Ken Paxton faces a third leaked fundraiser tape blaming the war and diesel prices for his trailing Senate bid as Trump heads to campaign with him.
Audio from a private September 24 fundraising lunch in Washington, D.C., captured the Texas attorney general telling lobbyists what he says is dragging his race for the U.S. Senate.
Daily Mail coverage ties the remarks to the same event for a third time in the last month, just as President Donald Trump prepared to join him on stage in San Antonio on Wednesday evening.
Paxton did not point to tariffs. He pointed to costs voters feel every week.
"It's not tariffs.... It's the war, it's gas prices, it's diesel," Paxton said on the recording.
"It's not tariffs.... It's the war, it's gas prices, it's diesel,"
He added that diesel above $6 a gallon leaves people "feeling the pinch," and that rising fuel costs push "up food prices and everything else." Diesel had surged to around $6.50 a gallon last month.
Paxton also said he cannot stop the war and has "no control over gas prices." In the same room of lobbyists, he went further on who steers a federal campaign run from Washington.
"I don't control message or what we're doing," he said. "I don't have ability to change anything."
Axios first surfaced audio from the lunch. Politico released separate leaked audio on Monday from the same gathering. The New York Times obtained another recording tied to the episode.
One attendee told Politico that Paxton never blamed Trump's team by name, but people in the room understood who he meant. Adviser Nick Maddux insisted Paxton was "obviously" talking about super PACs, which campaigns cannot coordinate with. Maddux dismissed the Times account as "manipulated nonsense."
The timing landed hard. More audio surfaced just hours before Trump and Paxton were set to share the San Antonio stage, with less than a month left before Election Day.
Trump has already put serious money and machine muscle behind the race, including a $10 million boost that marked the seat as a priority fight.
Paxton still holds a cash edge. He ran a $20 million ad buy last month and has taken millions since September from Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s GOP fund.
Outside groups have kept pouring in as well, with an eight-figure ad blitz aimed at defending the Republican line in Texas.
Latest New York Times/Siena Research polling shows Paxton behind Democratic opponent James Talarico. The published margin was not detailed in the report, but the direction was clear: the Republican is trailing late.
A Reuters/Ipsos survey put Trump’s approval at 32 percent, with 44 percent of voters surveyed preferring Democratic candidates and 37 percent favoring Republicans. That national headwind is the climate in which Paxton’s diesel warning now echoes.
Talarico has run as a sharp cultural contrast in the same contest, including a recorded pledge to fight in the Senate for transgender children.
Paxton’s own primary path was built on distance from the Washington club. He beat the incumbent lane by branding John Cornyn a Washington insider insufficiently loyal to Trump. Via the Associated Press, Paxton put it flatly in that fight:
"I'm not their person and I'm never going to be their person,"
Party pressure has since run the other way, with calls for GOP unity behind Paxton as the nominee locked in and the general election clock ran down.
Trump endorsed Paxton after the primary fight and has kept showing up. Last week he rallied for Paxton in Denton, Texas, and visited a truck plant there. At a White House dinner in September, Trump praised him as the "best attorney general," even while ribbing his TV style and suit.
"You might not like the way he looks, you might not love his television interviews," Trump said, before adding that the attorney general record "speaks a lot louder than the suit he's wearing that doesn't look so great." At the Denton truck plant, Trump said Paxton "can be a pain in the a**."
Allied spending has matched the ground game. MAGA Inc.’s $10 million Texas play targeted the same race and the same Democratic opponent now leading in the Times/Siena survey.
Personal controversy has trailed the campaign as well. Daily Mail reporting has detailed Paxton’s split and his relationship with Tracy Duhon, including travel with her to Iceland over a July 4 holiday weekend. That drama sits beside the leaks, not above the fuel-price argument he made to donors.
Paxton’s core claim on the tape was not subtle. He told a room of lobbyists that war and pump prices, not tariffs, were the drag. He said diesel over $6 a gallon hits households and then hits grocery bills. He said he does not run the war and does not set gas prices.
He also said he does not control the federal-race message coming out of Washington. His adviser says that pointed at super PACs. An attendee told Politico the room heard a broader complaint. Either way, the candidate on tape sounded like a man arguing the campaign’s biggest problems sit outside his desk.
That is an awkward line for any nominee who still needs party machinery, joint rallies, and eight-figure air cover. It is also a line that matches what working voters already see on the sticker at the pump.
Three leaks from one D.C. lunch do not change the price of diesel. They do show a Republican nominee willing to say the war and the fuel bill are punishing the coalition he needs in Texas.
Kitchen-table politics still starts with what people pay to drive and to eat, and no amount of leaked audio will revise that bill.
