Brandon Herrera Controversy Texas

A 2-Year-Old Named Brandon Herrera Was Beaten to Death in Texas in 2011. Brandon Herrera Joked on a Podcast That It Could Have Been Him, Raised 'on the Third Day to Be the AK Jesus.'

On a 2022 podcast, hosts read Brandon Herrera a news report about a disabled 2-year-old from Greenville, Texas, with his name who was whipped and beaten to death. Herrera, now the Republican nominee in Texas's 23rd District, joked he could have been killed and 'brought back on the third day to be the AK Jesus.'

MAGA Report Cards · Oct 25, 2026

In July 2011, a funeral home in East Texas filled with mourners for a 2-year-old boy. CBS News reported that his family said he had special needs and wore a prosthetic leg. Authorities said he died after being whipped with a belt. The two people his mother had left him with were charged with capital murder; one reportedly confessed to hitting him at least ten times with a belt because he would not stop crying.

The boy's name was Brandon Herrera.

Eleven years later, Brandon Herrera, now the Republican nominee for Congress in Texas's 23rd District, went on the Drinkin' Bros Podcast. The hosts told him they had searched his name on Google and found the news about the boy's death. A clip from the September 2022 episode resurfaced this week.

What Herrera said

"There's a tattoo artist and like a three-year-old that died," Herrera said when the hosts brought up the search results.

A co-host joked that it could be "like a Highlander situation where he has to go murder all the other Brandon Herreras." Herrera answered, "There can be only one."

Then the host read details of the murder and asked Herrera what happened. Herrera said:

"To be honest, I don't really remember what I was doing when I was two. I don't have any memories from that. So I could have gotten killed and got brought back. Brought back on the third day to be the AK Jesus, so to speak. It's viable. I could see it."

Herrera calls himself "the AK Guy" and has called himself "AK Jesus" before. The hosts went on to suggest merchandise of a 2-year-old Herrera holding two AK rifles with "R.I.P." Later in the same episode, during a conversation about life insurance, Herrera brought the boy up again: "I was killed when I was 2 years old."

There is no sign Herrera had any connection to the boy beyond the name. The child was a real person, and his family spoke to reporters about losing him. To Herrera, he was material for a joke about himself.

On the same podcast: "I should have been [expletive] raped for sure"

That wasn't the only child-abuse joke. In another clip from his September 2022 Drinkin' Bros appearance, a host brought up the Catholic Church's cover-up of child sexual abuse. "I thought it was just me," Herrera said.

When a host joked about another participant not having been molested, Herrera said: "Like, man, was I just an ugly Boy Scout? Because like, you hear all these fucking stories." Someone answered that the Boy Scouts who got molested were "the ones who were bad at knots." Herrera's reply: "Oh, then I should have been fucking raped for sure."

The clips keep coming

This is not the first time Herrera's podcast past has caught up with him, and he knows what's in it. In a 2024 episode, after joining a bit mocking people with Down syndrome, Herrera said that "any [expletive] 20 minute section of this show would be a career killer if I was still running." We wrote about that clip. He has also joked that unwanted kittens should go to "the local Chinese restaurant".

Republicans spent 2024 warning that he was too extreme for Congress. This year, Speaker Mike Johnson is raising money for him.

What the record shows

In 2011, a disabled 2-year-old from Greenville, Texas, named Brandon Herrera was whipped and beaten to death, and two caregivers were charged with capital murder. On a 2022 podcast, after the hosts read him the news report, Brandon Herrera, now the Republican nominee in Texas's 23rd District, joked that he could have been "killed and got brought back on the third day to be the AK Jesus," and later said, "I was killed when I was 2 years old." On the same podcast, joking about Boy Scouts and child sexual abuse, he said, "I should have been fucking raped for sure."