Good morning. I’m Corinne Straight, and this is AlterNet America. Please take a moment to click the ❤️ and restack this post. The oligarchs’ platforms are trying to keep stories like the ones below from hitting your feeds, and this helps us break through.
Trump told a rally crowd that they’re “collateral damage” and bragged that White House doctors would ignore them. Leaked texts show Trump’s own team roasting new press secretary Katie Zacharia after her disastrous first briefing. Nearly all of Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton’s money is coming from one man. And two women have sued former congressman Matt Gaetz in federal court, accusing him of sex trafficking.
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He can remember five words but not that you’re a person.
Trump told a rally audience in Arizona that his doctors would refuse to treat a fan having a heart attack because their job is to stay by his side. He pointed to a man in the audience and said the man “looks like shit” and that a dying supporter would be “collateral damage.”
“I travel with more doctors than any human being. If people get sick in the audience, they leave ’em alone,” he said. “You know what they call them? Collateral damage. If that person right over there, a friend of mine — he looks like shit, actually. He looks like he’s ready to have a heart attack. If he actually had a heart attack, you know what my doctors would do? … They would leave him alone!”
Trump said the White House travels with six ambulances but none would be used for anyone but himself. CNN medical analyst Jonathan Reiner called the claim completely false, as no physician bound by the Hippocratic oath would stand by and watch someone die.
Shortly before that, Trump was boasting about acing a dementia test. He said the test was “very standard, but very tough,” and described being asked to remember five words: “hat, hair, logo, white, black.” When he successfully recited them, he said the test administrators were stunned by his mental abilities. He then called himself “a frickin’ genius.”
We’ve all called the teacher “mom,” but most of us weren’t on C-SPAN.
Trump’s new White House press secretary, Katie Zacharia, is being privately roasted by her own colleagues after her disastrous first briefing, according to leaked messages reported by the Daily Mail. The briefing lasted 14 minutes, during which she mistakenly referred to the president as her husband before taking questions from just three reporters.
One senior Trump administration official said bluntly that Zacharia “could barely read.” Another suggested she was deliberately set up, writing, “So who in the building wanted to see her fail?” One communications expert didn’t bother with words, responding with dumpster and fire emojis.
Zacharia is also facing questions about her legal credentials, which she appears to have fabricated. According to The Wall Street Journal, she failed the bar exam in 2011 after graduating from Pepperdine University’s law school, despite repeatedly identifying herself as an attorney on Fox News.
When asked by a reporter what state she had passed the bar in, Zacharia said she had taken it in China, which does not allow foreigners to sit for its bar exam. One senior administration official said Zacharia’s hiring is a symptom of a White House that is “collapsing” and “completely unequipped” for wartime governance.
Elon Musk has spent more on Ken Paxton than on quality control at Tesla.
Musk sent $158 million in September to a super PAC that immediately redirected the same amount to a group backing Paxton’s Texas Senate campaign, according to campaign-finance filings released Thursday. The donations are among the largest ever recorded in American politics.
Musk sent the money in two installments to the Senate Leadership Fund, the top super PAC for Senate Republicans, donating $75 million on September 9 and $83 million on September 23. Each time, the super PAC cut a check for the same amount to Texas PAC, a group the Senate Leadership Fund had set up specifically to support Paxton, on the very next day.
The two are close political allies, in part because Musk has major business interests in Texas that are regulated by Paxton as attorney general. Musk also gave $10 million to another super PAC supporting Paxton that started airing TV ads in late August.
Democratic challenger James Talarico has centered his campaign around fighting billionaire influence, naming Musk specifically. He said during a debate: “These billionaires aren’t just buying yachts and jets. They are buying power. Our schools are being defunded so billionaires can get another tax break.”
Trump wanted this man to run the Department of Justice.
Two women have sued former Republican congressman Matt Gaetz in federal court, alleging sex trafficking, according to the Miami Herald. The lawsuit alleges that Gaetz and two other Florida political figures paid them for sex and gave them drugs between 2017 and 2019.
The two plaintiffs, identified as Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2, were 20 and 22 years old when they met Gaetz in 2017. They say they were recruited through the website SeekingArrangement.com by co-defendant Joel Greenberg, the former Seminole County tax collector now serving an 11-year federal sentence for sex trafficking of a minor, when they didn’t have a steady income.
Jane Doe 1’s lawsuit accuses Gaetz of having sex with a 17-year-old woman, which is consistent with the allegations that led to his resignation from the House. She also says Gaetz paid her more than $6,000, with payment descriptions reading “Being my friend” and “Love you.”
Trump nominated Gaetz for attorney general in November 2024 as the House Ethics Committee was preparing to release a report on allegations of sexual misconduct and drug use. The nomination fell apart within weeks after several Republican senators declared they would not vote to confirm him.
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Trump Reportedly Exploring Replacements for Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. Trump has been reaching out to allies to discuss potential successors to his chief of staff, Politico reported Thursday. Possible replacements include deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, New York Yankees president Randy Levine, Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and ousted House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. In a statement, Trump defended Wiles publicly, saying she was his “trusted advisor” and had his “COMPLETE confidence.” But a senior elected Republican who took Trump’s call told Politico that the president had raised “the first honest questions about Susie.” Since returning to office, more than half of Trump’s original senior staff had departed, and four Cabinet positions have turned over.
** Federal Judge Orders Trump Administration to Reopen the Diversity Visa Lottery.** A federal judge in San Diego has ordered the State Department to reopen the 2027 diversity visa lottery, which allows up to 55,000 people from around the world to apply for permanent residence. The Trump administration had failed to open the program’s registration period on time and then claimed it was too late to open it, effectively canceling the lottery without Congress. U.S. District Judge Jinsook Ohta ruled that Secretary of State Marco Rubio must publicly announce the registration period by midnight on October 15 and keep it open for at least 30 days.
** Former Texas House Speaker Says Republican Anti-Trans Ads Are Failing.** Former Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan told Texas Monthly that his party’s ads targeting transgender people are not resonating with the swing voters who will decide future elections. He said those voters have never faced the issue in their own communities and have no clue what Republicans are talking about when they bring up trans athletes. Elon Musk’s super PAC has spent over $100 million on anti-trans advertising in crucial midterm races this cycle, despite the Human Rights Campaign finding in 2024 that only 4 percent of voters said the issue motivated their vote.
** National Homicide Rate Tied the Lowest on Record in 2025.** The estimated U.S. murder rate dropped 18.1 percent in 2025 compared with the year before, tying the lowest rate ever recorded since national estimates began in the 1950s. A survey of close to 50 crime scholars convened by the nonpartisan Council on Criminal Justice pointed to community violence intervention programs, the easing of pandemic-related disruptions and deterrence strategies that combine law enforcement with social services as the biggest contributors to the decline. The researchers largely rejected the explanations most often cited by Republicans, including National Guard deployments and increased immigration enforcement.