▶ Watch Video: Trump stumps for Paxton in Texas ahead of midterms
At least 18 hecklers were removed from President Trump’s rally in Texas late Wednesday, the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office confirmed.
The hecklers were ejected from the venue by authorities or appeared to walk out after interrupting the rally, drawing jeers from the crowd at San Antonio’s Freeman Coliseum as Mr. Trump mocked the protesters.
The sheriff’s office said they did not make any arrests, and all individuals were asked to leave the premises. Two people were issued criminal trespass warnings, the sheriff’s office said.
It’s the president’s third trip to Texas in recent weeks to support Republican Senate nominee Ken Paxton, who is facing a tougher-than-expected contest against Democratic candidate James Talarico.
Less than 10 minutes into Mr. Trump’s speech, a person stormed away from the stage while yelling. At one point, a man in a red hat grabbed that person’s hair and appeared to get into a physical altercation, leading other rallygoers to separate the two. After the person walked out of the venue, the president asked: “Is there anything like a Trump rally?”
“He’s going back home to mom right now,” the president said. “What he doesn’t know is that his mom voted for Trump.”
For the next hour, several other people were walked out of the venue by law enforcement or security while the crowd booed them. In some cases, Trump supporters and demonstrators were separated after physically tangling with each other.
At least one person was handcuffed before law enforcement led him out.
The president poked fun at several of the attendees who were ejected, saying one person has “got to lose a lot of weight” and others were “really bad-looking people.”
CBS News has reached out to local authorities and the U.S. Secret Service for more information on the ejections.
Mr. Trump was on stage for well over an hour. He spent much of the event railing against Talarico, a state lawmaker who is aiming to be the first Democrat to win a statewide race in Texas in more than three decades. Most polls show Talarico either with a narrow edge or neck-and-neck with Paxton, a state attorney general with a polarizing record who frustrated other Republicans by ousting Sen. John Cornyn in a primary earlier this year.
Republicans have sought to cast Talarico as too liberal for Texas, a theme that Mr. Trump emphasized throughout the evening, jabbing Talarico for his record in the state legislature. The president said if Talarico wins, he would turn Texas into a “dirty, failing, crime-ridden third-world dumping ground.”
Mr. Trump also spent a large amount of time on immigration, touting the precipitous drop in unauthorized border crossings in recent years. The issue dominated Mr. Trump’s 2024 campaign but has become more challenging for him as most voters grow skeptical of his administration’s hardline enforcement tactics — particularly Hispanic voters, whose shift toward Mr. Trump helped propel him to victory in 2024.
