‘Why does the destruction of property warrant your response but the genocide of black people in our country does not?’ Brianna Menard, a self-described ‘committed vegan,’ wrote in a since-deleted 2020 tweet
Left-wing Texas Senate candidate James Talarico’s girlfriend suggested that police officers were committing “genocide” against black Americans and petitioned to free a member of the Black Liberation Army militant group who was convicted of killing cops, a Washington Free Beacon review of her since-deleted online posts found.
Brianna Menard—a self-described “committed vegan” who began dating Talarico around the time she served as chief of staff in his Texas state representative office—wrote the posts at the height of the Black Lives Matter movement in the summer of 2020. Her X account’s banner image, in fact, depicted the clenched black fist associated with BLM alongside the slogan, “Black Lives Matter.”
Menard’s “genocide” remark was directed toward radio personality Bobby Bones of the nationally syndicated Bobby Bones Show. Five days after George Floyd’s death, on May 30, 2020, Bones subtly criticized the riots that had started in Minneapolis, writing, “My feeling now … I hate that the true message of inequality is being lost due to the actions of folks now.” Menard accused him of speaking out about “the destruction of property” but not Floyd’s “murder.”
“Why aren’t you speaking out about the murder of George Floyd?” she wrote. “You are always so good about addressing tragedies on the show. Yet you remained silent this week. Why does the destruction of property warrant your response but the genocide of black people in our country does not?” Thirteen unarmed black men were killed by police in 2019, according to a Washington Post database, but more than 22 percent of those who identified as “very liberal” estimated that the number was at least 10,000, a 2021 Skeptic Research Center poll found.
Roughly two weeks later, in June of 2020, Menard shared a petition from Color of Change—a “racial justice” group that led the charge to defund police—calling to commute the sentence of “Jalil Muntaqim,” legal name Anthony Bottom, a Black Liberation Army member who was convicted in 1975 of killing two New York City Police Department officers and later pleaded no contest to conspiracy to commit manslaughter in the case of a slain San Francisco officer. The petition called Bottom a “widely respected elder” who “has an exemplary record and a reputation as a peacemaker and teacher.”
“Jalil became ill and contracted COVID-19 in May 2020,” the petition said. “At a time when people are taking to the streets to protest state violence against Black people, the Black lives of those who fought to protect Black communities from police brutality and murder should not be disregarded.”
The posts—which Menard authored under the handle “BriannaMenard,” an account that Talarico has tagged on X and has since been deleted—reflect the far-left activism that Talarico himself was widely known for before securing the Democratic Senate nomination in a state that backed President Donald Trump by double-digit points in 2024.
Talarico, for example, has said that “God is non-binary,” a remark he walked back last week, telling CBS News, “There are statements that I’ve made that I certainly regret.” He has also argued against the presence of police in schools, saying in 2019 that “adding more law enforcement officials into campuses” amounts to “leaning into a culture of violence.” The Talarico campaign pushed back against GOP criticism of the remark by telling Fox News that “James opposes defunding the police and has a proven track record voting to send billions of dollars to support law enforcement.”
Talarico’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Menard served as Talarico’s chief of staff from January 2022 to January 2023, when she left her significant other’s office to serve in the same role for another Texas Democrat serving in the state legislature, Salman Bhojani. Talarico has said he and Menard have been together for four years, a timeline that suggests the pair began dating when Talarico was Menard’s boss.
Menard now serves as director of TEXPAC, the political arm of the Texas Medical Association, which has condemned Texas Republicans for opposing what it calls “evidence-based, gender-affirming care for transgender youth and adolescents,” the New York Post reported. Menard also serves as secretary of a local food co-op, describing herself in her online bio as a “committed vegan” who spends her time “dancing the night away at Cheer Up Charlies,” an Austin-area gay bar, “or snuggling with my purrfect cat Zia.” Talarico has denied that he is a vegan himself, though in April 2022, while wearing a mask, he said he was “proud to say that our campaign has officially become a non-meat campaign” and would only buy “vegan products” because of “climate change.”
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In addition to her anti-police posts, Menard criticized white people—or “wypipo,” as she put it—for opposing critical race theory.
“Yes I’ll take ‘phrases that make wypipo uncomfy’ for $1000,” she wrote in June 2021 in response to a Texas Public Policy Foundation post calling on parents to “stay on the lookout” for critical race theory terms used in local classrooms.
Menard has also expressed an affinity for NBC News national political correspondent Steve Kornacki. “Not me calling my trauma bond with Steve Kornacki a crush,” she wrote in November 2020 alongside a smiling heart emoji. “My bf living his best life,” she wrote one month later, referring to Kornacki as her boyfriend along with another heart emoji.
Menard did not respond to a request for comment sent through TEXPAC.