Newly resurfaced audio shows Texas Republican congressional candidate Brandon Herrera suggesting COVID-19's death toll wasn't severe enough because the virus failed to disproportionately kill overweight Americans, comments he made years before launching his current campaign.
The remarks surfaced from a July 2022 appearance on Elijah Schaffer's podcast "Slightly Offensive," roughly a year before Herrera's first run for Congress. The conversation began as a discussion about racial preferences on dating shows before veering into commentary about obesity, with another guest launching into a tirade calling overweight people "the most undisciplined, freaking disgusting people ever."
Herrera didn't push back. Instead, he doubled down on the sentiment.
"I'm of the opinion COVID wasn't bad enough because if you had something that just unfairly targeted fucking fat people, I'm here for it," Herrera said. "I would have worn my mask nowhere on purpose."
Herrera, now the Republican nominee in Texas's 23rd Congressional District against Democrat Katy Padilla Stout, made the comments knowing obesity is a well-documented risk factor for severe and fatal COVID-19 outcomes, meaning his remarks amounted to wishing the virus had killed more people specifically because of their weight.
The clip adds to a growing list of controversial remarks tied to Herrera's online persona as "The AK Guy," a gun-focused YouTuber with millions of subscribers who has drawn repeated scrutiny over crude jokes about women, veterans and other groups throughout his broadcasting career.
A CNN review of his videos, social media posts and podcasts found he compared feminists' bodies to whales or nuclear bombs, referred to children as "c-- trophies," and cracked jokes about veteran suicide, among a great deal else. He has also re-enacted the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and made statements mocking the Holocaust, calling a Nazi-era submachine gun "the original ghetto blaster."