Friday, November 13, 2026

Chump's chump is JD Vance

Convicted Felon Donald Chump continues to be corrupt.  Right now, he is making time to play with Miss Sassy JD Vance, like a cat with a mouse.  Matthew Chapman (RAW STORY) reports:


Conservative anti-MAGA critic Charlie Sykes says President Donald Trump sidelined Vice President JD Vance on Iran, calling it a fresh humiliation for the office.

In his To the Contrary newsletter, Sykes writes that Trump on Thursday ordered Vance to stop working on Iran and turn his attention to corruption and crime in Democratic-run states and cities.

“We don’t need a deal with Iran. Those days have long since passed!” Trump posted on Truth Social. “We’ve got their money, Hundreds of Billions of Dollars, and we’ve got their Strait!”

Sykes calls the episode an “abrupt social media defenestration” of a “hapless” vice president. He says it outdoes even John Nance Garner’s famous remark that the job wasn’t worth a “bucket of warm spit.”

According to Sykes, the move came just days after Vance carefully tried to put distance between himself and the president by blaming the Iran war for Republicans’ midterm losses.

Sykes also points to the irony of the timing. He writes that the administration is “about to be swamped” by scandals ranging from crypto graft and ballroom payoffs to what he describes as a sell-out of U.S. national security to China, Russia and Gulf monarchies.


Mr. Chump humiliates the vice president in public and Miss Sassy just takes it.  Over and over.  Standing by Mr. Chump is not going to garner the Republican presidential nomination for Mr. Vance in 2028.  And Mr. Vance just takes it.  He is not afraid to look like the whipping boy.  He takes it and says, "Thank you, sir, may I have another."  This when Mr. Chump is at his lowest. Ford McCracken (NEWS NATION) notes:

President Trump’s job approval rating sits at a second-term low in a new post-election survey, showing little sign of improvement after his party suffered widespread losses in the midterms.

In the new Economist/YouGov poll, 63 percent of Americans said they disapproved of Trump’s job performance, including 52 percent who disapproved strongly, with just 32 percent approving.

On the issues, foreign policy and the economy remain the president’s weak points. Sixty-one percent disapprove of Trump’s foreign policy and 67 percent disapprove of his handling of the economy, his worst issue surveyed.


If Mr. Vance wanted to have a political future, the smartest thing he could do is resign.  He could break with Mr. Chump.  In which case, the Convicted Felon would nominate someone else to serve as his vice president (that person would then need to be confirmed by both the House and the Senate).  


Meanwhile, Timothy Ramos (NATIONAL SECURITY JOURNAL) reports:

With the GOP suffering one of its worst election losses in decades, many Republicans — and Republican voters — are contemplating the party’s future without President Donald Trump.

Recent interviews with Republican voters show growing disillusionment with the president and his policies, many of which have negatively affected Americans, including his voters.

“The MAGA movement, in my opinion, is dead,” Hunter Willmitch, chapter president of the Ohio State University College Republicans, told The Washington Post in an interview. Willmitch, along with many of his colleagues in the organization, expressed weariness with Trump, calling him an “anchor around the elephant’s neck” and likening him to the (almost) undying villain of Star Wars lore. “He’s Palpatine,” 20-year old Young Republican and fellow Ohio State College Republican member Abraham Dixon told the news outlet.

In Texas, GOP supporters expressed similar sentiments. “People are ****** off at Trump. Trump has cost us,” businessman Michael Little told another news outlet after Trump-endorsed senatorial candidate and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton lost to Democrat upstart James Talarico.

People are dumping Mr. Chump.  Sad that Mr. Vance's tiny brain cannot buy a clue and join them.


This is C.I.'s "The Snapshot" for today: 

Friday, November 13, 2026.  Chump's got a huge scandal with Nvidia and Howard Lutnick might be the fall guy for this one, Republicans in the House 'surprised' the Democrats on Wednesday and showed as much disrespect for veterans as Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth did at THE TOMB OF THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER, is Hakeem Jeffries able to lead, Epstein and much more. 




 
Let's start with the Nvidia scandal.  Daniel Hampton (RAW STORY) explains: 

Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman says the Nvidia honeypot scandal reveals far more about Donald Trump’s White House than about the tech billionaire at its center.
In a Thursday Substack post and video titled “Climates of Treason,” Krugman said Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang should be permanently barred from national security matters, but that the real story lies elsewhere.
“The way the Trump administration handled it — basically, its attempt to bury any inquiry into the clear threat Huang’s affair posed to U.S. interests — is part of a bigger story of betrayal at the highest levels,” Krugman told viewers.
Huang has admitted to an affair with Alice Huang, a former Megaspeed executive whom U.S. officials suspect of spying for China. The two are not related.
[. . .]
A source told CNN that Trump was briefed on the intelligence in May aboard Air Force One, before Huang joined his trip to Beijing, though Trump has insisted he only recently learned of the allegations. On Sunday, he called Huang honorable and said he probably had an excuse.
Krugman took his title from a 1979 British book about Cambridge graduates who spied for the Soviet Union out of ideological conviction. He argued that Trump’s circle is fueled by a cocktail of ideology and greed. In his view, MAGA’s support for Russia’s war on Ukraine is largely ideological, while its handling of Huang and chip sales to China comes down to money.
He pointed to Nvidia’s $25 million commitment to Trump’s White House ballroom and argued that Trump's allies protected Huang in part because they worried the scandal would damage an industry that has poured money into their causes.
“I don’t know how much of this betrayal meets the legal standard of treason, but morally, that’s what it amounts to,” Krugman said.




Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent challenged Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick over his department’s reluctance to label Nvidia customer Megaspeed a possible national security threat in a Situation Room confrontation last week that illustrates the tension inside the Trump administration over Chinese access to Nvidia’s advanced chips, two people familiar with the matter told CNN.
Trump officials have long harbored concerns that Megaspeed has circumvented US law and funneled advanced chips into China — a prospect that Treasury staffers argued should land it on Commerce’s so-called entity list of China-connected companies that could pose national security risks. But the issue gathered newfound attention and importance in recent days when Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang admitted to an affair with a Megaspeed employee suspected of being a Chinese spy.
Senior Trump officials, including Lutnick, also were briefed months ago about Huang’s relationship with Alice Huang, a Megaspeed executive who the intelligence community suspected of being a Chinese spy, people familiar with the matter said.
But despite those warnings, Commerce has so far refused to put Megaspeed on the entity list, the people said.
Confronted on it by Bessent last Thursday, Lutnick did not immediately commit to taking any specific action, they said.

So Chump was informed and did nothing and Lutnick was given reasonable information and did nothing.  Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling (THE NEW REPUBLIC) notes: 


In January 2025, Nvidia was announced as one of the “key” technology partners in the Trump administration’s $500 billion public-private initiative to jumpstart AI-focused data center development, dubbed the Stargate Project. Months later, Donald Trump allowed the company to export previously banned chips to China, loosening trade restrictions on tech that Washington feared could be used against U.S. national security interests.
Trump reportedly knew about Huang’s affair—and his spying partner—for months. State Secretary Marco Rubio informed Trump about the alarming relationship moments before Huang joined the presidential trip to Beijing at the president’s request. It was at least the second time that Trump had been informed of Huang’s ties to the Chinese government, inside sources told The New York Times.
But Trump did not act on the information.
Instead, Trump has denied any knowledge of the illicit affair. On Tuesday, Trump refuted the Times’ report, telling a reporter in the White House press room that he “didn’t hear about” the scandal in May. Trump added that he spoke with the Nvidia leader earlier that day, when Huang claimed he had “absolutely no idea that the person in question was a spy.”
“And I really believe him,” Trump added.
But not everyone is convinced by the Trump administration’s blind eye. Connecticut Representative Jim Himes, who is expected to become chair of the House Intelligence Committee in the new year, expressed alarm that the FBI had not opened an investigation into the apparently suspicious relationship, despite the internal circulation of a memo detailing the Megaspeed executive’s myriad links to the Chinese government.
“I would hope that the FBI would launch a major counterintelligence investigation. I haven’t heard that they did,” Himes told Politico, noting that Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton and CIA Director John Ratcliffe, apparently “didn’t know” whether the FBI had opened an investigation, either.

You put a Convicted Felon into the Oval Office, don't expect laws and rules to be followed.  Chump's a crook and he flocks to other crooks.  Thomas Barrabi (NEW YORK POST) notes, "Rumblings on 'bad findings about Megaspeed' swirled within the Commerce Department at least as far back as the summer of 2025, according to a recently departed former official at the agency who spoke to The Post on condition of anonymity."

How has Nvidia responded?  By pouring money into lobbyig.  Victor Reklaitis (MARKETWATCH) reports: 

Nvidia has been setting records with its spending on Washington lobbying, but the outlays now aren’t expected to help much, with lawmakers from both parties souring on the chip company’s policy preferences in the wake of its spy scandal.
After putting at least $4.97 million toward influencing Washington last year, Nvidia has disclosed lobbying spending of $4.69 million in this year’s first three quarters, putting the maker of artificial-intelligence chips on pace for a new company spending record by year’s end. That’s shown in the below chart, which comes from OpenSecrets, a watchdog organization.
Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers in Congress now will likely object to “the company’s default policy position — that it should be permitted to sell large numbers of AI chips to customers in China,” said Ryan Fedasiuk, a senior fellow at the right-leaning Foundation for American Innovation, in a social-media post. They’ll probably also have objections to the company’s aggressive lobbying efforts, Fedasiuk said.

And the ban on China continues to be circumvented.  Eduardo Baptista (REUTERS) notes:

A Chinese university with deep ties to the People's Liberation Army bought Nvidia's powerful H200 AI chips last month despite being on a US export blacklist, procurement records show, highlighting gaps in Washington's efforts to curb China's access to advanced technology.
[. . .]
Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress have urged stronger controls on China's access to advanced AI chips, such as chip-tracking requirements and greater congressional oversight of exports. Three Republican congressional committee chairmen have requested a briefing with Huang on November 18 over his reported contacts with an alleged Chinese intelligence operative.


Why did the administration ignore all the warning signs?  Was someone tight with the CEO?  


President Donald Trump's close ties with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang ​have come under renewed scrutiny after revelations about the billionaire executive's affair with a Chinese businesswoman alleged to be a spy for Beijing.
Trump said on Monday he was "amazed" after the revelations concerning one of his closest allies in Silicon Valley, who also faces an FBI probe as well as a board meeting to decide his future.
Over the past two years, Huang has voiced support for the Trump administration's AI agenda and met the Republican leader many times as Nvidia sought to sell advanced chips to the Chinese market and lobbied for looser restrictions on Chinese access to Nvidia's sophisticated AI chips. 

Anthony Cuthbertson (INDEPENDENT) counts 11 visits and 3 trips Huang had with Chump between January 31, 2025 through October, 2026.  The trips were was him joining Chump on his visit to the Middle East in May of 2025, his visit to the UK in September of 2025 and on his May 2026 trip to China. Did his closeness to Chump mean people dismissed the security risk despite the warnings that had come in regularly?  




Since Chump is close to the problem -- he got caught with his pants down, you could say -- there will be every effort on his part to blame someone else.  Looks like that might be Howard Lutnick.   Jarrett Renshaw and Jonathan Landay (REUTERS) report:

Senior White House officials are discussing whether Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick should be pushed out in the wake of the spy scandal surrounding Nvidia's now former CEO Jensen Huang, two people familiar with the situation said on Thursday.
A growing number of lawmakers criticized Lutnick over the administration's refusal to add dozens of Chinese companies to a key US trade blacklist, and over whether the government was properly overseeing Nvidia's exports to China.
Criticism of Lutnick's actions predates Thursday's resignation of Nvidia's Huang, who announced he would step down as CEO of the leading AI chipmaker after revelations of an affair with Alice Huang, whom US authorities suspect of spying for Beijing. But the charge that Lutnick has not done enough to restrict AI chip shipments to China has bubbled up as the fallout of Jensen Huang's actions grows.







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.

Over the past year, Mr. Lutnick has frequently clashed with top officials over how to regulate sales of advanced technology, particularly Nvidia’s chip sales to Asia. That has drawn accusations from others in the administration and in Congress that the Commerce Department has become too cozy with Nvidia and its co-founder, Jensen Huang, and failed to adequately police the firm’s chip sales to China, in particular.

The issue has exploded into public view in recent weeks with the revelations from The New York Times that Nvidia’s chief executive, Jensen Huang, was in a relationship with a woman believed by U.S. intelligence agencies to be a Chinese spy. The woman, Alice Huang, was a top executive at a Singapore-based company, Megaspeed, that is suspected of smuggling Nvidia chips to China. On Thursday, Mr. Huang announced that he was stepping down from the company, sending the company’s shares tumbling.

The astonishing developments have thrust Mr. Lutnick into an uncomfortable spotlight and raised questions about whether he went too far in protecting Nvidia’s interests. And it has focused attention on whether the influence of Mr. Huang, an ally of President Trump’s and among the most high-profile and successful of American business leaders, kept the United States from moving faster to clamp down on sales of Nvidia chips to companies like Megaspeed.


Let's wind down the Nvidia discussion with Desi Lydic (THE DAILY SHOW). 





Jensen Huang getting caught in bed with Alice Huang is certainly interesting. But President Donald Trump getting caught (figuratively) in bed with Jensen Huang is much more interesting.
Jensen Huang happens to be one of Trump’s closest advisers on tech matters. A Reuters reporter recalls seeing the Nvidia chief’s name pop up on Trump’s cell phone in December 2025. Trump took Huang on his May 2025 trip to the Middle East, on his September 2025 visit to the United Kingdom, and on his May 2026 trip to China. In this last instance, Huang accompanied Trump on Air Force One at Trump’s personal request. We know that because Trump announced it on Truth Social, identifying the man as “the Great Jensen Huang.” On Monday, Trump told reporters he’d phoned his Nvidia bestie earlier that day and asked, “‘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.”

Twice before Monday, and probably more like three times, Trump was told that Huang’s lover was a suspected Chinese spy. The first time was in October 2025, according to The New York Times. Trump “chose not to do anything with the information,” the Times reported, because he was “wary of disrupting Nvidia’s chip sales, which are helping to drive the economy and the stock market, and of further complicating the trading relationship with China.”

The probable second time Trump got told about Huang’s peccadilloes was in a memo that Secretary of State Marco Rubio drafted last spring, according to the Times. The memo in effect warned: Keep your distance from Jensen Huang. The Times reported that the memo was circulated to “top Trump administration officials.” But it’s impossible to believe Trump was kept out of the loop because when Huang was initially excluded from the China trip (almost certainly for this reason), Trump objected and reversed that decision. According to a new Times report, Rubio told Trump verbally about Huang’s honey trap as Air Force One was preparing to leave for China. In the Times tally, Trump was told twice. In my (slightly more speculative) tally, Trump was told three times.

On Monday, Trump said he didn’t recall being told even once about Huang’s worrisome romantic entanglement. That suggests that Trump is either too senile to remember such things or too stupidly defiant to maintain a prudent distance. I lean toward the second interpretation because Trump is, somehow, still defending the guy. “I believe he’s suffering greatly,” Trump told the reporters. “He built a great company, American company, and I think he’s a very honorable guy. And I feel very confident that he’ll be in good shape.”




Turning to Chump's bro the late Jeffrey Epstein.  From the 80s through the 00s (some say all the way up to 2016), Chump and the sex trafficker were best buds.  For decades.  Chump probably tells Epstein in his dreams,  "I wish I knew how to quit you."  But he didn't.  Say it.  Or quit him.  Until decades later. THE MINNEAPOLIS BULLETIN notes:

On October 26, House Judiciary Democrats released a staff report that outlined allegations involving 11 women. The report said five of those women directly accused Donald Trump of rape or sexual assault in Jeffrey Epstein’s company or presence, largely in New York and Palm Beach during the 1990s.
Then, on November 10, Republicans on the House Oversight Committee issued their own report. Their conclusion was the opposite: after reviewing witnesses and documents, they said the committee did not find material implicating Trump in Epstein’s crimes.
That leaves the public with two partisan investigations pointing in different directions. Neither report is a court ruling, and neither by itself establishes criminal liability. What they do provide is a framework for understanding how lawmakers are sorting the same history into competing political and legal narratives.
Why the Democratic report is so explosive
The Democratic report leans heavily on interviews, survivor accounts, FBI records, and documents released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. It centers on a period from roughly 1992 to 1997, and repeatedly places Trump, Epstein, Paolo Zampolli, and figures from the modeling world in overlapping social circles.
Among the named accounts are allegations from Stacey Williams, Jill Harth, Maria Farmer, and Beatrice Keul. The report also references “Jane,” who testified against Ghislaine Maxwell, and “Katie Johnson,” whose allegation involved events in 1994 when she said she was 13.
The report also challenges several of Trump’s public denials. It says flight logs show Trump traveled on Epstein’s jet at least eight times in the 1990s, and it cites a 2009 account indicating Epstein “was never asked to leave” Mar-a-Lago, contradicting later claims that Trump expelled him.

Chump's been a little less than honest -- and the House Democrats Judiciary Committee Report makes that clear.  




Epstein survivors say they are hopeful a Democrat-controlled Congress will bring more accountability.
“We need those that harmed us to be held accountable, and we need to see actual people being brought into Congress,” Epstein survivor Sharlene Rochard told Scripps News. “We need the files turned into trials.”
Some members of Congress appear to be listening. Outgoing Republicans have supported a petition to circumvent the current leadership and force a House floor vote to release unredacted Epstein files.
All 214 U.S. House Democrats and four outgoing Republicans have signed a discharge petition to strengthen enforcement of the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The petition, which crossed the 218-signature threshold on Wednesday, could bring the bill straight to the House floor for a vote, bypassing House Republican leadership.
The bill (H.R. 9694) would amend the Epstein Files Transparency Act (Public Law 119-38). Among its provisions, it would:
Grant legal standing to Epstein survivors, state attorneys general, and members of Congress, allowing them to file federal lawsuits against the Justice Department (DOJ) to compel the release of unredacted or withheld Epstein files.
Give survivors the right to obtain full, unredacted FBI interview reports about themselves, and require the DOJ to share unredacted files with state and local prosecutors for their own investigations.
Prohibit the DOJ from invoking common law privileges (such as attorney-client or deliberative process privileges) to delay or redact the records.
Allow documents handed over to states to be publicly disclosed in court proceedings.
Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Democratic Reps. Ro Khanna of California and Teresa Leger Fernández of New Mexico co-sponsored the petition.


So now we wait to see whether or not it will get the necessary votes. 

Which brings up Tuesday's House embarrassment when 11 Democrats missed the vote on impeaching Priss Pot Pete Hegseth.  Ann's "Jonathan Jackson missed the vote because he was stuck in traffic - but he wasn't" notes that one member of the House,  Jonathan Jackson, told Don Lemon that he missed the vote because he was caught in traffic but then he gets confronted by TMZ which notes he was on site ten minutes before the vote.  So why didn't he vote?  He won't say. The midterms were about the American people putting their trust in the Democratic Party.  That was last week.  And yet all the Dems in the House have done this week is let us down.  There was the Hegseth vote.  Sarah K. Burris (ALTERNET) reports on another vote this week that the Dems weren't there for:


Democrats made their second big mistake in less than two days on Wednesday when they allowed a far-right veterans bill to pass the House on a voice vote.
A voice vote is when someone proposes the bill, the parliamentarian asks for the "yays" and the group yells then they ask for the "nays" and they yell. In this case, House Republicans declared the bill passed. A Democrat could have asked for a recorded vote, meaning the parliamentarian must call each name and record their vote.
"Some confusion here about what exactly happened. But this is another black eye for Democrats. Two in two days," said Punchbowl News reporter Jake Sherman on X.
One anonymous Democratic staffer sent a message to a source: "It appears Democratic leadership just let a controversial veterans benefits bill pass by voice vote and didn't request a recorded vote. Hence the disarray on the floor. This is a huge procedural mess-up. Texts in group chats of Dem staff right now include phrases such as: 'How could they have let that happen?' 'We are not off to a good start.' 'This coming right on the heels of the attendance issue last night is incredibly damning of current leadership.'"


Coming right on the heels of the attendance issue on the Hegseth vote?  Yes, it is.  And it makes me again question -- as Elaine has ("Can Hakeem lead? Didn't look like it on Tuesday night") -- whether or not Hakeem Jeffries is up to being Speaker of the House.  These were two serious mistakes and he is Minority Leader right now.  Why is he unable to fight back against the Republicans?  Why are they caught by surprise on who's voting and who's not voting?  Why didn't they request a recorded vote?

These are the most basic of screw ups.  Is Hakeem not up to being a leader?  If so, we need to know that and that's why I'm saying we need a real challenge on who the next Speaker is.  Prior to this week, I was fine with Hakeem. But after these two serious mistakes, I don't think we need a coronation.  I think we need a serious debate about who will be the next Speaker.  

We also need an apology from Hakeem.  He needs to apologize to the American people for the Tuesday vote and the Wednesday vote.  As Minority Leader right now, he is the Democratic Party leader of the House and this happened under his watch.  Twice is one week, he was caught unprepared twice this week.  He wants to be a leader?  A leader takes accountability and responsibility.  I've not seen him do either this week.

The people screwed over by the Democrats ineptitude -- and the Republicans lack of respect for veterans -- on Wednesday are veterans. Mia McCarthy and Riley Rogerson (POLITICO) note: 


A leader of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, which opposed passage of the bill, called the circumstances surrounding its passage "cowardly and dishonorable."
National Commander-in-Chief Cory Geisler said “if congressional leaders believed this proposal was worthy of passage, they should have had the courage to let every member's position be recorded for the country to see."
Takano said he was “walking through all of our options” and said he was frustrated by the GOP posture: “They're insisting on sending text that's not been fully agreed to, send it over to the Senate.”



Cowardly and dishonorable?  That certainly describes the Secretary of Defense who's still, rightly, being called out for his treating a visit to THE TOMB OF THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER as a lark.  








Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has taken a desperate measure to save face after a Tomb of the Unknown Soldier sentinel brutally shushed his group during a Veterans Day event.
Hegseth has posted photos of himself awarding a medal to the tomb guard who yelled at him to maintain decorum during a visit to the military’s most solemn site—an incident that followed CNN cameras capturing Hegseth’s group laughing near the tomb at Arlington National Cemetery.
“We love soldiers,” Hegseth wrote on X along with photos. “We love standards. Well done, Specialist. Carry on Patriots.”
[. . .]
Hegseth’s humiliation at Arlington comes at a trying time for the Pentagon chief. Outgoing Republican Rep. Thomas Massie, a critic of the president, filed articles of impeachment against Hegseth this week. MAGA-aligned Republicans ultimately succeeded in killing off Massie’s effort after 11 Democrats bizarrely missed the vote, many blaming traffic.
Democrats are still thirsting to have Hegseth removed from power, however, and will soon enjoy a comfortable House majority come January. Hegseth barely survived Senate confirmation at the peak of MAGA’s popularity in early 2025, requiring Vice President JD Vance to break a 50-50 tie, and he faces an uphill challenge in a safely Democratic-majority Senate if he is impeached.

The guard was doing his duty.  He shouldn't have to be doing that, however, when it's the Secretary of Defense and his flunkies.  The Secretary of Defense should have curbed his own group and told them to stop clowning.  If you truly loved standards, Priss Pot Pete, you would have held your group accountable.


Let's wind down with this from Senator Patty Murray's office:

Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, joined Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and colleagues in pressing Senate and House leadership to exclude provisions in the FY2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would require the President to expand and enhance defense cooperation and intelligence sharing with the Government of Israel. These provisions would undermine the United States’ ability to act independently and in line with U.S. national security interests at a time when the Government of Israel’s actions are increasingly not aligned with those interests.

The Senators begin, “As you prepare to conference the Fiscal Year 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), we respectfully urge you to exclude three provisions from the final bill that would further entrench concerning aspects of the U.S.-Israel defense and intelligence relationship at a time when the Israeli government’s actions are increasingly undermining U.S. interests and values. These provisions would constrain the Administration’s ability to independently determine how best to protect U.S. national security and would lock in long-term commitments despite our serious concerns with the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza, the West Bank, and other parts of the region.”

On the threats to U.S. national security, the lawmakers note, “The agreements and projects these provisions envision threaten U.S. national security interests by handing Israel leverage over American weapons systems and military technology. This is not hypothetical. The Netanyahu government has already leveraged its existing coproduction agreement with the United States on missile defense to block American Iron Dome batteries from reaching Ukraine, in direct opposition to U.S. national security interests. Should these provisions be enacted, it would further increase Israel’s leverage over the United States through some of the most sensitive technologies in warfare. That is not in the U.S. interest. If enacted, these agreements would create long-term dependencies by embedding Israeli technology into the U.S. defense industrial base that could make future policy changes costly or difficult to implement. President Trump, at his own discretion, could choose to enter new agreements with Israel under existing law. The executive branch does not need a congressional mandate to more deeply entrench U.S.-Israel defense cooperation.”

“Moreover, we do not share, let alone co-produce, many of these sensitive technologies even with our closest partners, including NATO or other treaty allies. To do so in this instance would be unwise, especially as the Government of Israel continues to pursue policies in Gaza, the West Bank and other parts of the region that are inconsistent with U.S. interests and values,” the lawmakers write.

“Prime Minister Netanyahu has openly stated that such an initiative was his idea. In a letter to Representative Stutzman, who led a resolution calling for an effort similar to these provisions, Prime Minister Netanyahu states, ‘I was glad to receive your proposed Congressional resolution endorsing my plan to shift the framework of the US-Israel defense cooperation from aid to partnership.’ The intention behind this is clear: to move U.S. security assistance governed through more traditional pathways, like Foreign Military Financing and arm sales, to more opaque, less discernible avenues through defense acquisitions and programs of record that reduce transparency, as well as increase Israel’s leverage over the United States and our dependency on Israeli technology. This is particularly problematic after Prime Minister Netanyahu boasted that he has been trying to start a war with Iran for 40 years. That war has proven to be a strategic disaster for the United States and against U.S. interests,” the Senators continue.

“For all these reasons, we should not legally mandate an expansion in defense co-production or a requirement to increase intelligence sharing with the Government of Israel. We therefore urge you to exclude Section 1217, Section 219, and Section 618 from the NDAA final conference report,” they conclude.

In addition to Senators Murray and Van Hollen the letter was cosigned by Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Elizabeth Warren, (D-MA), Ed Markey (D-MA), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Tina Smith (D-MN), Peter Welch (D-VT), and Andy Kim (D-NJ). The letter was sent to Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Speaker Mike Johnson, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) Chair Roger Wicker, SASC Ranking Member Jack Reed, House Armed Services Committee Chair (HASC) Mike Rogers, and HASC Ranking Member Adam Smith.

The full text of the letter is available HERE and below.

Dear Majority Leader Thune, Minority Leader Schumer, Speaker Johnson, Minority Leader Jeffries, Chairman Wicker, Ranking Member Reed, Chairman Rogers, and Ranking Member Smith:

As you prepare to conference the Fiscal Year 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), we respectfully urge you to exclude three provisions from the final bill that would further entrench concerning aspects of the U.S.-Israel defense and intelligence relationship at a time when the Israeli government’s actions are increasingly undermining U.S. interests and values. These provisions would constrain the Administration’s ability to independently determine how best to protect U.S. national security and would lock in long-term commitments despite our serious concerns with the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza, the West Bank, and other parts of the region.

Both Section 1217 from the Senate Armed Services Committee-reported bill and Section 219 of the House-passed bill mandate the creation of a “United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative” to expand and accelerate the U.S.-Israel defense relationship, including technology sharing, co-production of weapons systems, and bilateral research and development across multiple domains of warfare such as biotechnology, quantum, autonomous systems, artificial intelligence, cyberwarfare, and others. 

The agreements and projects these provisions envision threaten U.S. national security interests by handing Israel leverage over American weapons systems and military technology. This is not hypothetical. The Netanyahu government has already leveraged its existing coproduction agreement with the United States on missile defense to block American Iron Dome batteries from reaching Ukraine, in direct opposition to U.S. national security interests. Should these provisions be enacted, it would further increase Israel’s leverage over the United States through some of the most sensitive technologies in warfare. That is not in the U.S. interest. 

If enacted, these agreements would create long-term dependencies by embedding Israeli technology into the U.S. defense industrial base that could make future policy changes costly or difficult to implement. President Trump, at his own discretion, could choose to enter new agreements with Israel under existing law. The executive branch does not need a congressional mandate to more deeply entrench U.S.-Israel defense cooperation.

Moreover, we do not share, let alone co-produce, many of these sensitive technologies even with our closest partners, including NATO or other treaty allies. To do so in this instance would be unwise, especially as the Government of Israel continues to pursue policies in Gaza, the West Bank and other parts of the region that are inconsistent with U.S. interests and values.

Prime Minister Netanyahu has openly stated that such an initiative was his idea. In a letter to Representative Stutzman, who led a resolution calling for an effort similar to these provisions, Prime Minister Netanyahu states, “I was glad to receive your proposed Congressional resolution endorsing my plan to shift the framework of the US-Israel defense cooperation from aid to partnership.” The intention behind this is clear: to move U.S. security assistance governed through more traditional pathways, like Foreign Military Financing and arm sales, to more opaque, less discernible avenues through defense acquisitions and programs of record that reduce transparency, as well as increase Israel’s leverage over the United States and our dependency on Israeli technology. This is particularly problematic after Prime Minister Netanyahu boasted that he has been trying to start a war with Iran for 40 years. That war has proven to be a strategic disaster for the United States and against U.S. interests.

In addition to the provisions discussed above in the Senate and House NDAAs, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) FY27 Intelligence Authorization Act, which is typically incorporated in the final NDAA, includes a provision (Sec. 618) that mandates the executive branch “expand and enhance intelligence sharing with the Government of Israel,” and also states that intelligence sharing with Israel “shall not be suspended, reduced, or otherwise materially limited.” The provision would tie the President’s hands from limiting intelligence sharing with Israel, even when doing so may be necessary to protect U.S. national security. That would be irresponsible and especially troubling given public reports that the Defense Intelligence Agency recently raised the counterintelligence threat from Israel to its highest level.

For all these reasons, we should not legally mandate an expansion in defense co-production or a requirement to increase intelligence sharing with the Government of Israel. We therefore urge you to exclude Section 1217, Section 219, and Section 618 from the NDAA final conference report. 

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