Outrage as pro-Trump group runs wild 'deepfake' ad of Democrat after transgender admission

By NIKKI SCHWAB, CHIEF CAMPAIGN CORRESPONDENT and VICTORIA CHURCHILL, US POLITICAL REPORTER Published: 23:10, 9 June 2026 | Updated: 23:17, 9 June 2026 A new AI-generated ad showing Democratic Texas Senate hopeful James Talarico dressed up as the Sound of Music's Maria singing about transgender kids has sparked outrage. Talarico is trying to flip a long-held Texas US Senate seat in a race against Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.  The Trump-aligned PAC Citizens for Sanity is spending six figures in the Texas Senate race on the ad, according to the Daily Caller, which shows the Democrat singing about his 'favorite things.'  'Boys in white dresses with blue satin sashes. Girls dosed with hormones til they grow mustaches. Changing the gender of all your offspring. These are a few of my favorite things,' the deepfaked version of Talarico croons to the tune of the Sound of Music classic.  Frank DeVito, a lawyer who penned a recent book on JD Vance, posted to X on Tuesday that he believed the ad went too far.  'Listen, James Talarico is awful,' DeVito commented on X. 'But this use of AI to generate a video of a political opponent saying/doing what he did not really say/do is not good.'  'Maybe the upshot is that we accelerate our descent into deepfake world and get everyone so jaded that nobody pays attention to what they see on the internet and assumes all is fake,' he continued. 'This may be a good thing.' Talarico's spokesperson, JT Ennis, also panned the move in a statement to the Daily Mail.  The Trump-aligned PAC Citizens for Sanity on Tuesday released an ad that shows a deepfaked version of Texas Democratic Senate hopeful James Talarico dressed as Maria in the Sound of Music and sending a version of My Favorite Things about transgender children  'Ken Paxton and the billionaires who prop him up know this people-powered movement is a threat to the broken, corrupt political system they fight every day to protect - so they're distorting James Talarico's likeness with AI to mislead Texans,' Ennis said.  'While they spend their time making deepfake videos, we are uniting the people of Texas to win in November,' he added.  Those at the Paxton-aligned Lone Star Liberty PAC reveled at the ad.  'We had to watch the Talarico attack ad three times to confirm it was AI and not a video he'd cut himself in the past,' spokesperson Gregg Keller said in a statement to the Daily Mail.  Keller called the issue 'fair game,' claiming 'James Talarico has a long history of taking the farthest left positions on the trans issue, including support for child genital mutilation surgeries.'   The ad was revealed one day after Talarico said in a podcast interview that he was against transgender minors receiving gender affirming surgeries.  'Well, just on that particular accusation, I oppose gender reassignment surgeries for minors,' Talarico told Texas attorney Dan Cogdell. Cogdell had served as Paxton's impeachment lawyer, but endorsed Talarico and invited him on his Cogdell Law Uncensored podcast for an episode released Monday.  Democratic Texas Senate hopeful James Talarico addresses supporters in Austin in late May. Talarico is currently polling slightly ahead of Republican nominee, Attorney General Ken Paxton, who President Donald Trump endorsed ahead of a GOP runoff in the state  As a state House member, Talarico had previously voted against a GOP-led bill that would have barred all gender affirming therapies for transgender minors.  During the 2024 cycle, Republicans were successful in using the transgender community as a culture war issue.   Last month, in the Democratic National Committee's autopsy of the 2024 presidential race, the report noted that the nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, was never able to effectively combat a pro-Trump ad that stated, 'Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you.'  Republicans in Texas are hoping the same playbook can be used against Talarico, who has made positive comments about transgender kids and has voted in favor of protecting transgender Americans' rights.  On Monday, Paxton's campaign put out a release dubbing Talarico 'TalaCreepo,' and said his comments to Cogdell were a 'sad attempt at trying to appear less like the weird, radical he is by distancing himself from his extremist record.' But even Paxton's campaign was only able to say that the LGBTQ caucus that Talarico was a part of at the Texas state House supported puberty blockers and hormone treatments for transgender minors.  It also highlighted the caucus's support of drag shows for children and a vote Talarico took to allow transgender girls to play in women's sports.  In a poll released Tuesday, Talarico is leading Paxton in the deep red state - 47 percent to 45 percent, according to a Texas Pulse survey - but the Democrat's lead is within the poll's plus or minus 4 percent margin of error.  Talarico is on the ballot against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who gained President Donald Trump's endorsement over incumbent Republican Senator John Cornyn, besting him in a late runoff race  Republicans aligned with incumbent GOP Senator John Cornyn, who Trump decided not to endorse, instead throwing his weight behind the more MAGA-populist Paxton, feared that the race between Paxton and Talarico would be tighter than if the more mainstream Republican had remained on the ballot.  The runoff took place in late May - with Paxton walloping Cornyn - and now early polling is showing the close race that Republicans were sweating. Democrats have long wanted to flip Texas and hoped to do so with the candidacy of former Representative Beto O'Rourke, who challenged incumbent Republican Senator Ted Cruz in 2018.  But O'Rourke fell short, losing to Cruz by 2.6 points.  The comments below have not been moderated. The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline. By posting your comment you agree to our house rules. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual We will automatically post your comment and a link to the news story to your Facebook timeline at the same time it is posted on MailOnline. To do this we will link your MailOnline account with your Facebook account. 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