James Talarico Attempts a Full Meat Lover Rebrand—Brandon Gill's Response Leaves Him Well Done

redstate.com

With Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton winning the GOP nomination for Senate in the Lone Star State's primary runoff on May 26th, the general election campaign season officially kicked off.

Paxton, as RedState reported, immediately jabbed at his Democrat opponent, Texas state Rep. James Talarico, reminding voters of some of the bat-crap crazy things Talarico has said and done during his time as a state lawmaker. "This is Texas. This is not" an ad released the day after his primary victory emphasized, while showing what makes Texas great (its hard-working people) and what doesn't (Democrats like Talarico).

It was perfect timing considering clips from an interview Talarico did with CBS News were released that same day, with the man Paxton has nicknamed "Low-T" trying to play clean up on his admittedly "cringey comments" by noting that "There are some statements that I've made that I certainly regret."

Among the more infamous statements Talarico has made at various points in his political career was when he was running for reelection in 2022 and declared his campaign a "non-meat campaign." They were "only buying vegan products," he pointed out, while stressing that "it was now existential that we try to reduce our meat consumption," which he said was necessary to "fight climate change."

In a state like Texas, where meat is king, those types of comments will definitely come back to haunt you, which happened to Talarico to the extent that Democrats rushed to post pictures of him eating what we were told was meat, while of course wearing a Texas flag-themed button-down shirt.

Though that fell flat, Talarico continues to try to rebrand himself as a proud Texas meat lover, as evidenced by a recent trip to Smokey Joe's BBQ restaurant in Dallas. The goal of the trip, Talarico said, was to turn a negative around on himself and highlight what he called the bigger issue:

Talarico blamed the rising beef prices on Trump's tariffs and said he would eliminate them.
[...]
"The reason we're here is because we want to use some of the humorous back and forth on the campaign trail about veganism to make a serious point about rising food prices, particularly the rising price of beef," responded Talarico.

Except that all anybody could talk about was the photos of Talarico looking very uncomfortable as he ate the BBQ:

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
James Talarico's team is now forcing him to eat meat in front of reporters "proving he's Texas tough"
He looks like he wants to puke pic.twitter.com/Io2cTxWAFD
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) June 7, 2026

GOP Rep. Brandon Gill (TX-26) had the perfect response, comparing how Talarico looked to the expression on Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey's (D) face as he struggled to eat a Somali dish last fall in support of his city's Somali community:

Same energy. pic.twitter.com/9VqVfFmH65
— Brandon Gill (@realBrandonGill) June 8, 2026

Never change, James Talarico. Never change.

Editor’s Note: The 2026 Midterms will determine the fate of President Trump’s America First agenda. Republicans must maintain control of both chambers of Congress.

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