This week, Donald Trump delivered his version of a sad tiny desk performance, hunched over the defendant’s table in a New York courtroom, diminished and watching the illusion of power and grandeur he has sold voters thin and run like oil in a hot pan.
He insisted on appearing in person at his civil fraud trial, apparently believing that he would continue to perform his perverse magic of converting that which would have ended other political careers into a political win for himself.
His hubris seemed to consume him, persuading him that in matters of optics, he’s not only invincible but unmatched.
He has done it before: In August he scowled in his mug shot — a precursor to his Fulton County, Ga., criminal trial — summoning the allure of an outlaw, using the photo to raise millions of dollars, according to his campaign.
But I think his attempts at cosplaying some sort of roguish flintiness will wind up being missteps. Courtrooms don’t allow for political-rally stagecraft. There’s no place to plant primed supporters behind him to ensure that every camera angle captures excited admirers. He’s not the center of attention, the impresario of the event; no, he must sit silently in lighting not intended to flatter and in chairs not intended to impress.
Courtrooms humble the people in them. They equalize. They democratize. In the courtroom, Trump is just another defendant — and in it, he looks small. The phantasm of indomitability, the idea of him being wily and slick, surrenders to the flame like tissues in a campfire.
The image was not of a defiant would-be king but of a man stewing and defeated.
The judge in the case even issued a limited gag order after Trump posted a picture of and a comment about the judge’s clerk on Truth Social.
Meanwhile, there’s the historic ouster of the House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, by members of his own party for the unforgivable sin of seeking a bipartisan solution to keep the government open.
In Greek mythology exists the story of the Gigantomachy, a battle between the Olympian gods and giants. According to prophecy, the gods could emerge victorious only if assisted by a mortal. Hercules came to the rescue.
But in Republicans’ version of this drama, McCarthy could have emerged victorious over his party’s anarchists only if Democrats had come to his aid. None did.
He was felled by a revolt led not by a giant but by the smallest of men, not in stature but in principles: the charmless Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida.
Anyone who thought that Democrats were going to save McCarthy should have thought again. Ultimately, he succumbed to the result of his own craven pursuit of power: The rule that Gaetz used to initiate the vote to strip McCarthy of the speaker’s gavel was the rule McCarthy agreed to in order to get his hands on the gavel in the first place.
Republicans are engaged in an intense session of self-flagellation. Does it also hurt the country? Yes. But in one way it might help: America needs to clearly see who the culprits are in today’s political chaos, and the damage they cause, so that voters can correct course.
And the events of this week should give voters pause. The tableau that emerges from the troubles of Trump and McCarthy is one in which the G.O.P.’s leaders are chastened and cowed, one in which their power is stripped and their efforts rebuked.
This is just one week among many leading up to the 2024 elections, but it is weeks like this that leave a mark, because the images that emerge from them are indelible.
All the inflamed consternation about Joe Biden’s age and Hunter Biden’s legal troubles will, in the end, have to be weighed against something far more consequential: Republicans — obsessed with blind obeisance, a lust for vengeance and a contempt for accountability — who no longer have the desire or capacity to actually lead.
Their impulses to disrupt and destroy keep winning out, foreshadowing even more of a national disaster if their power grows as a result.
How Republican primary voters respond to this Republican maelstrom of incompetence is one thing. How general election voters will respond to it is quite another.
Franklin elections: Hanson says Tennessee Active Club not hired; board decries ‘neo-Nazis’
Craig Shoup, Nashville Tennessean – October 4, 2023
Controversial Franklin mayoral candidate Gabrielle Hanson posted on social media Wednesday that she did not hire members of the Tennessee Active Club, an organization identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a white nationalist hate group, for security during Monday’s candidate forum.
Hanson’s comments were followed by a response from Franklin’s Board of Mayor and Aldermen, which released its own public statement via email within hours of her post.
“We, the Board of Mayor and Aldermen, are deeply concerned and disturbed by the events that unfolded at Monday night’s candidate forum for the upcoming city election,” the board’s statement reads. “Individuals identifying as neo-Nazi’s and self-admitted supporters of Gabrielle Hanson threatened both our citizens and members of the media during and after this important civic event.”
The board’s statement said it wouldn’t “tolerate any form of hatred, intimidation, or violence directed at our residents, media representatives, or anyone else attending or participating in the democratic process,” and it urged all candidates currently seeking office in Franklin, including Hanson, to “join us in denouncing the actions and organizations as well.”
The statement ended with the names of the current Franklin board, including Hanson’s opponent in the mayoral race, incumbent Ken Moore. She wasn’t listed.
In her post, Hanson said she wanted to set the record straight about what happened Monday.
“I want to make something very clear. I did not hire the group that showed up at the debate the other night, nor did I ask them to participate as security for the event. I want to be unequivocal on this matter,” Hanson said in the statement posted to her Instagram story Wednesday afternoon.
“Furthermore, I want to state categorically that I am not, nor have I ever been associated with any white supremacy or Nazi-affiliated group.”
Hanson explained that she’s working as the “broker on Brad’s (Lewis Country) store,” and categorized her interactions with him as nothing but professional and courteous. Lewis Country Store came under fire earlier this summer after it was revealed that members of the Tennessee Active Club were using the gym above the store.
Media coverage focusing on the Tennessee Active Club’s presence at the forum is “nothing more than a baseless hit piece meant to distract from the real issues at hand,” Hanson wrote.
Tennessee Active Club also released statements about what happened Monday, noting that it was “absurd Gabrielle Hanson hired us. We do this for free at our own expense.”
The group did not say whether Hanson asked them for help.
MAGA Mayoral Candidate Seemingly Promotes White Nationalists in News Release
Josh Fiallo – October 4, 2023
Office of Alderman Gabrielle Hanson
Gabrielle Hanson, the MAGA-loving mayoral candidate who’s become embroiled in controversy after controversy this year, has done it again—this time inserting screenshots of messages from a known white nationalist group into her own news release.
Hanson, who’s vying to become the mayor of Franklin, Tennessee, shared the messages in an attempt to prove that the Tennessee Active Club—a recognized hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center—weren’t invited to provide security for her outside a mayoral forum on Monday. She claimed they instead showed up and acted on their own.
But Hanson never condemned the neo-Nazis in her news release, nor did she ask them to not show up at future forums and events. Instead, she embedded three Telegram messages to a news release that did more to promote the hate group than it did to denounce it.
The posts claimed the current Franklin mayor, Ken Moore, has connections to “antifa”—a blanket term for a loosely-affiliated network of anti-fascist groups that have battled right-wing demonstrators at various public gatherings over the past few years—and that the group of white nationalists showed up to provide security for community members.
“Our group is not backing any political entity but is protecting the public from Antifa,” the first message said. “Remember there is no political solution.”
The other messages emphasized that the group showed up “for free at our own expense” and that they’ll continue to pop up at municipal gatherings until Franklin—a wealthy suburb of Nashville that’s famously home to scores of country musicians and their families—is free of antifa.
Hanson emphasized in her release that she’s never been associated with a neo-Nazi group. She also took a shot at the local TV news reporter Phil Williams—who’s been a thorn in Hanson’s side—by claiming he published a “baseless hit piece” for pointing out that white supremacists escorted Hanson and her husband inside Monday’s forum.
Others involved in Franklin politics quickly denounced the Active Club’s presence, including Moore and State Rep. Sam Whitson, but Hanson never did. In a News Channel 5 report, Williams said that masked neo-Nazis told reporters on Monday that they were “just here to protect Gabrielle.”
One of the men working as security detail reportedly identified himself as Sean Kauffmann, who was described by the Stop Antisemitism watchdog group as being a “disturbed neo-Nazi and Holocaust denier with a documented history of violence and a massive cache of firearms.” He was reportedly spotted doing a Nazi salute outside a drag show in Cookeville, Tennessee, earlier this year.
Hanson’s beef with Williams escalated last week. The reporter’s station was the first to reveal on Sept. 27 that Hanson’s husband once rocked an American flag Speedo—and nothing else, save for a gold chain, glasses, and shoes—to a Pride event in Chicago, with Hanson’s blessing. The report exposed her hypocrisy on LGBTQ issues, as she’d earlier that year used her position as a city alderman to try to stop a local Pride festival because she feared it’d bring out drag queens and scantily clad revelers she deemed a threat to “innocent children.”
Later that day, drama broke out at a mayoral forum held inside a ritzy subdivision’s clubhouse, with Hanson-supporting residents getting into a nasty—and briefly physical—spat with Williams as he tried to enter the event with a cameraman.
One Hanson supporter was captured on video taking a swipe at Williams, which prompted a Franklin cop to scold the woman and say, “Stop touching him or you’re going to jail.” After the event, Hanson didn’t apologize for her supporters’ behavior, instead railing against Williams on Facebook and painting him as an agitator. A recording by a journalist at the event also captured Hanson telling someone, “No Channel 5. They have to leave.”
Even prior to last week’s forum, Hanson routinely put herself in the center of drama. She claimed in May that Audrey Hale, the shooter who gunned down six before being killed by cops at The Covenant School, was in a love triangle with staffers there. Cops immediately shot that rumor down as false, but Hanson has still insisted her sources know the truth.
Hanson has also been skewered for downplaying lynching and for opposing the addition of “racial terror” markers in Franklin. She was also criticized for bizarrely threatening to retaliate against the local airport for supporting a Juneteenth festival, and it was revealed in September that she was arrested in college for promoting prostitution—charges she claimed publicly amounted to a simple misdemeanor, though Williams confirmed last week that they were actually felony charges.
Whether Hanson’s laundry list of controversies will hurt her at the polls will be known soon, as Franklin’s mayoral election is slated to be held on Oct. 24.
The ultra-rich are not just the worst polluters–their donations to climate action are also another way of hoarding money and gaming the system
Alan Davis – October 4, 2023
Getty Images
Everyone should know that we’re heading to a climate disaster that can best be modified by immediate actions addressing the causes. But it doesn’t appear that the excessively rich are feeling the heat and stepping up to the plate. Their philanthropic foundations announce commitments to fight climate change but in reality, they are building up endowments to save for the future.
It is estimated that it could take $3 to 10 trillion (twelve zeroes) per year to avoid climate disaster. Even if they wanted to fix the climate problem, it would require extraordinary collective action for philanthropists to pony up enough money to fix the climate problem. Only governments (funded by taxes on these very ultra-wealthy donors) can effectively do that. In short, the philanthropic investments now being made are necessary but insufficient.
We need to hold the ultra-rich responsible for the role their investments play in worsening the climate crisis, call out their insincere philanthropic efforts aimed at “addressing” climate change, and hold them accountable for paying their fair share of taxes to provide funding for clean energy.
Extreme inequality and wealth concentration undermine humanity’s ability to stop climate breakdown. The richest of the rich play the largest role in driving and accelerating the climate crisis with out-of-control carbon footprints due to extravagant lifestyles, excessive wealth-hoarding, corporate greed, and investments in polluting industries. Poor and middle-class communities who share the least responsibility for the problem will bear the brunt of climate change and suffer the most as shifting weather patterns, destructive storms, floods, wildfires, and heat waves wreak havoc across the globe, with the potential to displace 216 million people from their homes (and countries) by 2050.
According to the most recent data, the world’s top 125 billionaires have “an average of 14% of their investments in polluting industries, such as fossil fuels and materials like cement….Only one billionaire in the sample had investments in a renewable energy company.” When combining the impact from both their investments and lifestyles, carbon emissions exceed 3 million tons per billionaire, about a million times greater than the average person! The same report finds that through campaign contributions and lobbying, the wealthiest among us have an oversized impact on election outcomes and more political power than anyone else to protect their investments and shape climate policies in their favor.
And therein lies the biggest problem: We must have a functioning democracy to address society’s most pressing issues, including climate change–one where an exclusive ruling class doesn’t control our policies. When the government is beholden to the excessively wealthy, backroom deals influence laws and shape the rules without the public’s knowledge or ability to change the outcomes. The only way to limit the power of the excessively wealthy is to stop the hoarding of excessive wealth.
Extremely rich Americans hoard their wealth through tax loopholes and preferential policies enforced by their armies of lawyers, accountants, wealth advisers, and politicians. Four simple tax solutions would address excessive wealth hoarding: a multi-millionaire income tax, a robust wealth tax, closing gaping estate tax loopholes through an estate or inheritance tax, and finally, changes to the tax rules to foster increased, transparent and more equitable charitable giving.
We are facing a collective emergency: to save the planet from–and for–ourselves. The rapidly accelerating climate crisis is a class issue that impacts all of humanity. The reality is that our futures are interconnected with one another–and economic and climate inequality reinforce each other. To develop solutions that slow or solve climate change, we must address the deep-seated conflicts of interest and the systemic inequalities of our unjust wealth system.
Giuliani to lose 2nd attorney in Georgia, leaving him without local legal team
Olivia Rubin – October 4, 2023
Giuliani to lose 2nd attorney in Georgia, leaving him without local legal team
A second lawyer for Rudy Giuliani is seeking to depart his legal team in Georgia, sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News, a move that would appear to leave the former New York City mayor without any local lawyers in the state.
A motion to withdraw has been submitted to the clerk, the sources said. A judge in the case has to sign off on the motion.
News of the move comes after several other former attorneys of the Trump ally have sued Giuliani for failure to pay his bills, including his longtime friend and attorney Bob Costello, who sued Giuliani for over $1 million in payments due to his firm.
Earlier, an additional lawyer for Giuliani in Georgia, David Wolfe, submitted his own motion to withdraw from his representation of Giuliani.
Sources close to Giuliani say the former mayor is close to retaining new local representation.
Giuliani, along with former President Donald Trump and 17 others, have pleaded not guilty to all charges in a sweeping racketeering indictment for alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.
On Monday, Trump threatened and raged at the judge presiding over his civil trial in New York for fraud and other financial crimes. Trump also verbally attacked and threatened New York Attorney General Letitia James, calling her a “racist” and “a horror show.” James is a Black woman. While in court, Trump scowled like an adult toddler and looked like he was having murderous thoughts of revenge and suffering. Trump’s performance was generally pompous and detached from reality, as the ex-president lied and claimed that he was being “persecuted” and is a type of victim-martyr for the MAGA cause. On Tuesday, the judge barred him from making personal attacks on court staff after the former president disparaged a law clerk. In all, Trump’s behavior was that of a cult leader and demagogue who is finally facing some type of serious accountability for his criminal behavior.
None of this really matters to Trump’s MAGA cultists and other followers. Trump’s hold over them remains very strong and appears to be largely immune to any outside intervention. Moreover, Trump’s power and control over the MAGA cult endures – despite and even more likely because of his criminal trials and escalating violence and other destructive and dangerous behavior.
A well-funded group of anti-Trump conservatives has sent its donors a remarkably candid memo that reveals how resilient former President Donald J. Trump has been against millions of dollars of negative ads the group deployed against him in two early-voting states.
The political action committee, called Win It Back, has close ties to the influential fiscally conservative group Club for Growth. It has already spent more than $4 million trying to lower Mr. Trump’s support among Republican voters in Iowa and nearly $2 million more trying to damage him in South Carolina.
But in the memo — dated Thursday and obtained by The New York Times — the head of Win It Back PAC, David McIntosh, acknowledges to donors that after extensive testing of more than 40 anti-Trump television ads, “all attempts to undermine his conservative credentials on specific issues were ineffective.”
The memo will provide little reassurance to the rest of the field of Mr. Trump’s Republican rivals that there is any elusive message out there that can work to deflate his support.
“Even when you show video to Republican primary voters — with complete context — of President Trump saying something otherwise objectionable to primary voters, they find a way to rationalize and dismiss it,” Mr. McIntosh states in the “key learnings” section of the memo.
The article continues:
For the polling underpinning its analysis, Win It Back used WPA Intelligence — a firm that also works for the super PAC supporting Mr. Trump’s chief rival in the race for the presidential nomination, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.
Examples of “failed” ads cited in the memo included attacks on Mr. Trump’s “handling of the pandemic, promotion of vaccines, praise of Dr. Fauci, insane government spending, failure to build the wall, recent attacks on pro-life legislation, refusal to fight woke issues, openness to gun control, and many others.” (Dr. Anthony S. Fauci led the national response to the Covid pandemic.)
The list of failed attacks is notable because it includes many of the arguments that Mr. DeSantis has tried against Mr. Trump. The former president leads Mr. DeSantis by more than 40 points in national polls and by around 30 points in Iowa, where Mr. DeSantis’s team believes he has the best shot of defeating Mr. Trump.
Mr. McIntosh, a former Indiana congressman who co-founded the Club for Growth and the Federalist Society, makes it clear in the memo that any anti-Trump messages need to be delivered with kid gloves. That might explain why Mr. DeSantis’s super PAC, Never Back Down, has treated Mr. Trump gingerly, even in ads meant to contrast his character and his record unfavorably against Mr. DeSantis’s accomplishments.
Swan’s reporting reinforces how Trumpism and American neofascism constitute a political, cultural, and moral crisis for the country and world. It is true that tens of millions of Americans correctly view Trump with contempt and understand that is an extreme threat to the country’s democracy and society. Unfortunately, tens of millions of other Americans view that same foul and evil behavior by Donald Trump as something admirable, evidence that he is “strong” and a “fighter” who is willing to break the law and undermine democracy to get things done for people like them. And perhaps even more troubling for what it reveals about the health of American society, there are tens of millions of other Americans who are indifferent to Trump’s evil and wrongdoing and the existential danger that he and the Republican fascists and MAGA movement represent to the country.
In an attempt to make better sense of the enduring power of the Trump MAGA cult, I asked a range of experts for their insights and reactions to this important new reporting by the New York Times.
Dr. Lance Dodes is a retired assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and a training and supervising analyst emeritus at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute.
The recent finding that Trump supporters will rationalize and ignore even sophisticated ads produced by Republicans against Trump — ads showing him saying things that are opposed to the very values of the Republican audience — is strong evidence of the cult-like nature of at least the most committed of his followers. Cults have exactly this characteristic: unquestioning worship of a charismatic leader and inability to hear or consider opposing or even differing views, especially about the leader who must remain godlike. Trump’s personal primitive psychology, in which he believes himself to be godlike and has contempt for others as valuable human beings, makes him a perfect candidate to surround himself with a cult. In turn, members vulnerable to joining the cult seek just such a godlike figure in a regressive wish to be protected, cared for, and told how to think. The irony of course is that the leader, Trump in this case, cares only about his grandiosity and nothing at all about them or their welfare.
It’s been impossible to draw these regressed followers away from the cult not only because of their wishful belief in their charismatic god, but also because leaving the cult would mean the loss of support and identity from the other cult members who, like Trump himself, would condemn them as evil.
To enable cult members to leave they would have to have a significantly large enough number of others to create a new inclusive, protective group to which they could attach themselves. That might happen if a new charismatic leader arose to lead them away in large enough numbers to feel safe rebelling from the old leader. It would help for there to be a major event that a new leader within or outside the group could seize upon to redirect the members, like the honest child in the fable who finally spoke up to say the emperor had no clothes. There probably are figures within the Republican Party who could serve in that role, but it would require more moral and political courage than we have seen so far.
Jen Senko is the director of the documentary “The Brainwashing of My Dad.”
Yes, Trump COULD stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot someone, and they would still be devoted. Dare I say he could even claim he’s a woke lib and his followers wouldn’t even hear it. It no longer matters what he says.
We all know by now; this is classic cult behavior. It’s all about the leader, not the ideology or what the person they follow represents—they might represent nothing. Cult followers abdicate their reasoning, and their own ideas of what is good or bad to a leader. Giving themselves over to a leader absolves them of any guilt or responsibility. If confused by all the stuff flooding the zone and the contradictions in the news, it’s almost a relief to just hand it over to a leader who says He Knows.
Oppositional messaging in the case of a “culture war leader” will never work, because it is seen as the words of enemies against Trump and his followers. Trump’s lies are thus not interpreted as destructive words but as part of a clarion call to arms to overturn the deep state that must be defeated to restore America to its purported roots, which, incidentally, Trump has never specified what he means by them, in true Orwellian fashion. Any message against him is thus filtered out as an attack from opposing warring armies in the ongoing cultural war, and thus discarded as tactics. Trump’s lies are perceived to be verbal weapons in that war. There is nothing Trump could say or do that would erode support from his followers, because he is seen as the leader of the greater cause of taking down the enemies that he and his blind followers see as the source of America’s and their own troubles, and as eroding the fabric of American society. Outside of Trump’s influence, the same people can be compassionate, empathic, generous, but in their Trump-aligned echo chamber they become antisocial toward outsiders. It is somewhat ironic to observe that Trump and his followers portray their battle as a counterculture one, as did the hippies in the 1960s and 1970s, portraying the government as the “establishment” and the liberal democratic state—again quite ironically—as the enemy of freedom and true American values.
Dr. Justin Frank is a former clinical professor of psychiatry at the George Washington University Medical Center and the author of “Trump on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President.”
I have always believed that an important part of psychic development is the ability to face, feel, and think about loss. Trump never had that capacity, nor was allowed to have it, growing up. He immediately transformed loss into blaming others, into triumphant denial (refusing to accept that he lost), or into acts of revenge. All three characteristics dominated the January 6 insurrection.
What I learned in my psychiatric residency – as well as in my own life – is that sorrow is the vitamin of growth. Does that make denial the vitamin of autocracy? During the 2016 election Trump said that if he lost, the entire campaign would have been a waste of time and energy. Denying and dismissing loss led us to January 6. Just remember Abe Lincoln’s statement after he lost an election: “I feel like a 16-year-old who stubbed his toe: I’m too old to cry but it hurts too much to laugh” Facing the painful process of renunciation leads also to emotional growth and maturity. So, how does the GOP win back MAGA followers? It seems impossible, even if Trump goes to prison and is completely discredited.
To me, the operative word is not “win,” but wean. Trump supporters are attached to him at the mouth, at the lips, at the heart and soul. He is their divine leader, much the way an evangelical preacher becomes more important to his congregation – as the personification of God’s power – than the scriptures they recite. Trump has a similar deep effect on his flock. The only way they could be brought back to the GOP hymnal is to gently, persistently, non-judgmentally help them discover for themselves Trump’s genuine contempt for them, our country and its health and wellbeing.
Rich Logis is a former right-wing pundit and high-ranking Trump supporter. He describes himself as “a remorseful ex-Trump, DeSantis and GOP voter”. Logis is the founder of Perfect Our Union, an organization that is dedicated to healing political traumatization; building diverse, pro-democracy alliances; and perfecting our Union.
I understand the fatigue from coverage of Trump; constant MAGA/Trump trauma is exhausting and soul-draining. But it remains necessary, because our nation must be continually reminded that there is nothing Trump could do, or say, to lose the support of most voters who identify as MAGA or Ultra-MAGA. And, as a one-time, zealously devout MAGA voter, I mean “nothing” literally, not figuratively. The country club conservatives, über-wealthy GOP donors and Ronald Reagan mythologizers haven’t accepted that they no longer run the party, as evidenced by myriad Republican focus groups — whose attendees affirm their commitment to voting Trump—and the millions spent in ads intended to weaken Trump — but have the opposite intended effect.
$1 trillion in anti-Trump would help—not hurt—Trump. Electorally defeating MAGA is non-negotiable; our democratic republic, almost certainly, would not survive a second Trump presidency (which I also fear could be a permanent presidency). It’s important to be candid with the American people: electorally winning, however, is the start—not the finish—of de-traumatizing our nation from MAGA.
Joe Walsh was a Republican congressman and a leading Tea Party conservative. He is now a prominent conservative voice against Donald Trump and the host of the podcast “White Flag with Joe Walsh.”
It is a cult. How many times must that be said. One of America’s two major political parties has become completely radicalized and has given up on democracy. Trump is their cult leader. Each and every evidence of his corruption and criminality only strengthens his support within his cult. Our only job now is to defeat them.
Jill Martin Says Chemotherapy Has Been ‘Hell for Me’ After Double Mastectomy: ‘Cancer Will Take Your Soul’
Vanessa Etienne – October 4, 2023
“I’m fighting for my life,” said the ‘Today’ show’s Jill Martin, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in June
Helen Healey/NBC via Getty ImagesJill Martin
The Todayshow’s Jill Martin is sharing an emotional update on her breast cancer journey.
On Wednesday, the lifestyle and commerce contributor appeared on the morning show, alongside Hoda Kotb and Savannah Guthrie, and detailed her difficult experience going through chemotherapy.
“It’s a disconnect because I look like me and I sound like me but it’s been hard. As difficult as it’s been, it was so important to document this journey while fighting in real time,” she began.
“This has been hell for me and my family for the past two and a half months but it could’ve been prevented,” she said, holding back tears. “This is my story so far. I can’t believe this is my movie. I’m still in shock. I’m grieving as I’m healing and as I’m fighting.”
Martin recently underwent a successful double mastectomy just weeks after revealing her June breast cancerdiagnosis. However, following the mastectomy she was told that she still needed chemotherapy because cancer was found in her lymph nodes.
“Cancer will take whatever you let it. It will take your soul, it’ll take your hair. And that might seem small to you, but it’s not. Cancer wants everything,” she said.
Throughout her treatment, Martin has continued her work on the Today show, hoping that it’ll give her a sense of normalcy and encourage others to get tested and learn the importance of early detection.
“When I walk into the studio, I feel loved, I feel safe. The Today family is my family. It feels like home to me. Everyone knows what I’m going through and everyone’s amazing. You think I’m gonna let cancer take away something else I love to do?” she quipped.
However, Martin admitted that her breast cancer battle has taken a toll on her both physically and mentally.
“When I look in the mirror at the show, I can forget for a second. And I think people are like, ‘Oh, your surgery’s done! You’re good.’ But I leave the show and then I’m back in reality and I’m fighting for my life,” she said. “I feel like I’m a shell of myself, at least for me.”
Chemotherapy has been hard on her body, but Martin said it’s her “friend” as she fights “this horrible disease.” She said she’s constantly sleeping and amid treatment, she’s been trying cold capping.
Cold capping is a form of treatment where a patient wears a chilled, helmet-type hat that constricts blood vessels in hopes of preventing chemo from reaching hair follicles and lessening hair loss.
“For me, my hair’s always been something that’s made me feel like myself,” Martin explained on the show, noting that she’s lost “about 30%” of her hair due to chemotherapy. “I look in the mirror, my body’s not my body anymore.”
“A year ago, Sept. 10, I was married and I felt so beautiful that night and I felt so happy and I enjoyed every pig in a blanket. But I can’t help but think, I had cancer there, and if I would have caught it then, would I not have needed all of this?” she said in tears.
Despite the emotional and taxing journey, Martin insists that she’s going to beat breast cancer.
“It’s hard. I’m happy it’s me and not my husband, [Erik Brooks], not my parents, because I can’t imagine watching someone go through this thing,” she said. “The treatment weeks are effing hell. Anyone who’s fighting breast cancer, it’s nothing but.”
“But I will own forever that I had this and that I fought it and that I beat it,” Martin added. “Because I’ll beat it.”
TODAY’s Jill Martin gives in-depth look at life during chemo after breast cancer diagnosis
Maura Hohman – October 4, 2023
After being diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer earlier this year, TODAY contributor Jill Martin Brooks is getting honest and real about her chemotherapy journey.
She joined TODAY on Oct. 4 after several sessions of “the red devil,” one of the most aggressive types of chemo. The plan is to have eight chemotherapy sessions in total. Jill’s already undergone a double mastectomy and had 17 lymph nodes removed, and she will also undergo a hysterectomy, partially due to her history with fibroids, as well as to reduce her ovarian cancer risk.
“Cancer is the most insidious disease and thing I’ve ever encountered (and) I think I’m a tough cookie,” Jill, 47, told TODAY. “It’s strange because I look like myself. (But) I can look in the mirror, I see the difference, I see that I’ve lost some hair and I see that I don’t have the same sparkle that I like to wake up with.”
Still, continuing to work has been a bright spot for her, even if she doesn’t have the same energy she’s used to, and she’s been able to keep most of her hair and survive chemo with no vomiting. Physical therapy post-mastectomy has helped her feel more in control of her body, as well.
“You picture getting chemotherapy (as) you’re in the bathroom, hurled over,” she explained, adding that that hasn’t been her experience thanks to recent treatment advancements. She also shared that she has a chemo port, which allows her to receive the drug without a needle stick.
Chemo has become a part of her new routine after she appears on TODAY for Steals & Deals every other Wednesday.
“Chemo is cumulative. It gets worse every time. … Every time I sleep for one extra day, so the week after chemo is like, there’s no plans. I’ll be in bed, and I give myself the grace of that,” she explained. “Then, the week after that leading up to the next treatment, you feel OK. So, I schedule Steals & Deals and coming into the studio on days that I have chemotherapy because that’s the day I’m the healthiest.”
“I take off the makeup, and I take off the clothes and then I go from lights, camera, action to like the most devastating thing,” she added.
For some people, each chemotherapy session can be as short as two hours, but Jill’s are taking closer to 12 because she’s undergoing a process called cold-capping to keep her hair. The idea is that the intense cold narrows the blood vessels in the scalp, reducing the amount of the chemo drug that gets into the follicles, preventing as many hairs from falling out, according to BreastCancer.org.
“At the beginning, I (was) like, I’ll just shave my head. And for some people, that is their journey and that’s soothing for them,” Jill recalled. “I’m not a big makeup person. (My hair) has always been something that makes me feel like myself.”
“You want keep as much normality as you can in the abnormal,” she added. She estimated she still has about 70% of her hair.
Another treatment advancement Jill is quick to praise is the steroids she receives to minimize her nausea: “The steroids make you elevated and crazier as my husband would jokingly say, but there are ways … to counteract the things that you typically stereotype chemo to be.”
Showing the reality of life with treatment was important to Jill in order to help others.
“You think I want to be on camera right now with no makeup, my hair in braids because I’m not allowed to brush it, I’m not allowed to color it, I’m not allowed to wash it in the shower?” she said. “I’d rather be dolled up … but this is real and this is life.”
Jill’s family, especially her parents, husband, brother and sister-in-law, have played a huge role in her maintaining her strength during this period, she said.
“I’ve been choosing to fight and it sucks,” she laughed. “It’s a full-time job and I’m trying really hard. It’s so hard watching my parents and my friends watch me. … I think to myself, ‘Thank goodness it’s me because if I had to watch that, no way.'”
The silver lining of the experience is that Jill has been able to slow down a little bit. “I will take time off and I will rest and I will heal and I will work out and I will continue physical therapy, which has been really big part of my journey and I will continue to advocate for women and men to not be afraid of getting (genetic testing), not being afraid of getting treatment because of what it will bring and showcasing … what it is like to live through chemotherapy,” she said.
“You’re living it with me in real time. This part of the story right now. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have a happy ending this minute.”
Some public figures may prefer to undergo such intense medical treatments in private, but Jill is hopeful that sharing what she’s going through can save lives.
“I’ve been with the show for 15 years and I’ve shared the happy, I’ve shared the sad, and now, I’m sharing the scary,” she said. “I feel … I was given this to be able to help and save other people. I truly believe that deep down.”
When Jill first shared her diagnosis, she urged TODAY viewers to talk to their health care providers about genetic testing for cancer risk. She found out she had a mutation to one of her BRCA genes — which dramatically increases risk of breast and other cancers — shortly before receiving her diagnosis. She’d been planning to get a preventive mastectomy until she found out she actually had cancer.
During her Oct. 4 visit to TODAY, that message was unchanged.
“If I had known, this could have been prevented, and so I could have taken steps. That’s one main message I want to make sure I get out,” she said.
Patients battling breast cancer deserve full access to their prescribed treatments
By Jeri Francoeur, Daytona Beach News-Journal – October 4, 2023
I am a two-time breast cancer survivor, and have made it my life’s mission to ensure cancer patients have the resources they need to navigate health insurance and other access barriers. I have been involved in advocacy for all patients since I first started working in the medical field.
My personal breast cancer advocacy story began 20 years ago. My best friend was diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer and was given a 7% chance of surviving. I watched her struggle to find affordable treatment options while time ran out. She lost her battle. I was devastated, and I knew I would never let another woman go through what my friend went through.
Six months later, I felt a change in my breast tissue. As a physician’s assistant who taught women how to perform self-breast exams, I had a pretty good idea something was off. After my mammogram showed no abnormalities, I begged my healthcare provider to run more tests. A biopsy showed I had noninvasive ductal carcinoma in situ, which is stage zero breast cancer. I was lucky to have a medical background and knew how to advocate for myself through my diagnosis – especially when I was diagnosed again in 2020.
I know the importance of early detection and treatment for breast cancer patients. In the last 10 years, breast cancer treatment development has been incredible. Innovative medicines that offer more effective treatment and fewer side effects are now on the market. Breast cancer patients are now living longer thanks to remarkable research.
Some insurance plans, unfortunately, prevent patients from accessing these innovative and effective treatments. This is the current situation regarding CDK4/6 inhibitors. CDK4/6 inhibitors treat patients with HR+/HER2- metastatic breast cancer and are rapidly transforming patient outcomes. All three CDK4/6 inhibitors on the market have gained FDA approval, yet they are not all accessible to patients because of insurance barriers.
One of the ways insurance companies can attempt to block access to new and effective treatments like these is by mandating doctors and patients submit to step therapy. Also known as “fail first,” step therapy requires patients to first prove that older, less expensive, or insurer-preferred alternative medications don’t work before coverage is approved for the medicine prescribed for them.
Breast cancer is a serious, life-threatening condition. Implementing step therapy protocols that require patients to try any medicine other than what the doctor prescribed takes away a patient’s valuable time. It allows breast cancer to progress and causes side effects that diminish patients’ quality of life. Breast cancer patients suffer when they cannot get the treatments their medical team prescribes.
No one should stand in the way of patients and their healthcare providers. Healthcare providers have years of education, clinical experience, specialized training, and, most importantly, know their patients. They are the most qualified to create a personalized treatment plan that fits their patient’s needs and tolerance levels.
Breast cancer patients deserve the highest level of care. New and innovative treatment options can help change the breast cancer landscape as we know it. It’s time insurance companies do what’s right and provide equal coverage for treatments that are proven to save lives.
Jeri Francoeur is a two-time breast cancer survivor, patient advocate, and founding member of the Florida Cancer Support Network. She resides in Ormond Beach.
How to weigh the benefits, risks of radiation therapy for breast cancer
Beth Galvin – October 3, 2023
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Atlanta – Treating cancer means deciding whether to go with chemotherapy, surgery, radiation, or all or a combination of the above.
“It is very dependent on your particular cancer, and one thing I think the patients should just understand is that no cancer is the same,” says radiation oncologist Dr. Courtney Pollard with Peachtree Radiation Oncology Services, which contracts with Piedmont Healthcare.
Dr. Pollard says the cancer community is always looking for ways to do more with less.
“We’re always trying to make sure that we’re not over-treating folks, whether that be with surgery, radiation or chemotherapy,” Pollard says. “But, all 3 should be looked at as potentially areas where we can ‘de-escalate’. And we’re always trying to fine tune, to make sure we get a less treatment for the best outcomes.”
That is because the same treatment tools that are most effective at treating many cancers — chemotherapy, surgery and radiation therapy — can cause short term and long term negative side effects.
Chemotherapy can trigger pain, fatigue, nausea, anemia, weight changes and other side effects.
In patients with breast cancer or cancers in their chest, radiation therapy can target and destroy malignant cells, but it can also damage healthy heart tissue and blood vessels.
In some patients, that damage can raise the risk of heart disease down the road.
“But, I think it’s a little bit of a misnomer to say that radiation is either falling out favor with patients, or there’s a certain group of doctors that are advising against radiation, because radiation is still a necessary arm in many, many cancers,” Dr. Pollard says.
Breast cancer patients with early stage, lower risk cancers are typically offered breast-sparing surgery followed by radiation therapy and then 5 years of endocrine therapy, taking a daily pill to try to lower their risk of a recurrence.
But, in the LUMINA Study, published recently in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), researchers found women age 55 and older with low risk luminal A breast cancer were able to safely skip radiation therapy after breast surgery, taking the hormone-blocking pill alone, with a low risk of recurrence at the 5-year-mark.
“Now, that’s a great result,” Dr. Pollard says. “It shows that we can de-escalate therapy for a certain type of low risk patient. Now, there’s many, many different types of breast cancer, and we have to be very careful with saying that this is going to be applicable to the wide population of breast cancer patients. But, that very specific subset, it looks like it might be beneficial.”
In their summary in the NEJM article, the study authors write, “Our study showed that women 55 years of age or older with T1N0, grade 1 or 2, luminal A breast cancer had a very low risk of local recurrence at 5 years after breast-conserving surgery when treated with endocrine therapy alone. The prospective and controlled nature of this study supports our conclusion that such patients are candidates for omission of radiotherapy.”
Dr. Pollard says the study, which followed nearly 500 women at 26 Canadian cancer centers, had some limitations.
“It’s a single-arm study,” he says. “So, they only looked at patients that received one sort of therapy. It was not a comparison trial.”
Navigating your cancer treatment options can be challenging.
If you’re newly diagnosed, Dr. Pollard says, find a cancer center that takes a multidisciplinary approach to deciding how to treat you.
Most academic and larger cancer centers have moved to a team approach to treating patients, he says, holding tumor boards that meet regularly to discuss each patient’s options.
“What that means is that patient who has a specific cancer is being evaluated by a doctor that prescribes chemotherapy, a surgeon that can remove their tumor, and a radiation oncologist who can radiate the tumor if it’s necessary,” Pollard explains. “Also, part of the discussion is many other folks: pathologists, diagnostic radiologists, geneticists, therapists. It’s a conglomerate to make a unified best decision for a patient.”
