Talarico Hangs Low-T Albatross on Paxton
after Trump Sex and Women Hating Claims
Capitol Inside
July 25, 2026
Democrat James Talarico sought on Saturday to seize the lead in a testosterone measuring contest that the U.S. Senate race in Texas has become when he pummeled with Republican Ken Paxton with headlines that paint the state attorney general as a chicken who's scared to face the truth on the baggage he brings to the fight.
Talarico reaped advertising that the vast sums of money that he's raised can't buy on Friday night when President Donald Trump predicted that the Austin Democrat would fair poorly at the polls this fall because he doesn't like women and sex as much as MAGA darling Ken Paxton.
Trump thought he was mocking the Democratic Senate contender when he referred to "James Talafreako" during a rambling speech at a rescheduled White House Correspondents Association Dinner in Washington D.C. The acid-tongued leader spent more than an hour lobbing insults at journalists, political enemies and others at the WHCA event where he announced that he planned to run again in 2028. The president said nothing at the dinner about the Americans who've died in the war that he's waging in Iran during the past 10 days. Trump didn't mention an affordability crisis that appears destined to intensify with the escalation of U.S. military that's vowed to order.
Trump showed no apparent concern on the possibility that he might be helping Talarico at Paxton's expense by invoking the Talafreako moniker that the Democrat's campaign has turned into a campaign battle cry that supporters chant at rallies where they can acquire t-shirts with the epithet that Republicans hatched as an insult plastered across the front. The president may have missed the story about the marketing ploy for the Democrat in Fox News back in May.
"He hates sex, hates women," Trump said of Talarico at the WHCA dinner. "And that means he's not going to do very well against Ken Paxton."
While Trump's disparage characterization of the Texas Democrat seemed to imply that the state attorney general is a fan of women and sex himself. But the women who Trump says Talarico despises favor him over Paxton by historically wide margins - with the Democrat up on the AG by 18 percentage points among female voters in a New York Times/Siena University poll late last month. The Texas voters in the NYT/Siena survey like Paxton the most by far - with 18 percent of the men in the sample expressing plans to back for the Senate seat in the general election this year.
Trump compared Talarico to the Mad Magazine mascot who was created in the early 1950s. "You know what he looks like to me? Alfred E. Neuman," the president told the audience. :You remember Alfred E. Neuman from Mad Magazine? I said that guy looks like Alfred E. Neuman!”
It wasn't an original observation - having been applied to Talarico in countless social media posts after he entered the race nearly a year ago. But Talarico tried to get the last laugh on Saturday when he used four headlines to mock Paxton on X for the not-so-heroic behavior that's marked the past week on the campaign trail for him.
"Low T? @KenPaxtonTX," Talarico said above a headlines collage that was anchored at the bottom by Paxton's picture.
"Ken Paxton runs away when asked about his alleged voter fraud," according to a headline from The New Republic. "Ken Paxton walks out of press conference, avoids tough questions," based on an headline in The Hill that Talarico cited for attribution. "Ken Paxton held a rare press conference. He refused to answer questions," according to a Houston Chronicle headline. "Ken Paxton runs away as reporters bombard him over scandals," Talarico quoted the title of a Raw Story article in the post making fun of the Republican.
Paxton's campaign proved to be a magnet for bad publicity throughout the past week. Paxton bolted on Tuesday from a press conference in Fort Worth with a group of mostly rural sheriffs when reporters posed questions on alleged violations of voting laws and an extensive real estate portfolio into which he recently added three condos that he purchased in an affluent golf resort in Utah.
Then, a day later, Paxton's security entourage hustled him past a Texas-based reporter who sought to ask him in Washington D.C. about a debate that he'd indicated he would attend and a power struggle within the current Senate GOP leadership. Lauren McGaughy - the New York Times journalist who Paxton refused to acknowledge in the nation's capital - had broken the story about the expanded holdings that include at least 15 residential properties.
Talario was one of many targets of Trump insults at the WHCA event. The president called out Fox News talk show host Jacqui Heinrich, the current president of the correspondents association. "She looks so beautiful but she can be so nasty." Trump said of Heinrich, a former White House reporter.
After portraying CNN's Kaitlan Collins, who received the group's highest honor, as a "young attractive woman" who's a fraud for a fake news station. Trump claimed he'd confused her with the transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney at one point.
more to come ... | 
