and getting all those people brought into the tent. For whatever reason, that exact playbook, which is the winning playbook, was not run in 2026. And so actually I think what this election shows is when MAGA's issues are not on the ballot, it does not perform. And actually, I think MAGA, the best thing that could have happened for the real MAGA movement is to have this election result, because it's going to bring the party back to those true MAGA ideals.

7:07What is that, immigration? What would you describe as real MAGA ideals? Generally speaking, the voters feel that it's restricted immigration on both legal and illegal fronts. It's fair trade over free trade, and it's non-interventionist foreign policy. And that really wasn't what was on the ballot, and the MAGA base stayed home. And so what you've seen the president say, and then now you can definitely tell through action with the appointment of a chief of staff like Stephen Miller, is we're coming home. We're coming back to those core issues, because that, again, has the potential to not only win elections for one cycle, but for 25 years.

7:42Hmm. But Joe, I'm sure you see it as a rejection. Yeah, look, if it's a rebuke, whatever it is, I'll take it. Right. Because as a lifelong Southern Democrat, it's been it's been a tough road to hoe south of the Mason-Dixon line. And as Democrats in the South, we inherit all of the liabilities of the national Democratic brand with none of the assets. And so for Chuck Schumer to say, you know, I knew it from the moment we met him. I'm sure if you ask Scott, he would not have Chuck Schumer down there campaigning for him. just like we would not have some national political figures campaign in states like South Carolina or Georgia or Mississippi.

8:20I hope this changes. I hope it puts more states on the map in Electoral College because that would fundamentally change the presidential election year. I would like to see Democrats and Republicans come back into states like South Carolina during the general election as opposed to just coming in the primary and then us not seeing them for four more years. I'd like that to happen because it puts issues of the South front and center to talk about during the presidential election cycle. I want to talk about this ignoring of the South that happened this election cycle and all the ones. I want to play something and then I want you to respond, Yemisey, because this is not gun on notice by perhaps a sore loser, but someone who came very close, and that's in the state of Florida, former Florida Senate candidate Angie Nixon, alleges that there might be some racism in the Democratic Party as to why she did not get the support that she felt she deserved.

9:17Let's listen. It is so wrong and disrespectful for people to not invest in Black leadership. I think people want our labor. They don't want our leadership. and we need to have a real long, hard conversation about how we show up, how we continue to time after time after time show up for the party and they don't show up for our leadership. There's racism within the Republican Party and there's racism within the Democratic Party. If the Democratic Party wants to stay in power and wants to be successful, then they have to listen to people. So racism within the Democratic Party, or did she lose because she ran as a socialist in Florida, where Cubans don't tend to like that very much?

10:11I can understand her frustration and watching all of us celebrate the tsunami and her feeling so close to win in a state that Trump won plus 13 and to get within two points when a lot of people didn't believe. But there are pitfalls that happened within her campaign. She was under the apparatus of DSA, which can turn off a lot of Florida voters. Coming from Georgia, I know that could turn off even a Georgia voter. And also there was some trouble when it came to her answers about Cuba. Cubans are a big dynamic within the state of Florida. But she is right on a couple of things. Look, the Democratic establishment, especially within Florida, counted her out.

10:45They backed Eugene Vindman, who to me has the personality of a piece of cardboard. And Angie Dixon, I've met her. She walks into a room and she lights it up. And had she had the right infrastructure to help support her, she didn't have to go outside to DSA. I do believe that she would have ran a campaign that would have seen it all the way to the finish line. And a lot of leadership did not have faith in Florida. And I'll be quite candid. I looked at Florida a little sideways, too. I do think that more money should have been. It's not the first time being a Florida person. Wait, wait. I'm so sorry.

11:13She also validated a criticism that Republicans and others have made about the Democratic Party and their relationship with African Americans, that they've taken sort of advantage. They've taken the votes for granted. We're going to have to stop here because Scott Collin is just about to speak. Holla like a big shot. So my d*** made me rule for you, gotta let em know. I don't turn wrestle, I don't lip box. Solitaire's all I do is beat rock. I came from Dilly Rock, all the way to hip shot.

11:56God bless you.

12:11God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. For me, this journey started with a prayer, y 'all. And in Mississippi, our prayers have often changed the course of history. For people that don't know, the first African American to be a United States senator was from the great state of Mississippi. His name was Hiram Revels. And the way he got to be a United States Senator was he was a minister in Natchez, Mississippi. He was elected to be in the State House. And when they were trying to figure out who was going to do the opening prayer, someone suggested Hiram Revels. He gave a prayer that was so powerful that people at that convention decided that he had a voice to be a United States senator.

13:17That's an example of the power of prayer. and throughout our history there's so many people that lifted this state up through the power of prayer in very dark times

13:36but we all know that prayer is only a part of our Mississippi faith tradition you need faith And I'll tell you, throughout this campaign, there were many times where I had to have faith. There were times that I couldn't get donors to answer the phone. They did not believe a moment like this was possible. But I kept the faith. There were times when I did my first town hall in Jackson, Mississippi. Frank Figures helped me organize it.

14:20Less than 10 people showed up. But I kept the faith. I kept the faith. There were times when I was tired. And I felt like I couldn't keep going. But I kept the faith. And that is another tradition of our state. There are so many people that have faith in Mississippi at times where it seemed impossible. People like Megger Evers.

14:58I can't help but think about Megger Evers on Veterans Day. A moment like this where he served his country and came home to Mississippi when they wouldn't let him vote. But he had faith that Mississippi could make progress. He had faith that one day everybody would have the right to vote. He had faith that a day like this was possible.

15:32God bless you, Megger. God bless you, Megger. God bless you. when you talk about faith, you can't forget Fannie Lou Hamer.

15:46Who had faith that her being sick and tired could move a nation to understand that places like Mississippi have to matter. Who had faith that even after she became a national celebrity and she could have gone anywhere in the world, she came right back to Mississippi. She had faith, y 'all. And right now we have several veterans of the Civil Rights Movement who are a part of her tradition of faith. Let's please give them a round of applause, y 'all.

16:32And I'll tell you, one of my mentors is the national president of the NAACP, Derrick Johnson.

16:43And one of the things that he told me a long time ago that always stuck with me is that in Mississippi, it's local people. that make the difference. Not just the names that are recorded in history, but people that do the work without any expectation of recognition. And I'll tell you, it's local people that had faith that Mississippi could make progress, and it's local people, like the people out here, who have faith that we can win this election. So God bless you.

17:21but as my mom would always tell me faith without works is dead and we worked this election y 'all we worked god didn't want us to get it the easy way he wanted us to give it get it the mississippi way And I went out and had the opportunity to campaign all across the state and learn the stories of so many Mississippians. I'm reminded of the farmer named Michael from Tipperhead County who told me how the tariffs meant that he lost this customer that he had been relying on to sell his soybeans. and how that made the hard work of farming so much more difficult. And how this was a passion that he had that now became something where he was worried he was about to lose.

18:21But he continued to work. I'm reminded of the single mother in George County. if we had three kids and told me that she has to drive to Alabama for work and that the rise in gas prices as a result of the one I ran meant that at the end of every month, she's relying on family and friends to determine whether she's going to make it. And she's worried that that support could run out. But she continued to work. She continued to work. On this campaign trail, I remember the woman I met in Hattiesburg that was a kidney plant survivor. And she told me how worried she was about these Medicaid cuts and what that was going to mean for her health care.

19:13But instead of just sitting at the house and complaining, she was volunteering on a campaign to make a difference. that is the work that makes Mississippi great

19:35for months and months I've been telling everybody everywhere I go that we're going to win this election I was saying it 8-9 months ago recently I've been saying it on the news

19:59but every time I said it I pointed out that people were going to give me too much credit for it because it's not something that I did y 'all it's something that we did

20:20All I did was have the courage to imagine a night like this. I had the courage to believe in Mississippi. I had the courage to understand that we could show the country that Mississippi matters.

20:41now there's so many people i have to thank who've done who've had who've kept me in prayers who've had the faith and who did the work now my wife thanked a lot of people so i don't want to just repeat the people she thanked but most importantly i gotta thank her

21:05God bless Nadia Dale Cologne She sacrificed so much For this moment to be possible She not only had to raise our two daughters A lot of times with me on the road Thank God she had Brenda Dale and Dorothy Cologne to help But she also was very involved in the campaign. She managed the food truck. She made that dream possible for me. She's been the love of my life. And as I tell people, I can never lose an election because I've already won the most important one.

22:02Nathia talked about how Lucy and Maddie performed so wonderfully under tough circumstances and I'm so proud of them. My mom, my dad, my brother, my sister-in-law, my aunties who sacrificed so much, who believed that this was possible. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart. My cousins, everybody.

22:28Congressman Benny Thompson.

22:36Listen, I'm going to tell this real quick. around December, him and Derek and Diane Feldman, who I want to thank, let me thank all of them. Let me thank Derek and Letitia Johnson, Diane Feldman. If people that don't know, Diane is my political mentor and my friend. She's a great transplant to Mississippi, but she's been a great Mississippian and a great American. The three of them had a Zoom with me and Gerard, my campaign manager. And they told me, they said, listen, We don't think the Calvary's coming. We think that the only chance you got is you better get out there and campaign. Conjured Thompson looked me in the face and said, you got to touch as many people as you can.

23:23You got to give them the belief that this is possible. You got to listen to them. You got to show up. And I did.

23:35But they knew something about me. because I got an identical twin brother and I'm pretty competitive. So the minute they told me I wasn't campaigning enough, I said, I'm going to show them. I'm going to show them. And if I had not listened to them and had not understood what Congressman Thompson was telling me about how to win a race in Mississippi, this moment would not have happened. So the bottom of my heart, I hope Congressman Thompson understands. And there we are listening to the speech of the new senator from Mississippi who is headed to Washington momentarily to take up a historic seat.

24:15And we heard him there talk about two things, I think. One is that Mississippi matters. That was a message, I think, to Democrats and the country. And another one where he told a story about how he was campaigning with no help and he said the cavalry is not coming. A pretty pointed speech, I think. What would you say? I think it also goes back to who owns the narrative of this win. And the South has been counted out for such a long time that there is relief from Southern Democrats at the recognition that this is a cradle that you can depend on that can lead you to a majority and also maybe to the White House.

24:57But there are there's still a lot within the Democratic Party we have to work through. And there's an underlying there of they did not believe, but you believed. And no one in Washington gets to own this win. Only Mississippians get to own this win. Anyone who gave money from outside of Mississippi, thank you so much. But truly, it takes, I mean, when you are the cradle of the Confederacy and you're trying to send a black man up to Washington, D.C. in a statewide seat in Mississippi, you can have, honestly, all the dollars that you want. But if you do not get the people in Mississippi to believe that this can happen, I mean, only somebody really like him can do it.

25:34It's incredible to watch. It's extraordinary. Two Joes, because that is true. Also, the thriller thing there. But he won with humor. We have seen a politics of anger in this country for far too long. And he won it by being funny, by being clever, by being engaged, by really trying to get people to come out and support him with a positive, affirmative message. I mean, that seems important, too. We sit around this table and we spitball races over the last six months and no one ever brought up Mississippi as one of these competitive races. The only reason I even knew about his existence was because some of the ads he was doing were very funny.

26:23They involved his family. They involved his kids, as we were talking about in the break. And, yeah, he used humor to highlight, and he called her Cindy High Prices. So he used a lot of humor to get his message across. But bigger picture, contrast him with who we were talking about before we went to his speech, Angie Nixon. He ran not the same race as her. He won a redder state than she did because he appealed to a broader population, a broader sentiment. You heard in his speech he talked a lot about God. He talked about soybean farmers. He talked about affordability. He didn't run to the left like the rest of the DSA chasing Democrats who are scared of people like AOC and Ro Khanna and everyone else in the mix.

27:01Look, he was relatable. He was likable. And that's why he's elected. I think it's a great gift for Mississippi for them to send us him. It's also a great gift for our country to have him in the U.S. Senate. And he mentioned California's not coming. It's interesting to watch all these Southern races kind of creep up, or even in North Carolina, Roy Cooper run away with it, while a lot of the national focus was on a state like Michigan or maybe Maine. Meanwhile, Democrats in the Deep South were making their comeback and flipping states like Mississippi and South Carolina. Like I said, as a Southerner, I just think it's incredible to watch.

27:35Rebecca, though, and I do want to just take this point about the split, really, in the Democratic Party, because we have seen moderate Democrats running on God and rural issues, the things that they've been telling Democrats to do for a long time, running and winning. But we also saw progressives also, you know, prominently represented. Where do you think the Democratic Party goes now? Can these two visions live together? Look, I really do believe, I am a progressive Democrat, but I don't believe that that is the story of this election. I think people ran and matched, they know their state. Not what Washington told them to say, people knew their state.

28:22And if we want to be a national party, we have to be willing to invest in races. You know how much Angie Nixon got from the super then it's five thousand dollars. So maybe there's a number between five thousand and four, you know, hundreds of millions where we could invest in a state like Florida. She lost by three three percent. Now, in 2018, Beto O 'Rourke didn't win. But you know what he did? Having him at the top of the ballot and having real energy in Texas, flipped the state house for, you know, who state representative James Tallarico. So if we want to have we wouldn't have a Keisha Lance Bottom as governor elect in Georgia if we didn't have Stacey Abrams.

28:58So if we want to be a national party, we have to be willing to. Really invest in races, even when it's not a candidate that, you know, Chuck Schumer or the National Democratic Party or anyone anyone around the Democratic table would pick. The voters of Florida picked her. She is who they picked in their primary. And she was outspent 16 to one. So I think we have a really bad tendency that when someone loses, then everything they did about their race was wrong, when there are always lessons to learn from a candidate that wins and a candidate that loses. Next, more breaking news tonight. Democrats are once again telling the White House to lawyer up after the White House says it could be a crime to investigate them.

29:43Plus, Wall Street is on edge tonight as one of the world's most powerful tech giants is embroiled in a sex and spy scandal. But what did Donald Trump and the administration know? We're going to talk about it.

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31:08Just days after Donald Trump said Democrats' looming congressional investigations were illegal and absolutely unprecedented, the White House is now intervening. On Monday, the White House issued a letter to Congressman Robert Garcia, the incoming chair of the Oversight Committee, warning that the administration will not be extorted, their words. Garcia has told Trump allies to lawyer up, but in the letter, the White House is warning that any effort to intimidate members of the executive branch could amount to blatant criminality. Responding to the White House threat, Garcia said Congress has wide latitude to conduct investigations.

31:45Listen. Donald Trump is clearly hiding something. We're not going to be threatened or intimidated because we are demanding accountability and oversight. The truth is that he needs to understand that Congress is a co-equal branch of government. We need to understand at this moment that what happened on the election, the American public were very clear. They want us to focus on affordability and they want us to focus on accountability. And corruption is directly tied back to why people's gas and groceries are so expensive. And at this moment, Donald Trump does not want to take responsibility for the corruption that is happening all across the government.

32:31Joe, the first thing that we're hearing from the Democrats instead of affordability, which was, let us remind us, let me remind you all, the number one issue by far is the accountability part of this. Is this a good idea? Well, look, I'm all for rooting out corruption and I'm all for accountability. I think this administration has seen its share of grift and greed, but we cannot forget why voters put us in power in the first place. And it's mainly on the affordability crisis. And I was there for impeachment of President Trump season one. And what I found is that consumes all the oxygen in the room.

33:09So it's difficult, if not impossible, to talk about the wins you can get for American consumers. if you have the news channels just focus on impeachment or, you know, oversight hearings, you've got to be notch and wins. It can be like small pieces or big pieces of legislation that drive down the cost of fuel, prescription drugs, groceries, anything. But there's got to be some victories in there and not just accountability investigations. I mean, the new Congress isn't there yet, let us say. But should Robert Garcia be front and center at this particular point in time? Is the president and the administration getting the fight that they want?

33:45Is he baiting the Democrats? Well, I mean, look what happened last time, right? You were there for season one, as you pointed out. What did season two and three look like? The Democrats gave back seats in the two subsequent elections after this 2018. I was there. You happen to remember that one, Joe. I'm sorry to bring it up, buddy. But that's the truth. But Joe's a good example. Someone who's not a rabid person out there who was seeking impeachment paid the price. These are the seats we're talking about. We just talked about picking up Mississippi. That'll be a vulnerable seat. Other House races, well, not his seat in six years, but other vulnerable House seats are on the chopping block if the Democrats don't go after the things they promised.

34:22You know, he could have said, we're going to have oversight over tariffs, right? Things that actually relate to affordability, perhaps. Instead, he's saying, lawyer up. He's making threats against the Trump family. This is how they lose. All right, but there's a lawyer at the table. But he did say that. He did say that. And when he talked about the things that they were going to investigate, one of the things he talked about was surveillance pricing, which affects every single American who's trying to buy a ticket, trying to buy groceries, trying to buy anything. And that directly affects affordability.

34:48He's also going to do oversight on the Iran war. Two thirds of the American public say that this war was not worth it. They deserve to know what it's costing us and who's profiting. So, yeah, the Democrats will go astray if they don't connect the oversight responsibilities that they have constitutionally right back to affordability. But I think Robert Garcia is smart enough to know that. But are they going to have are they going to have the courage to go after oversight with their own voters and their own voter base? Because there's currently still 18 billion dollars worth of U.S. taxpayer funds in Minnesota that have not been returned to the American public.

35:21And it was such a scandal that the governor of that state had to not run for reelection. So I love the courage. But are you going to have the courage to do it to your own voter base or is this all just a show? Amy Klobuchar won her her race, basically. I mean, took it all the way away. And I used to work for her, so a little bias there, but a big part of why she ran was to focus on corruption and fraud. So I think that piece is taken care of. Minnesota's a great place to start. I think Trump has given us more than enough opportunity to root out corruption and greed. And Gerson's talked about that.

35:51I think we've got plenty to work with the next couple of years. Yeah. And he said, I'm making a killing. And my advisor told me not to say it, but what can I say? I'm making a killing. People heard that. Voters heard that. His voters heard that. Listen to our soon-to-be Chairman Robert Garcia talk about this, and I think he does it in a very smart way. He says, you cannot afford your rent payment. The president is remodeling the White House. You cannot afford groceries. The president made$2 billion on crypto. It's A and B. It's a cause and a reaction. Let me just bring in the outgoing Speaker Johnson, who talked to CNN's Manu Raju, and really struggled to articulate what exactly the White House was up to when they say that the Democrats are actually committing crimes for doing oversight.

36:40Let's listen. Mr. Speaker, the president suggested that the Democrats may have acted criminally and now they're investigating him going forward. Have they acted criminally? What laws have they brought? There's been a lot of wild accusations and suggestions of what they will do to politically target their foes. And I think it's lawfare. I think there's going to be a lot of abuse of that. I'm not sure how much of it has been done yet, but I hope that we're wrong about that. Look, on one hand, I agree with him. I'm not sure what Robert Garcia might have said that would indicate that there's criminality.

37:15You know, the Supreme Court does limit subpoenas. There's the Watkins case from, like, the 50s. There's a recent case with Trump v. Mazar that sort of was cited by the White House counsel. But we've been down this road before. We've had the attorney general here in New York basically run on the fact that she's going to prosecute Trump. We have Democrats saying that they're basically going to go after the Trump family. I mean, so to say that they're not going to use lawfare goes against the very things that they're talking about doing on the campaign trail and promises they've made. I just want to end with this statistic.

37:48Trump's campaign of retribution, 470 targets and counting. And we'll leave it there. Next, the NVIDIA board meets tonight to decide what to do about Jensen Huang after a new report of an additional alleged affair with a NVIDIA employee and new questions about what the president knew of Huang's other alleged affair with a Chinese spy. We'll debate.

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39:26Breaking tonight, NVIDIA's stock is plummeting after bombshell reports about the investigation into its CEO. Multiple people who worked for the company tell The New York Times that Jensen Huang was having an affair with a subordinate. And according to The Wall Street Journal, NVIDIA's board is preparing to oust him. It all comes as the company is investigating Huang for a different affair with a suspected Chinese spy. And now what President Trump knew and when he knew it has come into question. Here is a reminder of what he claimed on Monday. When were you first told of these potential issues with Mr.

40:04Huang? You didn't answer that question. Well, I've been hearing about it and I've been reading a little bit about it over a period of time. But not too long ago. When you went to China earlier this year in May, did you know about these alleged ties with the Chinese spy then? No, I didn't hear about it then. But a lot of people have heard about it. And Jensen totally denies that. I asked him that question. Did you have any idea that she was a spy? He said, I had no idea that she was a spy. And I really believe him. But that explanation runs counter to the reporting. The New York Times reported that Trump was briefed about intelligence findings about Alice Huang, the alleged Chinese spy, last fall.

40:45And a source tells CNN that Marco Rubio briefed Trump again on the matter in May before he brought Jensen Huang on his trip to Beijing. The White House denies that timeline and tells CNN these sources have no idea what they are talking about. It is amazing to me that President Trump suddenly has dementia whenever he is asked something about a specific timeline. This is a man who I believe actually has a pretty good memory for things. But when you ask him, did someone tell you about this Chinese spy, your good friend Jensen Huang, he suddenly has no idea what anyone's talking about, and he apparently read it in news reports.

41:21This, of course, I think beggars belief. But it is crucial because it's not just salacious, right? It's not just that Jensen Huang, the CEO of NVIDIA, had an affair with multiple people now. It's that he is central to one of the most important industries, not only in the United States, but the world. And he is very closely allied with President Trump. So how do you explain this? Well, you know, first of all, I think in part the system kind of works. The only way we know about this is because of a U.S. counterintelligence action that uncovered this woman. We know about it because of New York Times reporting, actually.

41:58No, we know what the public does, but the government knew about it because of active counterintelligence. our intelligence, I think it begs to say how much spying there is being done right now in Silicon Valley. This is one instance of what we know about. But as far as the bigger picture, your point is well taken. This is a guy who, you know, for many years is responsible for a company that is one of the largest, if not the largest market share of the stock market today. There's a lot riding on this. I do believe he's one of those unique visionaries, and we've had them before. I'm concerned that the reaction against this is going to be the throw the kitchen sink approach.

42:31and might have real consequences. I care more about his pipeline of chips than where he's laying pipe, quite frankly. I like it. I like it. All right, everyone. I know. It's like you actually silenced the entire table. I just want to make that completely clear. I've been sitting on that since the pre-show. That aside. Is that the joke you're writing? That was the joke. All right. You should have prepared me for that one. All right. To elevate the conversation slightly. The issue isn't just that. It's that she was a Chinese spy. It wasn't that, you know, he was having multiple affairs. It's that one of the people with whom he was having an affair was apparently working in some capacity for the Chinese government.

43:18And Jensen Huang understands and knows not only maybe what the United States government is doing with President Trump, but also what all the other industries, all the other massive AI companies are doing. You know, we just finished up a midterm election where data centers were front and center. And the argument for those was we have to be competitive with China. So it's kind of ironic that, you know, you hear Republicans talking about building more data centers to be competitive with China, but at the same time not really taking a stance when it comes to, you know, losing market share or losing part of that.

43:49But why did Trump have him on his plane when he went on a trip to China? Now, at that point, according to the reporting, he knew that Jensen Huang had, at this point, had this, had, you know, had been compromised in some way. Well, he said it. He just said he didn't have any concerns. And what's interesting is in 2020, when Representative Eric Swalwell was being investigated for an inappropriate romantic relationship with Fang Fang, a Chinese spy. Sure. Nancy Pelosi was asked about it. And she said direct, quote, I don't have any concerns at all. And she was taken at her word. But can I tell you.

44:21The media never pressed her. But can I tell you. The Democrat Party never pressed. Why isn't President Trump being taken at his word? Can I tell you the difference? And why did the Democrat Party stand by Eric Swalwell all the way until they didn't need him in a California gubernatorial election? Can I tell you what the difference was in that particular case? The FBI went and briefed Eric Swalwell, and Eric Swalwell cut off all contact with her, and she fled the country. The difference here is important. The FBI did not contact Jensen. But why? Probably because they didn't think. That's such a good question.

44:48It is a good question, and I think it speaks to his denial and potentially to his innocence. The FBI routinely collects intelligence on these kinds of things, and they notify people. Wouldn't the FBI be telling Jensen Huang that he— But they did not notify Jensen, which may have meant that it did not raise to that level. I think that actually speaks to Jensen's innocence and to his denial. Not contrary. That is standard operating procedure. He admitted the affair. There's no innocence here. He admitted the affair. Can I ask you a question? What are you talking about? He admitted to the affair.

45:18There's no question here about what he did or didn't know. With Fang Fang and Eric Swalwell and taking everybody at their word then, but nobody at their word now. Can anybody answer that? This is just an example of oligarchy in action where there are no consequences to behavior, where, you know, the other thing that Trump said was, yeah, I might have heard about it, but, you know, I didn't really care. It didn't really register with me because this kind of behavior doesn't register when it's someone who's his friend. And that's the kind of corruption that voters, both Democratic and Republican voters, were sick of.

45:50They were sick of people like Elon Musk. We can't tax someone like Elon Musk, but he can spend 450 million dollars to try to buy elections across the country. That's what people are sick of. So you're suggesting that President Trump didn't send the FBI to alert Jensen. No, I have no idea. You have no idea. He said that President Trump said, yeah, I might have heard about it, but it didn't register for me. That's what he said. These things don't register for him when it's people that he likes. But the video gave 20 million dollars to his ballroom. But the real central question is, why was it not important for the FBI to tell Jensen Huang about this?

46:27Maybe Garcia should ask Kash Patel. But also, there's something to be said. Sometimes the intel community has not been completely accurate on their assessments on China and what is deemed a threat and what is not. You look at TikTok. It was important enough for Secretary Rubio to alert President Trump. TikTok was a threat to the United States. We couldn't have TikTok because it was Chinese spyware. Obviously, that ended up not being true. I think there's a real fair question about why once Rubio put this memo together on Mrs. Wong, the female in this situation, her company's potentially exporting these chips to a third party in China.

47:03I think there's a really fair question of why Commerce just sat on that and didn't act on that and put that company on the entity list where they couldn't get chips. Secretary Letnick, to me, is the person that should be examined in this, and he has a separate close relationship with Jensen. Look, we're all in a situation where a company with a$4.2 trillion valuation that generates$96 billion in revenue that is central to these AI companies. I always describe it to people. If Google, Amazon, OpenAI, if they are trains, NVIDIA is the railroad track that they all run on. And we're at a point right now where you cannot stop the train.

47:38And if you do, that impacts people's retirement. It's going to impact the job market. I mean, I've been watching the markets a little shook today. throwing out the baby with the bathwater, I don't think is the solution in this case. I mean, you brought up Secretary Lutnick. We don't have much time left, but I want to say that there's a lot of reporting about his role in this. Axios reporting Lutnick has repeatedly stood in the way of attempts to crack down on companies diverting chips to China. CNN's reporting that Secretary Besant confronted Lutnick over Megaspeed, that company headed by the suspected spy.

48:12And Politico also reporting that Republican lawmakers are questioning Lutnick's decisions on NVIDIA. So this scandal is not just about what is happening in NVIDIA. This scandal actually does in some ways reach into the Trump administration. And we don't have the answers yet about what that may mean. Maybe a man finally gets fired. But where was this level of concern when a Democrat representative in Congress was sleeping with a Chinese spy? I didn't hear this level of concern. Because it's just a different. But don't you think it's a different thing? He was The head of the most important. I mean, I'm not just missing.

48:49And nobody was concerned. I think the FBI was concerned. Except the Republicans who removed him from the committee. Wasn't the FBI concerned? The Democrats weren't concerned. Nancy Pelosi's direct quote was, I'm not concerned. And everyone took her at her work. Last question, because we have to go, why hasn't the FBI gone to talk to Jensen Huang and ask him what he might have told said spy that he has admitted to having an affair with? Perhaps because the FBI deemed Fang Fang a threat and perhaps did not deem this woman in the same category. Okay. Next, more on our breaking news. Scott Colombe becomes the first Democrat to win a Senate race in Mississippi since 1982.

49:24What this means for Congress as the blue wave grows.

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