Donald Trump has posted an unhinged broadside on Truth Social that revives an insult he first wheeled out seven years ago.
“This Weak on Crime, Open Borders Dumocrat, can never be allowed to represent the Great People of Texas,” Trump wrote on Wednesday morning, accompanied by a picture comparing Democratic State Rep. James Talarico to the freckle-faced MAD magazine mascot Alfred E. Neuman.
It’s a deep cut—but not quite in the way the president meant it. “Alfred E. Neuman” is an insult that Trump first used against Pete Buttigieg, who later served as Joe Biden’s transportation secretary, way back in 2019.
Alfred E. Neuman, and his distinctive gap-toothed grin, first graced the cover of MAD magazine in 1956
The president also dropped the insult into an earlier Wednesday morning post congratulating Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on his primary victory against Sen. John Cornyn.
Paxton will now compete with Talarico for Cornyn’s seat come the November midterms. “His opponent, Alfred E. Neuman, may be the worst TEXAS candidate I have ever seen,” Trump wrote of Talarico.
Neuman has freckles, a gap tooth, and large ears. He’s known for his catchphrase, “What, me worry?” The character’s connotation in American politics has historically been less about literal goofiness than a kind of oblivious but generally cheerful cluelessness.
Hillary Clinton compared President George W. Bush to the cartoon in 2005, stating, “I sometimes feel that Alfred E. Neuman is in charge in Washington.”
It’s not one of Trump’s sharper-toothed insults, when set against all-time zingers like “Sleepy Joe,” “Little Marco,” “Lyin’ Ted” or “Crooked Hillary.”
Buttigieg was, in any case, quick to pour cold water on it back when Trump first brought the insult out in 2019.
He told reporters then: “I’ll be honest, I had to Google that… must be a generational thing.”
Talarico has not yet publicly responded to Trump’s Wednesday post.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment on this story.
