US President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally for Republican US Senate candidate Ken Paxton at Freeman Coliseum in San Antonio, Texas, US, October 7, 2026. REUTERS/Evan Vucci
President Donald Trump enjoys inciting a crowd with talk, whether or not it has any ground beneath it. Much, of it, say critics, has to do with insulting others. And Trump’s insults came hot and fast in San Antonio, Texas, at a rally with Senate candidate Ken Paxton and House candidate Carlos De La Cruz.
Paxton is running a close race against Democratic state Rep. James Talarico in one of the highest-profile matches of the midterms. And Trump lit into Talarico and his fellow Democrats by calling them ‘Dirty.”
But not just dirty — filthy in every sense of the word.
No. 1. Dems Dirty Doorknobs.
“Texas has been the state people flee to escape the economic and social collapse of Democrat run California, New York, and other failing blue states, but if Talarico and the Democrats get their way, all of that squalor and misery, poverty, homelessness [will come to Texas],” Trump told the roaring crowd.
“When the blues get in everything becomes dirty,” said Trump. “The streets become dirty. The doorknobs going into stores are dirty. Sidewalks are filthy dirty. Everything becomes dirty and has a bad smell, but we're going to escape all that lawlessness corruption and dysfunction that's coming to destroy your beloved state of Texas.”
Trump added that “a vote for Talarico” will turn Texas into a “dirty, crime-riddled Third World dumping ground, and a vote for Ken Paxton is a vote to save Texas, defend Texas and defend everything that makes Texas great and makes America great. I want you to know the extreme danger of having someone like this Democrat in charge.”
No. 2. Trump still calls climate change a hoax, despite record heat in Texas.
Trump also saddled up his Texas horse declaring that climate change is still the hoax it was before the state of Texas suffered the record heat that’s been plaguing it multiple years Trump’s been in office.
“Within 12 years everything will be dead from global warming. Remember that?” said Trump, speaking of Democrats (and scientific) arguments. “Global climate change used to be ‘global warming,’ but now it’s climate change.”
Trump accused Democrats of wanting to “completely eliminate your oil and gas industry and kill millions and millions of Texas jobs.”
Dallas News reports, however, that Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport tied the record high for Aug. 22 when the temperature reached 105 degrees at 4:52 p.m. The temperature matched the record set in 1980 and 2010.
This month, the Dallas-Fort Worth region also remained under an elevated wildfire threat, as hot and dry conditions continue.
No. 3: A supporter goes there with Trump’s hair
Marie Vega, a legal immigrant from Mexico, shared her harrowing experience at the rally of two criminal illegal aliens attempting to ambush her and her family in a ploy to steal two four-wheel drive trucks. But before she launched into the story of the attacks, she first said Trump’s hairpiece was okay.
“I’m not very good at speaking,” said Vega, describing herself as retired and 65 years old. “[But] if I we're you I wouldn't worry about your thinning hair,” she said. “You're still handsome.”
No. 4: Trump claims Dems will ‘open the floodgates’ to immigrants if they win.
Critics say Trump likes to sell fear from the podium, and the president heaped up the dread of a brown America in San Antonio.
“If [Democrats] get in Congress — because we have a very close majority, we can't let that happen — but if they get in, they will open your borders and let the entire world pour into your country like they did before [under Biden]”
Survey researcher Ronald L. Hirsch says Trump has “failed to deliver on almost all the promises he made to his white working-class and rural base during the 2016 and 2024 election campaigns.”
“Prices are not lower, they are higher. He has not brought jobs back to the U.S. His tariffs have been a disaster for farmers. He has taken many actions that have helped the rich, but precious few that have benefited the average person,” Hirsch said in the Fulcrum.
But what Trump has done, said Hirsch, is target illegal immigrants and eliminated DEI programs. And many of Trump’s white voters cling to him for that reason. Trump’s core base of 37 percent is sticking with him no matter what, and since they’re not voting with their pocketbooks, Hirsch said they’re really voting for those other things.
No. 5: Trump clings to his $21 trillion “investment” baloney.
Trump’s is fixated on $21 trillion — the sum he claims to have pulled in for the U.S. economy through his policies and deal-making. He repeatedly invokes that $21 million ahead of the midterm elections as an unmatched achievement. It’s creeped up from $1.7 trillion a few weeks ago, and it made a return Wednesday night in Dallas.
Trump called the four years under Biden “the dark ages,” despite the Biden’s economy having lower inflation and fuel prices before Trump entered the White House a second time and oversaw inflation hikes that threaten to derail his party in November.
He also made sure to invoke the $21 trillion claim — despite his own website obliterating that boast.
NBC pointed out on Wednesday that the White House website carries page, entitled “The Trump Effect,” which tallies the U.S. and foreign investments “made possible by President Trump’s leadership.” And the total it claims is just $11.2 trillion.
Voter patience is wearing thin with Trump’s onerous war in Iran and the high fuel prices it causes. Nevertheless, Trump claimed if Democrats take back Congress it will kick off a new Great Depression.
“If Democrats get their way, you will have a 1929 style economic depression in our country,” Trump told the crowd. “That's what's going to happen — because nobody knows numbers better than me.”
He repeated his earlier bribe, however, that if Republicans keep Congress they will “put $5,000 in your pocket and bring economic success for the country like no other country has ever seen before.”
