Poli Alert ⚖️

Alina Habba Mildon has lost her $50 million contract with a Florida-based company after Donald Trump publicly criticized the lucrative agreement, calling it “totally obnoxious and outrageous” and saying he did not want her to receive the money. According to reporting by The New York Times, Concord Partners terminated Habba in a November 4 letter, citing a “failure to perform duties.” The company was established by the family of Venezuelan billionaire banker Julio Herrera Velutini, whom Trump pardoned earlier this year. The termination came just days after Trump expressed anger over the financial arrangement, which guaranteed Habba more than $50 million over four years. polialert.com/meun

House Republican Whip Tom Emmer told Democrats to enjoy their "honeymoon phase," warning that once they take over the House on January 3 they will regret ever putting their names on a ballot. He said it one week after Republicans lost more than 40 House seats and the Senate, and hours after the party picked Jim Jordan, a founder of the House Freedom Caucus, to lead them in the minority. Here's what Emmer means and how Republicans plan to fight from the minority. polialert.com/6qz6

Whistleblowers have told House Democrats the Interior Department is destroying records tied to Trump’s construction projects around Washington, including the East Potomac golf course, the triumphal arch and the Tidal Basin plan, before Democrats take control of Congress in January. Interior calls the claims 100% false. Rep. Jared Huffman, who is set to chair the House Natural Resources Committee, is ordering Interior, the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Agriculture Department, Lockheed Martin and John Deere to save every record and recover anything already deleted, while the White House rushes the projects forward over the next 60 days. polialert.com/ksgv

A federal prisoner says a prison nurse told him to “stop being a crybaby” and refused to send him to the hospital, even though he had a broken tailbone. Now the Supreme Court will decide whether he can sue her, and its ruling could limit your right to take federal officials to court when they violate your rights. polialert.com/h1xz

Congress passes the law, but agencies write the rules that decide how it actually hits your life. From food labels to student loan limits, federal regulations shape more of your day than most people realize. Here’s how a rule gets made: an agency publishes a proposal, the public gets 30 to 60 days to weigh in, and the agency has to answer the major comments before the final rule takes effect. Even then, the courts, Congress or a future administration can still stop it. The comment period is the one point where anyone can get their opinion on the official record. Know how it works so you can use it. polialert.com/e0ax

House Republicans just picked their next leader, and it is Jim Jordan. Jordan defeated House Majority Leader Steve Scalise 106 to 73 in a closed door secret ballot Tuesday. The Ohio congressman and House Judiciary Committee chairman takes over the diminished GOP conference in January, after Democrats swept both chambers in the midterms. Jordan, one of Trump's closest allies in the House, will now lead the Republican opposition against a Democratic majority already promising investigations and an impeachment vote this week. polialert.com/0wf0

An election recount is a second count of the ballots in a race, done to confirm the first count was accurate, and it happens either automatically because the race was very close or because a candidate asks for one. It does not mean anyone did something wrong. It is a safety check built into the system for races decided by a handful of votes. Learn more about recounts below. polialert.com/olgr

Mary Peltola's lead in Alaska just nearly quadrupled. Monday's count from the Alaska Division of Elections added 4,947 ballots. Peltola now leads Sen. Dan Sullivan 106,321 to 103,804, a 2,517 vote lead, up from 637, with about 76% counted. The race is still uncalled. A much larger batch of absentee and early ballots is expected today, with ranked choice tabulation Nov. 18 and certification targeted Nov. 25. polialert.com/q2yg

Marjorie Taylor Greene says the Democratic midterm sweep is "100% on" Trump. After Trump questioned whether the election was honest and blamed voting machines, the former Georgia congresswoman asked why he never prosecuted anyone over 2020, even with control of the Justice Department. She told the supporters who lost money, relationships and even went to prison for him that they should be angry. This is the same woman who once promoted QAnon and fought to overturn the 2020 election. polialert.com/wum7

The Mississippi Senate race is still uncalled, with Democrat Scott Colom leading Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith by 2,574 votes as of Monday, according to the Associated Press, while thousands of mail and affidavit ballots are still being processed. That lead is 0.28 percent of the ballots cast, with about 97 percent of the vote counted. On Election Day, Colom’s lead was 65 votes. polialert.com/8w86

The Speaker of the House is second in line for the presidency, controls which laws even get a vote, and can block a bill with millions of supporters just by never scheduling it. With Democrats taking the House and Hakeem Jeffries in line to become the first Black Speaker in 237 years, here is the simple breakdown of what the job actually does and why it touches your everyday life. polialert.com/eenk

Lauren Boebert is refusing to concede after CNN projected Democrat Eileen Laubacher won Colorado’s 4th District by 3,352 votes. In a video posted after landing in DC, Boebert blamed CNN and the Democrats for calling the race early and said declaring victory now is like icing a cake before it comes out of the oven. Her campaign is talking about “unusual voting patterns” without offering evidence, while Laubacher is already in Washington for new member orientation. The margin is too wide for an automatic recount, so Boebert would have to pay for one herself. polialert.com/xivq

In February 2025, Elon Musk walked onstage at CPAC in sunglasses and a MAGA hat. Argentina’s Javier Milei handed him a chainsaw, and Musk held it over his head and yelled, “This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy,” while the crowd cheered. Two weeks earlier, he had bragged about feeding USAID “into the wood chipper.” As head of DOGE, Musk promised at least $2 trillion in savings. He later lowered that to $1 trillion, then to $150 billion. DOGE posted a list of contracts and grants it said it had cut, but the New York Times found that the 13 biggest were wrong. Government spending went up anyway. The jobs are where the cuts really landed. The federal workforce shrank by more than 270,000 people in 2025, and some counts put it above 300,000 when you include firings, buyouts and early retirements. Some layoffs were reversed, and workers got back pay for time they weren’t allowed to work. The Partnership for Public Service estimated that the firings, rehirings and paid leave cost more than $135 billion. A federal judge also ruled that the government broke the Privacy Act by giving DOGE access to the personal records of millions of federal employees. USAID took the hardest hit. Its staff was cut by about 99%, and programs fighting HIV, malaria and hunger were shut off almost overnight. Boston University researcher Brooke Nichols built a tracker that estimated about 781,000 deaths in the first year after the cuts, including about 518,000 children. A study in The Lancet projected 14 million additional deaths by 2030 if the cuts stay in place, including 4.5 million children under 5. Some critics have challenged those numbers. Musk and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have both said no one died because of the cuts. Musk left DOGE in May 2025. He later said that if he could do it again, he would have worked on his companies instead. The Internet Remembers: Poli Alert’s series bringing back the clips politicians and public figures hope you forgot. #TheInternetRemembers

Lauren Boebert has lost her seat in Congress, CNN projects. Democrat Eileen Laubacher, a retired Navy rear admiral, leads by more than 3,000 votes in Colorado’s 4th District, the most Republican district in the state, a seat Boebert won by 11 points two years ago. Boebert’s campaign says it’s investigating “unusual voting patterns” and expects a recount, but Laubacher’s lead is more than three times the margin that would trigger a free automatic recount, so Boebert would have to pay for one herself. polialert.com/bh1b

Medicaid work requirements begin for adults in Iowa by December 1 and must be in place in every state that expanded Medicaid by January 1, 2027, under a tax and spending law Trump signed in 2025. Medicaid expansion is the option, taken by most states, to cover adults with low incomes who would not otherwise qualify. polialert.com/defy

Brett Shumate, the DOJ lawyer who defended the administration after deportation flights landed in El Salvador despite a judge's order, has resigned. He is the fourth senior Justice Department official to quit since Republicans lost big in the midterms, following Harmeet Dhillon, John Eisenberg and Henry Whitaker. polialert.com/ngvj

Senate Republicans are pushing to delay their upcoming GOP leadership elections as members of the party face growing questions about what went wrong in the 2026 midterm elections and who should lead them when Democrats take control of the chamber next year. Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Dave McCormick of Pennsylvania are among the Republicans calling for more time before the party votes on its leadership team. The elections are currently scheduled for Tuesday, November 10. polialert.com/fcza

Trump told 60 Minutes his deportation policy "might be too tough" and helped cost Republicans in the midterms. Rep. María Elvira Salazar thanked him and pitched her Dignity Act, which would give some longtime undocumented immigrants temporary legal status. MAGA did not take it well. Her replies filled up with "no amnesty," calls of treason, and even threats to impeach Trump if he goes along with it. #DraggedOnTheFloor polialert.com/7n93

Katie Miller is ending her podcast now that her husband, Stephen Miller, is Trump's new White House chief of staff. She says nothing is more important than raising their four kids and the time commitment is too great. She'll release the two episodes she already taped, then step away. polialert.com/h6ow

Trump told 60 Minutes his deportation policy "might be too tough" and said immigrants who have been here 10 to 15 years should be able to "work a deal." He even called the people who want everyone deported the "pretty far right." Hours later, Stephen Miller, the architect of mass deportations, was named chief of staff. MAGA is not taking it well. polialert.com/szi1