The Gov Hub Newsletter: December 2, 2025

An Avondale, Arizona City Councilwoman, Jeanette Garcia [R] is facing a lawsuit brought by a man who alleges that she drunkenly tried to offer him a Turning Point USA job in exchange for sex, and when he refused, she allegedly kidnapped his teenage daughter. The man behind the lawsuit alleges that Garcia’s alleged misconduct has caused significant trauma; Garcia denies the described incident at-large.

Following the rumors swirling the Hill that more GOP retirements were to come following MTG’s, Congressman Troy Nehls [TX-R] announced that he will not be seeking re-election. However, in a familial plot twist, Troy’s identical twin brother named Trever Nehls, is now going to run for the seat, getting his brother’s endorsement right away.

White House Press Sec. Karoline Leavitt’s former ‘almost’ sister-in-law and mom of Karoline’s nephew, was taken into ICE custody and flown into a detention center in Louisiana. The reporting shares that Bruna Ferreira, who is a DACA recipient, and shares custody of her 11-year-old son with Michael Leavitt, was surrounded by agents when she was leaving her home in Massachusetts to pick her son up from school.

Senator Cory Booker [NJ-D] got married and took on what seems to be a theme amongst federal electeds tying the not – incredibly short engagements. Notably, the wedding included an ode to the OG MAHA-but-dem-version’s vegan diet, with a vegan chocolate chip cookie dough cake served at the celebrations.

Shit is hitting the fan for Kash Patel over at the FBI, with a new report out sharing that he refused [had a temper tantrum] to leave his plane without being given an “FBI raid jacket” when he landed in Utah in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s assassination. Per the details, they had to spend time searching for a “medium-sized” jacket and ended up finding a woman’s jacket to give him.

The 2nd Trump Admin has had the largest number of nominee withdrawals for positions since the Reagan Admin, having withdrawn so far, a total of 57 nominations. And per questions asked by Politico to Senator John Kennedy [LA-R], Kennedy said the following: “It would appear that some nominees haven’t been vetted, and … somebody says, ‘Go with them anyways.”

A CBS Sunday Morning Interview with Cookin’ with Congress revealed that both versions of ancient Senator Chuck Grassley’s ‘super fish’ recipe are… bad…like replace everything in your house because it made everything smell so bad, bad — which does makes sense when one of the recipes calls for MICROWAVING FISH.

Trump x RFK Jr.’s FDA withdrew a proposed Biden-era rule that was in motion that would’ve required that make-up made with talc be tested for asbestos. 

Trump x RFK Jr.’s FDA also distributed a memo claiming that the COVID vaccine killed upwards of ten children and that stricter review/approval protocols are therefore needed for vaccine trials. Missing from the memo were key factors like the children’s medical history, basic timelines and patient ages, but what it does have is info from an unverified reporting system known as VAERS; a system, according to NBC News, that allows people to submit entries about what they believe is an adverse event related to a vaccine. In addition, the so-called findings from the FDA haven’t even been published in a peer-reviewed medical journal.

Trump’s EPA has given the thumbs up to the use of pesticides on foods that include forever chemicals [PFAS].

Dr. Ralph Abrahamhas cut his reputation as being uber anti-vax during his tenure as Louisiana’s surgeon general – like to the level where he’d ordered the state health department earlier this year to stop promoting vaccinations. Anyways, his new role is now at the CDC, in the second-in-command role. 

ProPublica launched an investigation into how a bird flu outbreak was taking out scores of hens. Their investigation – one the USDA did not bother to conduct, mind you – found that the bird flu may be airborne, traveling via wind. One potential solution? Vaccinating the birds – something the USDA does not seem posed to do.

Trump’s ‘pardoned’ list now includes notorious nursing home owner, Joseph Schwartz, a man who was previously convicted of defrauding the U.S. gov of an estimated $39M in payroll taxes. Also amongst the recently pardoned is the former president of Honduras and convicted drug trafficker with a reputation of flooding the U.S. with coke, Juan Orlando Hernandez. 

A FOIA request submitted by Bloomberg reporter Jason Leopold unveiled a cache of FBI emails that showed that over 4,700+ hours had been spent scrubbing the Epstein files, costing taxpayers over $851K+ in overtime. Also discovered was that the FBI has scrubbed “search warrant execution photos,” “street surveillance video,” and “aerial footage from FBI search warrant execution.”

At the intersection of corruption and grifty businesses, appears to be Trump Mobile – a phone that Trump’s sons claimed to be made in America and a coordinating phone line. The product vertical launched this past summer, with people placing orders, including an NBC reporter who did so on an investigative capacity. The result circa now, months post-launch? The phone order is nowhere to be found, the website’s promises have changed a number of times, the phone’s design appears to have shifted multiple times as well, and more on-brand head-scratchers.

Florida Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna [R], who sits on House committees that oversee natural resources and government oversight, is alleged to have made a six-figure investment into a PE energy firm called America First Natural Resources. And according to the reporting consolidated by COURIER, that firm is owned by one of her big campaign donors. The between the lines: conflict of interest 101.

A story first broken by the Washington Post reported that SecDef Hegseth had ordered the military to “kill everybody” in a boat strike in the Caribbean – a move that many say amounted to war crimes. The allegations of war crimes, have Trump trying to lay the groundwork for blaming Hegseth, Hegseth using Franklin the Turtle, the kids classic cartoon to make jokes about killing people, and even the Republican chairs of the House and Senate Armed Services committees saying that they’re considering conducting an oversight investigation into the strike. The strikes, which have claimed 83 lives thus far, are being branded as “strikes against narco terrorists” by the Trump Admin despite a seeming lack of proof and that the boat’s routes aren’t on a main drug trafficking path.

Trump’s White House has launched a website dubbed the “Hall of Shame,” with the intent of naming and shaming reporters that cover Trump and his cronies unfavorably. The ironic silver lining of the push back the constitutional right to a free press, is that the website really just shares reporters and outlets that are still reporting reality.

Despite a judge blocking her removal from the country, a 19-year-old college student who has been in the country since she was eight, and was en route home to surprise her family for Thanksgiving, was detained and deported to Honduras.

Green card applicants with U.S. citizen spouses are being arrested by armed ICE agents at their scheduled immigration interviews – in other words, they’re following the process for a green card and being punished by being thrown in prison.

Despite being fired for making vile jokes about shooting migrants in a text group chat, two of the three former Denver police officers were hired back into law enforcement roles in smaller Colorado towns.

Amidst the redistricting battle in Indiana – where a small group of GOP state legislators are pushing back against Trump’s attempt to bully the maps in his favor – state Senator Jean Leising [R] was the recipient of a pipe bomb threat on her home. Meanwhile, Indiana state Senator Greg Walker [R], who has also pushed back on redistricting, accused the Trump Admin of violating the Hatch Act, sharing with the Daily Journal that he’d report it the federal authorities, “if I thought that there was anyone of integrity in Washington that would follow through on my accusation and actually cause someone to lose their job over it.”

A federal appeals court has put the kibosh on Alina Habba serving as the U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, ruling that Habba is serving in that position unlawfully. For ref, Habba is a former personal lawyer of Trump’s that the admin flipped upside down and backwards over the law to install as the U.S. Attorney for the Garden State when they couldn’t get enough support in the Senate to get her confirmed.

Costco filed a lawsuit against the Trump Admin in the U.S. Court of International Trade for two things – the first, to get a fund refund on the Trump tariffs it’s paid this year [2025], and secondly, to block the Trump tariffs from continuing. 

Current Texas AG and candidate for U.S. Senate Ken Paxton is trying to prevent the records in his ongoing divorce case from being made public. In doing so, he’s also accusing the press of invading his privacy, despite both him and his current wife being elected officials, and much of his extra-marital activities already decently well-known by the public.

Trump’s Interior Department has announced a new fee structure at national parks for international visitors. The fees, which are being branded as “America-first,” will triple in cost. The biggest loser in this arrangement? Local economies that depend on national park tourism. 

The monthly University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers found that U.S. consumer sentiment fell to one of its lowest points in November, nearly hitting the survey’s 2022 all-time record low.

The current president’s golf habit is costing taxpayers loads of green, as in $71M in taxpayer dollars since January 2025 alone.

Education Department girlypop of the former Heritage Foundation variety, Lindsey Burke’s chapter of Project 2025 is making its rounds. The ‘report’ reveals a modus operandi for cutting education to increase marriage and the birth rate. Yikes.

A list out of the State Department has been circulating and causing alarm at the 38 higher education institutions that are included on the list. The 38 are on a proposed chopping block for the State Department’s Diplomacy Lab program over claims that the schools participate in “DEI hiring practices." On another list – a list of potential schools to be added to the program – is ultra-conservative Christian, Liberty University. 

The Guardian: After ICE took students’ parents, these teachers began rising at dawn to keep watch: ‘We said, hell no’

Cardinal & Pine: North Carolina continues to fail new moms and their babies, annual report shows

Brennan Center: ICE Wants to Go After Dissenters as well as Immigrants

NPR: More cities are seeing PFAS pollution in drinking water. Here’s what Louisville found