At Mar-a-Lago's Halloween Gala, Trump Rips a Former Lawyer's Reported $50 Million Pardon Payment
Between six tele-rallies and a jungle-theme party opening his club's social season, the president told reporters the reported payment to Alina Habba was 'totally obnoxious and outrageous' — and that he feels good about Florida's Senate race.
President Donald Trump's 30th stay at Mar-a-Lago this term sandwiched an extravagant Halloween gala between political work: six scheduled 30-minute tele-rallies ahead of Tuesday's midterms, a round of golf at his nearby club, and remarks to reporters in which he said he was "feeling good" about Republican Senate candidates in Michigan, Alaska and Florida, where Sen. Ashley Moody tops the ballot. The jungle-theme gala, with emerald floodlights and guests in safari and animal-print costumes, opened the Palm Beach club's winter social season; Trump, in his usual dark suit and red tie, joked that he had dressed as "Donald Trump."
The sharpest moment came over a former ally. Trump bristled at the revelation that one of his former attorneys, Alina Habba, is reported to have pocketed $50 million after securing a pardon for Venezuelan billionaire Julio Herrera Velutini, who was indicted in 2022 on bribery charges and pleaded guilty to a campaign-finance violation in 2025 before Trump pardoned him. "It's one thing for a person to get paid legal fees or whatever. She's a lawyer," Trump said. "I thought it was totally obnoxious and outrageous, and it's not acceptable." He spoke warmly, by contrast, of Nvidia chief Jensen Huang, calling him "a great, brilliant person."
The weekend also carried Florida numbers the president repeated and reporters checked: regular gasoline in Florida averaged $3.86 a gallon, almost a dollar more than on Nov. 1, 2025, even as Trump predicted prices will be "dropping like a rock very soon." Trump, who cast an in-person early ballot on Oct. 24, departed Palm Beach on Sunday, the final day of Florida early voting, with more than 5.1 million Floridians already voted — 350,000 of them in Palm Beach County — and rallies in Iowa and Kansas next on his schedule.
