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Katy Perry has described US President Donald Trump’s repeated criticism of a Texas Democrat for being vegan, which he is not, as “pure idiocracy.”
Trump and Ken Paxton, the Texas Attorney General, have falsely claimed that James Talarico, Paxton’s opponent in November’s US Senate election, is a vegan.
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BBC News shared a post on Instagram summarizing the back and forth between Talarico, Trump, and Paxton. The video shows Trump saying, Talarico is “a vegan, and you can’t get elected as a vegan in Texas.” In response, Talarico’s campaign team has released a photograph of the politician eating turkey at the 2025 Texas State Fair.
Earlier this month, after defeating incumbent senator John Cornyn in the Texas Republican primaries, Paxton said of Talarico, “He’s a threat to our very way of life and our values. I mean, he’s a vegan who thinks God is non-binary and that there’s actually six biological sexes. It’s hard to imagine someone more radical than that.”
In the comments below the BBC’s post, award-winning musician Katy Perry wrote, “vegan or meat this is pure idiocracy.”
‘Pure idiocracy’
In a post to Truth Social in March, Trump described Talarico as a “fraud,” and made similarly false claims about his veganism and historic support for LGBTQ+ people. He said that Talarico has “six Genders, insults to Jesus, only vegan food, was wearing a mask in 2023 and 2024, and is a weak, ineffective guy.”
Also in March, Talarico appeared on The Bulwark Podcast and said, “I want to say this definitively and categorically that I deny all accusations of veganism, and you know, our campaign basically runs on barbecue these days.”
According to AFP Fact Check, the claims about Talarico’s veganism likely stem from his 2022 campaign for the state House of Representatives, which he said at the time had “become a non-meat campaign” and was “only buying vegan products.”
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‘I’ve been eating BBQ since before Ken Paxton’s first indictment’
In 2023, Paxton notably became the third official and the second-ever statewide officeholder in Texas history to be impeached, but was later acquitted. The 20 impeachment allegations included multiple abuses of power, accepting bribes, and obstruction of justice. In 2015, Paxton was indicted on felony securities fraud charges.
In a recent interview, Talarico said, “I’m an eight-generation Texan, I’ve been eating BBQ since before Ken Paxton’s first indictment. And if all they have on me is lying about being a vegan I feel pretty good.”
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