The Gov Hub Newsletter: October 28, 2025

According to the Financial Times, the Trump Admin signed on the dotted line for a contract that has the Pentagon buying thousands of drone parts from a company called Unusual Machines – a company that Donald Trump Jr. sits on the advisory board for, and at least at some point recently owned $4M stake in the company.

Covered in a sea of “allegedly’s” is a story that CNN’s head honcho, Mark Thompson told the network to cool it with stories on Trump demolishing the historic East Wing of the White House. The story made its rounds in an outlet called Status after Thompson had a meeting at the White House, but per comment from CNN, which confirmed the WH meeting, they accused the authors of publishing a story filled with reckless conjecture.  

Indiana’s GOP Gov. Mike Braun caved to pressure from Trump and his couch-loving sidekick to call a special sesh of the state leg to redraw [gerrymander] the state’s congressional maps to favor Republicans. TBD on whether they have the votes in the leg to make it happen or not, but either way the state’s two Dem-held Congressional seats are at risk.

ICYMI the only swing district in North Carolina got the axe thanks to its GOP-dominated state leg gerrymandering it out of existence. If the map goes ahead i.e. a legal challenge doesn’t stop it from going into effect for the 2026 midterms, this will be the 4th consecutive election using dif maps thanks to the state’s GOP playing a game of “can only win if they cheat” – something that even this GOP state Senator admitted.  The Dem on the chopping block, who has shared that he will run for re-election regardless, is Congressman Don Davis. 

The list of companies donating to Trump’s $300M and rising in cost by the day ballroom range from ooky spooky [Palantir and Lockheed Martin] to tacky [Hard Rock International]. And per Trump’s very own Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, the ballroom is the current president’s “#1 one priority.”

Trump pardoned Changpeng Zhao, the founder of the Cayman Island-registered crypto exchange, Binance, who had pleaded guilty to helping users go around sanctions. The pardon had been lobbied for by Binance for quite some time, and now seems to lift restrictions on Zhao from running financial ventures. The real slice of WTF is the fact that Zhao’s companies had partnered with firms like Dominari Holdings where the Trump’s sons sit on the advisory board and is hq’d in Trump Tower, before getting that pardon, according to the BBC.

The current president is rumored to be putting his Admin’s thumb on the scale related to the CEO of Paramount Skydance’s desires and attempts to buy Warner Bros. Discovery. The CEO is one of Trump’s all-in-the-fam besties, David Ellison. The Admin essentially warned that other bidders will potentially face higher regulatory hurdles and that who owns Warner is of interest to them. For ref, if the deal were to happen, that would result in one company controlling a huge amount of American TV from CBS News and CNN to Paramount+ and even the Discovery Channel. 

A man fleeing ICE was fatally struck by a truck in Virginia. The man [Josué Castro Rivera], who it appears federal authorities didn’t even have the correct name of, was on his way to a gardening job when the car he was driving was pulled over. His alleged crime was living in the US without legal permission. 

ICE has continued to terrorize people in the Chicago area: releasing tear gas outside of an elementary school, detaining and violently tackling a citizen and his mother for standing up for his employees, attacking a runner going home from practice to the point of breaking several of his ribs, creating a war zone on the streets, and recklessly waving an AK-47 in busy traffic.

ICE is also continuing to terrorize people in Portland, Oregon, including ganging up on and beating up a blind man as seen here.

In Baltimore County, MD a student was swarmed by police, when the AI-powered security system that was deployed on school campuses misidentified the item in the student’s hand as a gun. The item in his hand was a bag of Doritos. To translate: a minor was surrounded by police, with guns pointed at him, because AI used by cops couldn’t decipher the difference between a gun and Doritos.

In Portland, Oregon, a fire that engulfed a city councilor’s car and home is under investigation, with the incident being deemed suspicious. The City Councilor Candace Avalos, as reported by The Oregonian, has previously been the target of death threats for her views.

Following the vast majority of legacy media orgs losing their credentials at the Pentagon for not agreeing to a weird and wacky anti-free press policy, a new Pentagon “press” corps has emerged. And “press” truly deserves the quotations around it because those include LindellTV, like TV run by “MyPillow” CEO Mike Lindell and podcaster Tim Pool who was paid by Russia.

ICE recruits can’t even pass an open book test – and they’re showing up to training without background checks having been completed, failing drug tests, and also getting F’s on physical fitness requirements, according to new reporting. 

SNAP benefits [food stamps] will run out of funding on November 1, 2025 – yes, that’s next week, thanks to the GOP-led government shutdown. The Trump Admin’s USDA has decided not to use emergency funds to continue funding for the program in the meantime, meaning 42 million Americans will go without the assistance that keeps any sort of food on their tables unless the shutdown ends. Other critical numbies to know: 1 in every 8 Americans relies on food assistance; for every $1 spent on SNAP, $1.54 goes into the local economy; 40% of those on SNAP are children; 17% elderly; 11% disabled; the remainder employed.

Amazon – despite having the money to pay for Trump’s ballroom – announced that it will be laying off 30,000 corporate workers this week. 

The US government’s debt now stands at a whopping $38 trillion, accumulating at a warp speed – like as in the only other time it accumulated this quickly was during the pandemic. 

The current president is adding a 10% tariff to Canadian goods because an ad ran during the World Series that showed a historical video of Ronald Regan saying essentially that tariffs are bad. Canada has since backed down on running the ad after Trump announced that the U.S. would be walking away from trade talks.

Listed under bullshit for $600M, the former owner of Charleston’s “pink house” and current Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent [worth an estimated $600M] tried his best at crocodile tears while being interviewed on ABC News. The former hedge fund manager claimed he personally related to the soybean farmers that are suffering as a result of Trump’s tariff war, because he’s “actually a soybean farmer.” Uh, where exactly are those soybeans planted? In this $12.5M D.C. house??

A lawsuit has been filed by Elias Law Group in New York, alleging that the Staten Island Congressional district currently held by Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis violates the state’s constitution. The move aims to knock a Congressional seat into Dem hands to counter the nationwide GOP gerrymandering in which Trump has his GOP gov’s calling in their state leg’s for special seshes to make their house district maps wack. 

Texas AG Ken Paxton is suing Tylenol on behalf of the state, claiming that its products [based on RFK Jr’s unproven claims] were marketed as safe for pregnant women when “in Texas’s view” could cause autism and other disorders.

Trump’s DOJ yet again filed an emergency application at SCOTUS. This time the Trump Admin is asking them to nix a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that had blocked the firing of the Director of the U.S. Copyright Office, Shira Perlmutter.

Trump is demanding that the DOJ pay him $230M for “damages to him” over past investigations into him during both his 1st term and during the Biden Admin. If that were to happen, the money used to pay him would be taxpayer money, and require approvals from top DOJ’ers [his besties, including his former defense lawyer]. At the same time, Trump has yapped that the sitch is akin to suing himself, and that he’d use the money for charity or to help build the White House ballroom…

Monitors will be watching monitors watching voters in California, with the Trump Admin sending federal election monitors to the state and then California sending in its own observers to watch the feds. The lookers fest, comes as California’s AG Bonta and Gov. Newsom called the Trump Admin’s move of sending in the monitors a form of voter intimidation. 

Continuing in the theme of Republicans doing racist things, the Chairwoman of the Hardin [KY] County Republican Party is under fire for sharing a racist-trop laden video that depicted the Obamas as apes. The state’s Chairman has condemned the act and pledged an investigation into the occurrence.

As described by the Chron, “a Texas Christian singer and worship minister born without arms” known as Jon Paul Sheptock was recently arrested for the possession, productions, and distribution of child sexual assault materials. The arrest of the Worship Minister at First Montgomery Baptist Church happened while he was ministering to inmates at a woman’s prison. 

In Birmingham, Alabama, a billboard has been making waves along the Red Mountain Expressway. The billboard shows Trump dressed as the French King Louis XVI wig and all, and the phrases “let them take ballroom dancing” in a take on the infamous Marie Antoinette quote “let them eat cake.”

Further proving that 2025 is bizarre AF, Katy Perry and Justin Trudeau hard launched their relationship over the weekend in Paris.

This North Carolina man called the state’s gerrymandering GOP out to their faces, saying this: “Frankly, the manure is deeper in here than in my barnyard.”

Senator Elizabeth Warren was asked when she thought the gov shutdown would end – this was her answer. And there’s this moment from last week where she had an iconic Freudian slip and called Trump a cunt by accident.

NY Gov. Kathy Hochul is a big time Buffalo Bills fan, and apparently a fan of wings, donning a wing necklace while in Astoria this weekend.

Arizona Senator Ruben Gallego teamed up with Congresswoman Sarah McBride to create a multi-part series of the “gov shutdown for dummies” and for Reels.

Denver’s Mayor Mike Johnson sat down with Pete Buttigieg to run through the top ten hardest names to pronounce in Colorado.

Hailey Bieber slayed with this comment on a recent podcast appearance where she shared how when people try to say that she “looks trans” as a diss that she’s like”wtf how is that a diss, that’s a compliment.”

A new study is out showing that nearly 30% of stillbirths happen in pregnancies where there were no known risk factors. The study also found that stillbirths are much more common than previously reported, with it impacting one in every 147 births generally, with the statistic moving to 1 in 112 for those living in low-income areas, and 1 in 95 for areas with high populations of Black families.

RFK Jr. is apparently gearing up guidance that will encourage Americans to eat more saturated fats – like the ones that raise bad cholesterol levels and are connected to the leading cause of death in the U.S. – heart disease. The move is in contrast with decades of dietary recs.

The current president went to Walter Reed to get an MRI. He then told the press in his verbal style that goes in circles, that it was “perfect.”

Garden Staters who get their health insurance via the state exchanges will see a 175% increase for 2026 if the enhanced ACA tax credits are not extended by Congress.

In NY, Gov. Kathy Hochul green lit funds for Planned Parenthoods across the state rebuking the funding damage done by the GOP passing Trump’s “big beautiful bill.” In number speak, the state will cover an estimated $35M in Medicaid claims for a range of services provided by Planned Parenthood including cancer screenings.

Gothamist: In a filthy corner of North Brooklyn, a plant nursery thrives

Vanity Fair: A Louvre Expert Explains That the “Egos” Who Built Museum Also Made It Susceptible to a Heist

Time: America’s Hunger Crisis Is Growing. We’re Choosing to Look Away

NPR: How the craft flour movement could be a boon to farmers and Indian Country