President Donald Trump, 80, told supporters at a rally in San Antonio on Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2026, that a rear view of his own head on a giant screen left him “depressed.”
Trump campaigned at the Freeman Coliseum, headlining for Republican Senate nominee Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, and for Republican House candidate Carlos De La Cruz. Paxton faces Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico. Election Day is Nov. 3.
A video about border crossings that Trump blamed on the Biden administration played on a screen near the ceiling, and he asked the crowd to turn around and watch it. Supporters booed the footage. A rear view of Trump’s head then appeared on the same screen.
“Wait a minute, wait a minute, I’m not happy right now,” he told supporters.
Trump touched the back of his head several times as he spoke about it. “Getting a little bit thin up there, I’m not happy,” he said. He continued: “This is not good news. Now I’m depressed. I said, ‘I look really sharp tonight,’ then I just looked at myself from the back, this is not good.”
Trump gestured to the people in front of him and asked: “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell me?” The bit drew laughter and applause.
About five minutes later, Trump invited “Angel Mom” Marie Vega onstage. Vega has appeared in support of the president before, including at a White House event for Angel Families in February.
Vega spoke about her son, Border Patrol agent Javier “Harvey” Vega Jr., a former U.S. Marine. He was killed in an ambush in La Feria, Texas, in 2014 while on a family fishing trip. Two people in the country illegally carried out the attack during an attempted robbery.
Vega addressed the image on the jumbotron before backing Trump’s call for tighter border enforcement. She told the president not to worry about his thinning hair and assured him he was still handsome. The crowd cheered as Trump smiled, pointed her way and thanked her.
A Recurring Campaign Theme
Trump’s hair has become a recurring theme of his midterm campaign swing. At the Republican Midterm Convention in Dallas, he reacted to seeing the back of his head on the jumbo screens, telling that audience he needed to do a little better in the back and that he should not have looked up. The wind had its own say on Sept. 9, when the president spoke with reporters at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland before flying to the convention.
Trump used the hair-loss drug finasteride, sold as Propecia, during his first term, though it has not appeared on his medical reports since he returned to office. On the “Inside Trump’s Head” podcast, Trump biographer Michael Wolff has claimed the president’s routine includes a portable kit of small hair tufts, matched to his color and applied with paste.
Crowd Size and Hecklers
The venue was set up with 6,844 seats for the general public and the event officially sold out, according to DeAnna Garza, director of booking at the Freeman Coliseum. Garza said a 40-by-20 video wall went up in the parking lot, installed by Trump’s team with a livestream for people who could not get inside.
Bo Loudon, a friend of Barron Trump who attended the rally, claimed on X on Oct. 8 that the crowd “had over 11,700, the max capacity of the Freeman Coliseum!” In another post, after listing stars who had played the arena, including Elvis Presley, he wrote, “None had a crowd as large as President Trump’s last night” and “God is using Trump to save America.” His figures have not been verified.
Trump touted the crowd as a C-SPAN camera panned across empty seats at the top of the arena. “Who the h*ll fills up an arena like this for a midterm?” he said.
An audience member and a protester who had booed the president traded blows to open the night. At least 10 other people were ejected or walked out after heckling Trump.
Trump said of one protester removed near the podium, “He’s going back home to mom,” and joked that the man was probably unaware his mother voted for Trump. He told any more paid protesters to “get the h*ll out of here.”
Demonstrators gathered outside with signs reading “no more detention centers” and “San Antonio fights back.” Trump claimed many of the protesters were paid by enemies of the nation.
Talarico again drew Trump’s mockery, with the president falsely calling him a vegan and saying First Lady Melania Trump had corrected his pronunciation of the word.
Dividend Pledge Faces Hurdles
Trump urged Texans to pretend he was on the ballot and touted his proposed $5,000 “Trump dividend.” Paying $5,000 to roughly 245 million U.S. citizen adults would cost about $1.2 trillion, PBS NewsHour reported.
A Tax Foundation analysis estimated the new tariffs would bring in about $125 billion in net federal revenue in 2027 — only about one-tenth of what the checks would cost.
The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on Feb. 20 that the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act did not give Trump the power to impose sweeping tariffs, leaving open whether some of that revenue must be refunded.
A Closer-Than-Expected Senate Race
The San Antonio stop was Trump’s third trip to Texas in less than a month. Trump was in Nebraska on Monday, Oct. 5, and Maryland on Tuesday, Oct. 6.
Republican donors who for months said they did not want to bankroll Paxton’s Senate race after Trump endorsed him struck a new tone about helping him, Politico reported Oct. 10. Republicans are pouring millions into Paxton, who polls show is facing a closer-than-expected race.
Trump carried Texas by more than 13 points in 2024, and no Democrat has won statewide office there since 1994. A Trump visit cuts both ways, Southern Methodist University political analyst Matt Wilson told Fox 4 Dallas, though the president can still fire up the MAGA base — something Republicans need to match the enthusiasm Democratic voters are showing.
