Congress
Trump eyes donor for Air Force chief
Trump donor Andrew McKenna is a leading contender for secretary of the Air Force, according to three people close to the transition.
McKenna, a private pilot who heads a small Washington advisory and investment firm, would be the latest of Trump’s picks to take on a top job at the Pentagon without significant experience inside the building.
McKenna served in the White House Liaison’s office at the Agriculture Department during the George W. Bush administration before jumping into the private sector, according to a biography on his firm’s website. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk about pending personnel moves.
Pete Hegseth and Dan Driscoll, Trump’s pick to become secretary of the Army, have both served in the military but neither has held a government job. Nor has John Phelan, selected by Trump for secretary of the Navy, who like McKenna is a major Trump donor.
“President-Elect Trump has made brilliant decisions on who will serve in his second administration at lightning pace,” Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for the transition, said in an emailed statement. “Remaining decisions will continue to be announced by him when they are made.”
Trump has also considered former Rep. Chris Stewart, a previous Air Force bomber pilot and defender of the president-elect on the House Intelligence Committee. But the former lawmaker took himself out of the running for the job, according to a person familiar with the process.
Stewart was also in the mix for the post of director of national intelligence before Trump chose former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard. A key factor for Stewart has reportedly been the health of his wife. Stewart resigned from Congress last year to take care of her.
It’s not immediately clear if McKenna would need to divest equity in defense firms. His firm advises defense companies as part of its portfolio, according to his firm’s website.
Blue Light News previously reported that McKenna’s firm had provided management consulting services for the Saudi-funded LIV Golf, including monitoring and tracking 9/11 victims’ families that were protesting the tour. The firm also raised eyebrows after it reportedly hired the wife of a National Rifle Association executive despite representing a gun rights group.
The Trump transition, which sent its landing team into the Pentagon for the first time on Monday, is looking to quickly fill the agency’s large bench of Senate-confirmed appointees.
One of the people close to the transition said Trump was considering Trae Stephens, a co-founder of dronemaker Anduril, for the agency’s assistant secretary for acquisition and sustainment. Another said that James “Hondo” Geurts, a retired Air Force colonel who briefly served as acting undersecretary of the Navy during the Biden administration, was under consideration for the job.
Sen. John Cornyn said Monday he will not support Todd Blanche’s confirmation as attorney general absent a written modification to the settlement agreement President Donald Trump entered into with his own administration.
Opposition from the Texas Republican could sink Blanche’s nomination in a highly anticipated Judiciary Committee vote scheduled for Thursday.
While Cornyn said he is in talks with Blanche and others at the Justice Department, he has not secured changes he has demanded to the settlement agreement between Trump and the IRS. Those include formally rescinding a proposed $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” and restricting the scope of tax audit immunity granted to the president and his family.
Cornyn told reporters he needs the document to be signed by Blanche but did not specify whether Trump also needs to sign it.
“We’re talking about that. That hasn’t been fully resolved yet,” Cornyn said in a subsequent interview when asked if Trump needs to sign the modification as well. “We’re still talking. I mean, there’s different ways to approach it.”
Time is running out for Blanche to meet Cornyn’s demands ahead of Thursday’s committee vote, where any one Republican’s opposition could be fatal to the nomination. The senator said Blanche and the administration have been so far “reluctant” to follow through.
At his nomination hearing last week, Blanche testified that plans for the payout fund were dead and that the audit agreement was more limited than set out in the settlement. But Cornyn honed in on the text of the agreement, which states that it “may be modified only with the written agreement of the Parties.”
Blanche acknowledged during the hearing that, without a written change to the agreement, the anti-weaponization fund could still be revived.
“That’s what we’re trying to get them to agree to, which is again what his sworn testimony was,” Cornyn said. “So I don’t know why they’re so reluctant to do that.”
The White House and Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Jordain Carney contributed to this report.
Jay Clayton is on the verge of becoming President Donald Trump’s next director of national intelligence — though Democrats won’t be helping him get there.
The news: The Senate on Monday voted 51-43 in a party line vote to move forward with Clayton’s nomination, teeing up a final vote as soon as Tuesday to confirm him as the next head of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. No Democrats joined their GOP counterparts in support of Clayton.
Clayton, the top prosecutor in the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office and a former SEC chair, will take over from acting spy czar Bill Pulte and join Trump’s Cabinet when he’s confirmed by the full Senate.
Why it matters: At some level, that’s a win for Democrats, who have been eager to replace Pulte, a Trump loyalist with no background in national security, since the president named him to the post last month. But after an up-and-down confirmation process for Clayton, Democrats have new reservations about the incoming intel adviser, as Monday’s vote underscored.
During his Senate confirmation hearing two weeks ago, Clayton refused to say that Joe Biden fairly won the 2020 vote, leading Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Panel to vote against his nomination. That marked a reversal from June, when Senate Democrats worked with their GOP counterparts to fast-track Clayton’s confirmation in exchange for renewing a powerful spy law. That deal fell apart after Trump intervened, alleging on social media that Democrats weren’t delivering on their end of the deal.
Open question: Though Clayton’s confirmation now looks imminent, Senate action on the spy statute that was supposed to be part of the deal — Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act — is not.
With the House already gone for the August recess, the Senate appears unlikely to vote on Section 702 until September.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang will meet with lawmakers in Washington to discuss American leadership on artificial intelligence, the company said Monday.
A spokesperson for the chipmaker said Huang would hold talks with both Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill to talk about latest developments with the technology.
“Jensen is in DC to meet with leaders on both sides of the aisle to discuss American leadership in AI, including leading in open source,” the spokesperson said.
Huang is scheduled to sit down Tuesday with Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee who has expressed serious concern about security threats following last week’s OpenAI autonomous cyberattack.
The senator’s office confirmed the meeting. Senate Intelligence Chair Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
It comes as Huang defended open-source AI on X, writing that such models “strengthen safety and cybersecurity, accelerate innovation and diffusion, and enable sovereignty.”
Huang’s visit comes as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is also expected to meet with Warner, although a spokesperson for the senator said the talks were separate. Earlier Monday, Open AI announced it was in talks with Nvidia, a technology company that makes chips to use artificial intelligence, for a data center project.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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