Good afternoon. I’m Ryan Rose, 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.
Donald Trump admitted he has “very severe problems” when talking about his health. Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Meta, and Nvidia are among the 37 donors funding Trump’s $300 million White House ballroom. White House press secretary Katie Zacharia confirmed she never passed the bar exam after calling herself a lawyer for years on social media and cable news. And the Trump administration sued California to block ballots from 20,000 people it claims could be non-citizens.
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By the looks of it, his mouth isn’t the only thing leaking these days.
Trump acknowledged Thursday in a Rose Garden speech to first responders that he has “some very severe problems,” but did not say what they were. Seconds later, he tried to walk back the remark, telling the crowd he had “probably set myself up for that one.”
“If you don’t drink, or if you don’t take drugs, or if you don’t smoke, there’s no problem,” Trump said. “I have other problems. I have some very severe problems. But those are not one of them.”
He acknowledged that the remark would invite scrutiny, saying, “the press is gonna say, ‘What problem does he have? Let’s figure it out.’” He then called reporters “wonderful people,” prompting laughter from the crowd.
Trump’s physical condition has been subject to scrutiny in recent months. Doctors cited in a Washington Post report in August said his weight is a significant health risk, and observers have noted his visibly swollen ankles and habit of falling asleep during public appearances.
Trump declared after a physical in May that he is in perfect health. He also said just days ago that he’s never had the flu, which would make him the only person alive who has survived 80 winters and a global pandemic without catching it once.
Google is the only company in history to settle a lawsuit by remodeling the plaintiff’s house.
Silicon Valley and the crypto industry have contributed more than $150 million to Trump’s $300 million White House ballroom project, according to a donor list obtained by the Washington Post. Apple and Nvidia each contributed $25 million, the two biggest contributions, followed by Google with $22 million and Palantir with $10 million.
Microsoft contributed $10 million, while Amazon and Meta each gave $5 million. Google’s $22 million came from a settlement the company reached with Trump in 2025 over his lawsuit against YouTube for banning his account after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Some of that money was provided by individuals and charitable groups connected to major firms. Roblox CEO David Baszucki gave $5 million, and the Winklevoss twins gave just over $5 million through their crypto exchange Gemini.
The donations came as each of the companies faces antitrust reviews from Trump’s Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission. Google alone has lost two monopoly cases, and Apple, Amazon, and Meta are all battling federal lawsuits that could force them to break up parts of their businesses.
The only bar she’s passed is the one in the White House dining room.
White House press secretary Katie Zacharia has confirmed that she has never passed the bar exam in any state, despite repeatedly referring to herself as a lawyer and being described by Trump as “an attorney.” She failed the California bar in 2011, and didn’t take it anywhere else, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Zacharia said she was distracted by wedding plans and a move to China when she took the exam, and that she “didn’t think much” of the results. She said she was careful never to use the phrase “attorney at law,” but CNN found at least 15 social media posts over the past two years in which she called herself an “attorney.”
Trump called Zacharia “an attorney” on Truth Social, and her Instagram bio currently says she’s a lawyer. In California, where Zacharia was a resident before being named press secretary, it is a misdemeanor to present yourself as a lawyer without a license.
The Campaign for Accountability, a liberal watchdog group, has filed a complaint with the State Bar of California under Section 6126 of the state’s Business and Professions Code. Executive director Michelle Kuppersmith said in a statement that in California, “calling yourself a lawyer without a license isn’t puffery; it’s a crime.”
The software has found fewer non-citizens than the Loch Ness Society has found Loch Ness Monsters.
The Trump administration sued California on Thursday to stop the state from counting ballots from an estimated 20,000 people it says may not be U.S. citizens. Legal experts called the lawsuit “a guaranteed loss” and “a press release masquerading as litigation.”
The administration said it identified the 20,000 names after running public voter rolls through third-party software that matched them against immigration records. When Nevada went through the same process, the initial list of nearly 16,000 suspected non-citizens was reduced to 185 after review, and the state said all 185 appeared to be citizens.
California Secretary of State Shirley Weber said the information the administration provided “lacks both the detail and function to be of any investigative use.” She said her office would welcome actual evidence of ineligible voters but would not disenfranchise thousands of Californians based on an unsupported belief.
Already courts have dismissed two dozen DOJ lawsuits seeking sensitive voter registration data from states that refused to turn it over. Judges also have blocked executive orders Trump signed in 2025 and 2026 that aimed to alter how states run elections.
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** Wyoming Is No Longer Considered Safe for Republicans in Its Only House Race. **Inside Elections changed Wyoming’s at-large House seat from “Solid Republican” to “Likely Republican” this week, a stunning move for the state where Trump won 71.6 percent of the vote in 2024. The forecaster wrote that Trump “is barely above water in private polling” and that GOP nominee Chuck Gray, the state’s secretary of state, “is deeply unpopular statewide.” Gray won a crowded Republican primary with only 25.3 percent of the vote. Democratic nominee Lisa Kinney, a lawyer and former state senator, is leading in limited polling but has raised only $17,946 as of late July.
** Elon Musk Settles Lawsuits Over $1 Million Voter Giveaway After Lawyers Confess.** Musk and his political action committee, America PAC, settled two proposed class-action lawsuits over his 2024 election giveaway, which offered daily $1 million prizes to registered voters in battleground states who signed a petition supporting the Constitution. Settlement notices were filed Oct. 15 in Austin, Texas, but the terms have not been disclosed and the agreements await court approval, according to federal court records. The lawsuits were filed by two Arizona residents who say they were misled about the selection process for recipients. In prior court filings, Musk’s attorneys conceded that winners had not been picked randomly, but assessed for their potential as public spokespeople.
New Bill Would Stop Companies From Delisting Video Games You Already Bought. Congress is considering legislation that would ban video game companies from selling digital games as revocable licenses that can be shut off years after purchase. Under the Power to the Players Act, the Federal Trade Commission would be required to ensure ownership rights for purchases made in digital games, and online features in games would have to be playable offline if servers go down. 2K Games confirmed that it is delisting NBA 2K25 just two years after it was released, making a game that millions of people paid $70 for mostly useless by January. Sony plans to end disc production for its next console generation, and Grand Theft Auto 6 hits next month as only a download code in a box starting at $80.
Stanford Scientists Discovered That Healthy Coral Can Revive Bleached Neighbors. Healthy coral placed in direct contact with bleached coral was enough to restore the dying specimens, researchers at Stanford University found, a finding published this week in the journal Science Advances. Five days of direct contact between healthy and bleached fragments were enough for the bleached coral to start recovering completely, the fastest recovery documented so far. The discovery came partly by accident when senior author Stephen Palumbi noticed in his lab that a healthy coral had tipped onto a bleached one, and the bleached specimen had begun to regain its color. The team is now investigating whether healthy specimens can be extracted and grown for mass reintroduction to bleached reefs around the globe.
