新闻

Transcript: Rep. John Moolenaar on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,” Nov. 15, 2026

November 15, 2026 / 3:03 PM EST / CBS News

The following is the transcript of the interview with Rep. John Moolenaar, Republican of Michigan, that aired on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on Nov. 15, 2026.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Welcome back to Face the Nation. We turn now to Michigan Congressman John Moolenaar. He is the chair of the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, and he joins us from Grand Rapids. Good morning to you, Congressman.

CHAIR JOHN MOOLENAAR: Good morning, Margaret. Good to be with you this morning.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So, President Trump will depart the U.S. later today for this trip through Asia. He’s expected to have a trilateral meeting with Xi Jinping as well as Vladimir Putin on Thursday to discuss the reduction of nuclear weapons. To date, there hasn’t been any kind of three-way nuclear agreement between our countries. Has the administration shared with your committee anything of what it has planned here?

REP. MOOLENAAR: No, you know that’s something where I think it’s important that the president meet with these leaders. Obviously, it’s in everyone’s interest to decrease the risk involving nuclear weapons, and to have those conversations is important. I don’t believe any agreements are going to be made, but certainly China has resisted being part of any agreements, and if there’s a way to provide more security for the American people through those kinds of discussions, I think it’s important to have it.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, while China is expanding its nuclear arsenal, we know that the race of this century seems to be around artificial intelligence. So that’s why I want to ask you about what’s going on with Nvidia. You’ve been very focused on these computer chips. Has Jensen Huang, the ousted CEO of Nvidia, agreed to honor your request to come in for a closed-door interview December 1?

MOOLENAAR: Yes, he has, and also representatives from Nvidia. We are in the process of discussing exact dates, but yes, they said they will be forthcoming and work with the committee. Actually, three committees: Foreign Affairs, Intelligence, and our China Select Committee. And we think that’s going to be a very important meeting to understand to what degree privileged information was accessed, also to what degree this potential alleged Chinese spy influenced Nvidia’s philosophy, and that may have had an influence on some of our policies with respect to AI and- and export controls.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So you won’t have to issue this subpoena. Mr. Huang will come in and sit with you sometime in the next few weeks. You just don’t have a date?

REP. MOOLENAAR: Yes, that’s correct.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Okay. You said, though, that from what you’ve seen, Jensen Huang has, “severely compromised our national security.” President Trump hasn’t issued that kind of concern. Why are you so certain that damage has been done here? What have you seen?

REP. MOOLENAAR: Well, there is an ongoing investigation into Alice Huang, but what we do know is this, she’s a Chinese national, set up a company that has been able to access over $12 billion of high-end chips, and- and there’s an investigation as to whether those chips were illegally smuggled into China. And for Jensen Huang to be in a relationship like that, knowing that every Chinese national can be pressured by the Chinese Communist Party to comply whatever directives they have from the intelligence, that was simply irresponsible and a direct threat to our national security. These are vital technologies that our military depend upon, our commercial entities depend upon, and for Nvidia and for Jensen Huang, not to view that as a national security risk is outrageous.

MARGARET BRENNAN: I believe she is a Hong Kong resident. You believe that she may actually be an active asset?

REP. MOOLENAAR: Well, what we do know is that China has an all-of-society approach when it comes to their intelligence. They have national security laws in effect in Hong Kong. In fact, we remember when it was going to be one country, two systems. That’s no longer the case. That’s why Jimmy Lai is in prison right now for violating national security. So anyone who doesn’t comply with the CCP can be imprisoned, they or their family members.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So I want to ask you about a question of judgment here. You heard the top Democrat on House Intelligence, Jim Himes, who has been briefed, he said, in a limited way, but it has been shared with him some degree of intelligence. Why would the president, after being told by the national security adviser that this was of a concern, still grant such access to Jensen Huang, even taking him aboard Air Force One and taking him to China? Why aren’t we hearing more from Republicans calling out the president for doing that?

REP. MOOLENAAR: Well, my view is- is I think he brought Jensen Huang to China because he felt like that would be a benefit for negotiations with whatever direction they wanted to head. And so, you know, people in history can question that, but to me the bigger question is, what kinds of policies either were influenced or- or not followed up on? And more concerning is how do we win this competition with China when you have the Commerce Department and others not either enforcing or investigating questionable practices.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yeah, there seems to be a lot of heat on Secretary Lutnick. The Treasury Secretary said that the State Department, the Treasury Department, the War Department, the Trade Representative, they all wanted to blacklist this company, Megaspeed, that Alice Huang was running, and, “Commerce has the pen,” meaning Howard Lutnick did not do that. President Trump’s his boss. Who’s really at fault here, Howard Lutnick or the president for not knowing?

REP. MOOLENAAR: Well, first, I think it’s- we need to examine why the Commerce Department did not update their entity list for the past year. Why did Megaspeed- why was it not thoroughly investigated? We know that Singapore wanted to investigate. And now it appears that there may be a criminal investigation, or some kind of Justice Department investigation. So, why is it that export controls were so adamantly opposed by Commerce? And to what degree did Jensen Huang influence that? And to what degree was he influenced by a Chinese national?

MARGARET BRENNAN: Are you comfortable with Howard Lutnick, the Commerce Secretary, going to China tomorrow with the President of the United States? Should he be in that job, still?

REP. MOOLENAAR: No, I’ll leave that up to the President. I- I believe that there need to be questions answered by Howard Lutnick, by the entire Commerce Department. We need answers. And it also raises the level of importance to getting export controls in the National Defense Authorization Act, and to me, that’s going to be our focus for the next few weeks.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yeah, you’ve been on record for some time that you think this needs to be, really, overseen with more force, fewer loopholes. But let me ask you about an arrangement that- that the president has talked about, and- and proudly so. In August of 2025, Nvidia and chip maker AMD agreed to share 15% of their revenues from chip sales to China with the U.S. government. The president later posted on social media that he upped that to 25%. These were terms negotiated by the Trump administration to approve sales of Nvidia’s computer chips. Should this policy be revisited? Is the U.S. government actually making money off of these chip sales that you say are really an endangerment?

REP. MOOLENAAR: Well, I think the key question is what type of chips? You know, you have the Advanced, the Blackwells, the Rubens, which the Trump administration has prohibited sales of those. And it’s important to designate- there are some chips that are not a threat to national security and do not incrementally, or even especially exponentially, improve China’s capabilities. And to me, there still will be commerce in that area. But we have to safeguard these crown jewels. We have to make sure that we aren’t helping China’s military-industrial complex, and that’s why it’s so important that Megaspeed should have been on the entity list because they were partnering with Alibaba, which is a designated, by Department of War, as a Chinese military company. So we have to differentiate between types of chips. We need to know where those chips are going. We need to make sure American companies have first access. We need to make sure there’s not remote access or smuggling. And so all of these require- and we need to build upon some of the safeguards the Trump administration has put in place and prosecutions they have done, but also have this codified in Congress, and that’s why it’s going to be so important in the next few weeks that we don’t let up on the gas pedal on this.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Secretary Bessent has been saying in interviews this week that the administration has the authorities they need; they don’t need more legislation. It’s a question of, sort of, will and enforcement.

REP. MOOLENAAR: Yeah, I think Congress has an important oversight role, but for certainty for the private sector and for continuity between administrations, you actually need acts of Congress to put that in place. And we’ve been working very hard to codify Trump administration policies, whether it’s outbound investment or biosecurity, all of these, which are positive initiatives by the Trump administration, need to be followed up and codified in law.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Do you trust that those in those positions will do that? Because right now, the Commerce Secretary is Howard Lutnick, and you’re saying that he hasn’t done these things.

REP. MOOLENAAR: Well, I think there is a heightened awareness now. If you if you look at the Cold War and the Sputnik moment that occurred, in some respects, this advanced technology, the leader in this advanced technology, China’s role in this process has created a greater awareness than ever before on how we need to safeguard these technologies, and so I think there will be further action and I think it’s bipartisan in Congress. That’s one of the benefits of our select committee, that we work in a bipartisan way with committees of multiple jurisdictions to focus on winning this competition- competition, both the national security, the economic technology, as well as the human rights. Because don’t forget, China is the master of a surveillance society, and these technologies will be used for further oppression of the Chinese people as well as people around the world.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Understood. Congressman Moolenaar, thank you for your time this morning.