President Donald Trump found a new way to go after the Democrat running for Senate in Texas, and it required an imaginary plate of barbecue and a sound effect.
Trump mimed a bite of meat and let out two strange noises during a roughly 77-minute speech at the Port of Corpus Christi on Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2026, as he mocked James Talarico, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Texas, ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections.
The president was campaigning for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Republican nominee, and he spent much of the speech on Talarico, who had been off the campaign trail for nine days after saying he had the flu. Trump offered a different explanation for the absence. “I happen to think he was food poisoned by meat because he can’t stand it,” Trump said, reviving his false and often-repeated claim that the Democrat is a vegan.
An Imaginary Bite and a Noise
Then came the impression. Trump lifted an invisible piece of meat to his mouth, stretched out a long vowel, took a second phantom bite and produced an even odder sound.
“You ever see him go to a barbecue and he’s trying to show, ‘I love the meat, ah, I love it, look, look,’ and then you see him, where is he? He’s behind the tent, puking,” he continued.
Trump also floated, with no evidence, that a mental illness might explain the time away, called his opponent “Tala-Freak-O” and paused the speech to play a video compilation of Talarico talking about trans people. If the Democrat wins, Trump told the crowd, Texans would lose their guns, their oil and their meat. He even claimed First Lady Melania Trump had once corrected his pronunciation of “vegan.”
The Vegan Claim Talarico Keeps Denying
Talarico is neither vegan nor vegetarian. The attack grew out of comments he made in 2022 about reducing meat consumption, when he said his Texas House reelection campaign was buying only vegan products from local businesses. His campaign has rejected the label outright and circulated photographs of him eating chicken, steak and a turkey leg.
“I’ve been eating barbecue since before Ken Paxton’s first indictment,” Talarico said in May, a reference to the three felony counts in a fraud case that opened a long run of scandals around the attorney general.
The illness itself became a campaign story earlier. In a virtual appearance Sept. 30, Talarico said he had felt increasingly unwell and had gone to urgent care in Dallas, and that he wanted to avoid passing anything to other people. He canceled some appearances in early October and moved an event online; his campaign later said he was fighting the flu. Both the campaign and a mental health center knocked down a claim circulating in conservative corners of the internet that he was being treated for a stress-induced episode.
Not His First Strange Noise
The barbecue bit arrived during a stretch of increasingly unfiltered rally riffs. Trump has waved off his former U.N. ambassador, Nikki Haley, by making a gagging noise rather than saying her name. He has returned more than once to the rear end of Sen. Jon Husted, R-Ohio, and he complimented rapper Nicki Minaj’s backside when she spoke at one of his rallies.
This one went viral fast. The Democrats’ account on X posted the clip, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) grabbed a still of the gesture, and conservative attorney George Conway, a persistent Trump critic, posted a one-line reaction linking it to the president’s earlier remarks about men’s backsides.
A Republican Ex-Justice Backs the Democrat
The day before the rally, on Monday, Oct. 26, Tom Phillips — chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court from 1988 to 2004 and a lifelong Republican — endorsed Talarico in an op-ed. Phillips wrote that Paxton’s reputation would embarrass the state no matter how he behaved in office, and said that while he disagrees with some of Talarico’s positions, he is confident the Democrat would represent Texas honorably. He also made clear he is sticking with Republicans in the statewide judicial races.
Paxton joined Trump onstage in Corpus Christi, after which the president announced he would make more Federal Emergency Management Agency relief money available for this year’s floods in the Texas Hill Country at the request of Paxton and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. Trump also told the crowd that everyone would receive $5,000 only if Republicans hold the House and the Senate. It was his third trip to Texas in a month, with Democrats chasing their first statewide win there in more than three decades.
