President Donald Trump, 80, hit back at late-night host Jimmy Kimmel at a rally in Clarksville, Tenn., on Oct. 10, 2026, after Kimmel mocked the president’s San Antonio rally, where Trump claimed his wife calls him “sir.”
Kimmel had mocked Trump’s repeated mispronunciation of “vegan” at that rally and the empty seats there. “This man has a team of a hundred people around him at all times,” Kimmel said of the aides who failed to correct him.
“This loser, Jimmy Kimmel. What a loser,” Trump said at the Clarksville rally.
Trump also disputed Kimmel’s description of the San Antonio event as “sparsely attended.”
Trump appeared unsure of the earlier rally’s location. “I had just left Texas or somewhere,” he said, adding, “And maybe it was Ohio, place is packed.”
Trump quoted his wife again at the same rally, this time objecting to his antics at the podium: “I don’t like it when you do the weight lifting, I don’t like it when you do the swimming.” He said the gestures may not be presidential, but that he “won the election in a landslide.”
The San Antonio Anecdote
Trump made the “sir” claim at Freeman Coliseum in San Antonio on Wednesday, Oct. 7, at a rally for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, 63, the Republican Senate candidate, and for congressional candidate Carlos De La Cruz.
Trump said his wife of 21 years, First Lady Melania Trump, 56, addresses him as “sir.” He said she had urged him to pronounce the word “vegan” correctly. “You know, my wife told me, ‘Sir, do me a favor. You have to do me just a little bit of a favor. It’s not vaygan, it’s vegan,’” he told the crowd.
Trump used a masculine pronoun for his wife during the retelling: “He said, ‘It’s vegan. Please pronounce that word properly.’” He added: “I called it vaygan, vaygan. How the hell would I know? I like steak.”
The word came back around before the speech ended, and this time the president got the pronunciation right, naming his wife once more and pointing out his success. The crowd also got her greetings, relayed by Trump. Melania Trump was not at the coliseum.
The White House Rapid Response account posted video of Trump saying his wife calls him “sir.” Users on X questioned whether the first lady really addresses her husband that way.
A Fight Over Barbecue
Trump delivered the “sir” line during an extended riff on the eating habits of Democratic state Rep. James Talarico, 37, a seminarian, before turning to phonetics and the pronunciation of “vegan.” An earlier rally had already seen him slip “vaygan” into a Talarico riff, and the Republican Midterm Convention in Dallas and Air Force One have both been settings for his other jabs at the Democrat’s diet.
The attack line began with Talarico telling the Texas Humane Legislation Network that eating less meat is an existential piece of the fight against climate change. Trump and Paxton’s campaign have insisted the Democrat secretly avoids animal products, and both men have used mocking nicknames, including Trump’s “Talafreako” and Paxton’s “Tofu Talarico.”
Being vegan or vegetarian is something Talarico has repeatedly denied, and his campaign has put out images of the candidate eating barbecue and turkey. “I’m an eighth-generation Texan. I’ve been eating barbecue since before Ken Paxton’s first indictment,” Talarico has said.
Trump claimed without evidence at the rally that the Democrat makes himself go to barbecues for political reasons, that meat makes him sick and that he has vanished from public view because of it. A diagnosis of the flu kept Talarico off the campaign trail from late September until Friday, Oct. 9, when he returned at the Austin City Limits music festival.
Talarico spokesperson JT Ennis said Talarico has held “more than 100 public events” and that Paxton has been “ignoring Texans this entire campaign.”
Protesters and Deputies
The San Antonio rally drew an unusual number of protesters. Deputies escorted 18 people out, made no arrests and issued two criminal trespass warnings.
Investigators are seeking to identify people pictured on a flyer the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office released on Monday, Oct. 12, tied to incidents at the Oct. 7 rally. Anyone who believes they were the victim of a crime should come forward, the office urged.
Class C misdemeanor assault is the charge brought against one person so far, Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said, adding that he expected more charges “in the coming days and weeks.”
Salazar said in a statement: “Thankfully, there were no major incidents at the rally last week.”
A Tight Senate Race
Paxton trails Talarico in recent polling. A Fox News poll released Oct. 1 put the Democrat ahead 51 percent to 49 percent, and pollsters at the New York Times/Siena, surveying Sept. 21-30, found Talarico leading 51 percent to 45 percent. A Siena Research Institute poll released Oct. 13 showed Talarico ahead 48 percent to 44 percent.
Lloyd Bentsen won a fourth term in 1988, and no Democrat has taken a Senate race in Texas since; Talarico would be the first to do so if he holds on. The San Antonio rally was Trump’s fourth visit to Texas in six weeks. Kamala Harris carried the surrounding Bexar County by 9 points in 2024.
Trump wrote on Truth Social after the San Antonio rally that Talarico is “MISSING IN ACTION” and demanded a debate. “He should immediately report to a Debate Stage against Ken Paxton, who is ready, willing and able,” he wrote.
Paxton has resisted earlier debate calls. Talarico has accepted four debate invitations, from CNN, Hearst, Nexstar and WFAA, and in late September he challenged Paxton to a Fox News debate moderated by Bret Baier. Paxton has accepted none of them.
The Paxton campaign has funded “missing person” posters of Talarico around the state, and Paxton led a “Where is James Talarico?” chant at the rally. Talarico replied to Trump’s debate call on X: “Ball’s in your court [Ken Paxton].”
Talarico is scheduled for a CNN town hall on Wednesday, Oct. 14. Early voting in Texas starts Monday, Oct. 19.
