President Donald Trump launched an unhinged attack on rising Democratic star James Talarico as the Senate candidate looms as a key threat to the GOP’s control of Congress.
The 80-year-old president turned his social media firehose on the 37-year-old Texas House representative on Thursday afternoon as he headed to the Lone Star State to campaign for the embattled Republican Senate candidate, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Trump’s Truth Social barrage was a grab bag of quotes from Talarico that he apparently hoped would paint the Democrat in a bad light, and repeated attempts to liken him to Alfred E. Neuman, the MAD magazine mascot introduced in 1954.
The grandfather of 11 shared at least three iterations of the same joke, juxtaposing the mascot with a doctored photo of Talarico edited to give him Neuman’s signature tooth gap.
Trump also trotted out his favorite nickname for Talarico: “Talafreako.” He explained in the Oval Office on Thursday that he calls the Democrat that “because he is a little freaky.”
Talarico, meanwhile, has turned Trump’s insult into a marketing opportunity, selling “I’m a Talafreako” T-shirts on his website.
Another of Trump’s posts stitched together a caricature of Talarico’s agenda, including false claims that he is pushing for “wide open borders,” “men in women’s sports and restrooms,” and “abolishing the electoral college.”
Trump, who has previously cast himself in the image of Jesus Christ, also took aim at Talarico’s progressive views on Christianity and LGBTQ issues, apparently convinced they offered fodder for ridicule.
Talarico’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The lawmaker has suddenly become a major target of Trump’s ire after polls showed him leading Paxton, 63, in a state that hasn’t elected a Democratic senator since 1988.
In a Texas Public Opinion Research poll of 1,000 likely voters conducted from August 21 to August 24, 48 percent of respondents said they would vote for Talarico if the election was held that day, compared to 42 percent who said they would back Paxton. Another 7 percent were undecided.
A Fox News poll conducted in late July found Talarico leading Paxton by 3 points, 51-48, a result that sent Fox News host Sean Hannity into a meltdown against his own network’s numbers.
Paxton defeated Texas Sen. John Cornyn for the Republican Senate nomination in May after winning Trump’s endorsement despite a string of controversies including longstanding securities fraud charges, impeachment in the Texas House of Representatives, and a messy divorce in which he was accused of adultery.
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