On September 18, 2026, the Republican nominee for Texas's 23rd Congressional District posted a video about a book.

The book was Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler's manifesto. Brandon Herrera held his copy up to the camera, described it as a 1939 annotated edition printed in English, and — according to MeidasTouch, which reported on the video — said he has read "a good chunk of the book."

That was his answer to reporting about the book. Not a step back. A video.

What he said the first time

The original story is not new. In 2024, on the Unsubscribe podcast, Herrera talked about owning Hitler's manifesto. Jewish Insider reported his words: "That's my copy at my house next to a bunch of the German stick grenades." He said he got "the 1939 edition printed in English just because I thought it was wild that you couldn't buy it on Amazon."

He also delivered a line about the book's contents that treated the Nazi invasion of Poland as a punchline: "Poland gives this one star."

When the San Antonio Express-News asked him about it, Herrera said he bought the copy for his historic book collection, keeps it next to his copy of the Communist Manifesto, and does not agree with either book.

The Republican Jewish Coalition did not find that reassuring. Spokesperson Sam Markstein told Jewish Insider: "The RJC has a longstanding policy of speaking out against those who traffic in Nazi ideology, and this is another case."

What he said this week

Two years later, given a second chance to put the thing down, Herrera picked it up on camera instead.

In the new video he argues that the annotations in his edition are critical of Hitler, and compares studying Mein Kampf to reading other books he owns — The Communist Manifesto and 1984. He points back to a clip where he called Hitler's book "schitzo" and "all over the fucking place." His position is that owning a book is not agreeing with it.

That defense would carry more weight from almost anyone else. The problem for Herrera is everything around the book.

The rest of the record

Herrera is not a candidate with one awkward item in his library. He is a candidate his own party's leading Jewish organization spent $400,000 to defeat.

• He has joked that a Nazi submachine gun was "the original ghetto blaster," goose-stepped with it on camera to a Nazi marching song, and played Nazi marching music in an earlier video about Nazi guns.
• In 2024, the Republican Jewish Coalition — a Republican organization, spending against a Republican — denounced him as a "goose-stepping extremist."
• He called a child a slur to insult mothers campaigning against gun violence — a story we covered in July, in which Texas Republicans physically walked away from reporters rather than answer for him.

Put the video back in that context and the "it's just a book" argument stops working. A man who goose-steps on camera for content, and who keeps Hitler's manifesto next to his German stick grenades, is not being asked about his reading habits. He is being asked about a pattern.

The endorsements came anyway

Here is the part that should matter most to voters in the 23rd District: none of this cost him anything inside his own party.

On March 12, 2026, President Trump endorsed him. The endorsement said Herrera is "strongly supported by many Highly Respected MAGA Warriors in Texas," praised him on the Second Amendment, and closed: "HE WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!" A week later, House Republican leaders backed him too.

The Republican Jewish Coalition had already given its answer the week before, when the podcast remarks resurfaced: "The RJC opposed Mr. Herrera in 2024, and he will not get our support now."

So the party's leadership knew about the Nazi gun jokes, the goose-stepping video and the Hitler manifesto, and endorsed him regardless. The group in their own coalition that objects to trafficking in Nazi ideology is still objecting, and is being ignored.

Why this is a Texas problem, not an internet problem

Herrera became the nominee because Rep. Tony Gonzales abruptly dropped out of the 2026 race after admitting an affair with an aide. That is how a YouTuber who films himself with Nazi weapons ended up one election away from a seat in Congress.

TX-23 is a real place with real stakes. The people who live there are the ones who would be represented by whatever Herrera does next — and the record so far is that when a story about Hitler's manifesto broke, his instinct was to make more content out of it.

What the record shows

Brandon Herrera has spent two years being asked about Nazi material — a submachine gun joke, a goose-stepping video set to a Nazi march, and a 1939 copy of Hitler's manifesto he keeps beside German stick grenades. The Republican Jewish Coalition called him a "goose-stepping extremist" in 2024 and says it still opposes him. On September 18, 2026, his answer was a new video in which he held the manifesto up to the camera and said he had read a good chunk of it. Trump endorsed him anyway, and so did House Republican leadership.

Source

Reporting from MeidasTouch, September 18, 2026. Photo: Brandon Herrera / YouTube, via MeidasTouch.