A glimpse of the back of his head on a video screen left President Donald Trump, 80, “depressed,” he joked at a San Antonio rally on Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2026, telling the crowd the sight had unsettled him.
A Pause Over Thinning Hair
Trump paused mid-speech at the rally after seeing himself from behind. He told the crowd he was “not happy right now.” He touched the back of his head several times and said it was “a little bit thin up there.” He said he had thought he looked “really sharp tonight” before the rear view.
“Now I’m depressed,” Trump said. “This is not good,” he added. He asked the audience twice, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Earlier in the speech, Trump asked the crowd to turn toward a screen near the ceiling for a video about border crossings. The audience booed that footage. The rear view of his head appeared on the same screen.
Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, is the Republican Senate nominee, and Trump campaigned for him at the Freeman Coliseum. Paxton faces Democrat James Talarico on Nov. 3.
Trump brought “Angel Mom” Marie Vega onstage about five minutes later. Her son, Border Patrol agent and former U.S. Marine Javier “Harvey” Vega Jr., was killed in 2014 in La Feria, Texas, during an ambush on a family fishing trip.
An Angel Mom Onstage
Vega has appeared at past Trump events, including a White House gathering for Angel Families in February. She called the president handsome and told him not to worry about his thinning hair. Cheers followed from the crowd, and Trump thanked her while pointing in her direction.
Questions About the Crowd
DeAnna Garza, the coliseum’s director of booking, told Newsweek that staff had put out 6,844 seats for the general public, and she said the rally officially sold out. Trump’s team, according to Garza, also erected a 40′-by-20′ video wall in the parking lot, with a livestream for people who could not get in.
“Who the hell fills up an arena like this for a midterm?” Trump asked. A C-SPAN camera showed several empty seats at the top of the arena as he spoke.
Natalie Baldassarre, the RNC national press secretary, told Newsweek: “The Freeman Coliseum was jam-packed with voters who are excited to support Ken Paxton and Texas Republicans on November 3. The place was roaring with excitement and energy, and any suggestion otherwise is a lazy attempt to downplay Republican enthusiasm. Even CNN admitted it was a full event.”
An audience member grabbed a protester who had booed the president. At least 10 people were ejected or walked out after heckling Trump, according to CBS, while the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office said 18 people were escorted out for disruptive behavior. No arrests occurred inside; outside, where demonstrators gathered, officers issued two criminal trespass warnings. Those protesters were paid, Trump said, without evidence.
Texans should vote as if he were on the ballot, Trump urged. A $5,000 payment, which he has said would come only if Republicans win in November, was a promise he repeated. He falsely labeled Talarico a vegan, adding that First Lady Melania Trump had corrected how he pronounced the word. He returned to his comments earlier in the week suggesting Iran could “take out” Los Angeles and San Diego, and he added, “We’re not going to let that happen.”
A Tighter Race in Texas
The San Antonio stop was Trump’s third Texas trip in less than a month. A rally in Grand Island, Neb., had occupied him on Monday, Oct. 5, and a shipbuilding investment event in Sparrows Point, Md., drew him on Tuesday, Oct. 6.
More than 13 points separated Trump from his rival in Texas in 2024, and no Democrat has won statewide in Texas since 1994. Paxton, however, sits in a tighter race than expected, polls show.
A Trump visit is “a double-edged sword,” Matt Wilson, a Southern Methodist University political analyst, told Fox 4 Dallas. The MAGA base can still be energized by the president, Wilson said, while Republicans need to match the enthusiasm among Democrats.
A scheduling conflict kept Gov. Greg Abbott away, and Trump’s previous Texas appearance went without him as well. Fox 4 reported that Abbott was scheduled to speak at a Republican event in College Station that evening.
Axios published audio on the day of the rally capturing Paxton as he spoke to donors and lobbyists in September. His campaign was being hurt by the Iran war and high gas prices, Paxton told them. “I don’t make the decisions, and I don’t … know what’s behind some of the decisions,” Paxton said in the audio. Madison Cercy, a Paxton spokeswoman, told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the attorney general “said what every Texan already knows: gas and diesel prices are too high.”
The Senate Leadership Fund raised its Texas ad commitment to $100 million, the Texas Tribune reported Sept. 22. Separately, the Cook Political Report moved 18 House races toward Democrats on Friday, Oct. 9.
Fox News has largely skipped Trump’s midterm rallies. A current Fox host told CNN on condition of anonymity, “Trump doesn’t rate anymore.” Fox News host Laura Ingraham cut to the San Antonio rally on her Oct. 7 show, where correspondent Brooke Taylor said: “This is a state he won by nearly 14 points just two years ago, and now he’s finding himself back here in Texas defending this state and keeping it red.”
Not the First Time
Trump also saw the back of his head on the big screens at the Republican Party’s midterm convention in Dallas on Thursday, Sept. 10. “I gotta do a little bit better in the back right there,” he said then, and “I shouldn’t have looked up there.” Wind had exposed his scalp outside Air Force One before he left for that event.
Trump took the hair-loss drug finasteride, sold as Propecia, during his first term. The drug has not appeared on his medical reports since he returned to office. Author Michael Wolff has claimed on the “Inside Trump’s Head” podcast that the president uses a portable kit of small hair tufts matched to his color and applied with paste. That claim has not been independently verified.
Trump Defends His Rallies
On Sunday, Oct. 11, Trump posted on Truth Social: “My Rallies, legendary they have already become, have made a tremendous difference with the enthusiasm of the Republican Party.” He announced stops in Alaska and in Youngstown, Ohio, where he held a rally on Monday, Oct. 12.