Ken Paxton alleges in leaked audio that John Cornyn wants him to lose the Texas Senate race so Republicans learn a hard lesson, Cornyn’s team denies it.
Newsweek reported that CNN obtained a recording of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton at a private fundraiser recounting an alleged Dallas restaurant encounter in which Sen. John Cornyn said Paxton would lose and Republicans needed to be taught a lesson.
Paxton is the Republican nominee facing Democrat James Talarico in the November 3 election. Cornyn’s camp says the restaurant conversation never happened. The charge lands in a race that recent polls have cast as a narrow lead or dead heat for Talarico, in a state that has not sent a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1988.
CNN said it did not independently verify the restaurant exchange Paxton described. The audio captures Paxton’s secondhand account of what a friend supposedly heard.
In the recording, Paxton walked donors through the alleged scene. He said Cornyn’s face went red, then laid out the words he attributes to the senator.
Paxton told the room:
"Paxton's gonna lose. We need to teach those Republicans a lesson. It's going to be hard to learn, but they need to know that their decisions have consequences."
He added, “That’s what he’s trying to do. That’s John Cornyn.”
Cornyn lost the Republican primary to Paxton. He has said he supports the Republican ticket but has withheld a formal endorsement of Paxton’s Senate bid. In August he told The Texas Tribune that Paxton was a “poor campaigner.”
A Cornyn spokesperson told CNN the restaurant conversation described by Paxton never occurred. Longtime Cornyn strategist Rob Jesmer went further when pressed on the idea that the senator wants Paxton beaten.
Jesmer told CNN:
"If Senator Cornyn wanted Ken to lose, I can assure you he'd be more active in the campaign. He has said he supports the Republican ticket. Given all Ken has said and done, I think that's a pretty good place for Senator Cornyn to be."
That is the public line: support for the ticket, no formal embrace of the nominee, and a flat denial of the private gloating Paxton described.
The CNN recording is not the only private Paxton audio to surface in the closing stretch. Politico obtained remarks in which Paxton said he had “never been in a race where I felt less control over the campaign” because so much of the messaging “comes from other people a lot of times, which you don’t control,” pointing to Washington, D.C.
The New York Times published audio of a man purported to be Paxton answering whether Trump was “a little bit of a drag.” The reply: convention numbers dropped “everybody’s numbers,” and “Right now, yeah, not good.” Senior Paxton adviser Nick Maddux called that report “more manipulated nonsense from The New York Times to create a story that doesn’t exist.”
Axios carried audio in which Paxton blamed the drag on “the war” and fuel costs, saying diesel over $6 a gallon left people “feeling the pinch.” The Texas Tribune reported audio in which Paxton said lawmakers would “have to suck it up” and cut mandatory federal spending, including Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, to close the deficit.
University of Houston political science professor Brandon Rottinghaus told Newsweek the pattern has a cost.
"The leaks have become political ammunition. The Republican primary left grievances and these leaks are proof of a divided GOP. The biggest liability of these leaks is the loss of control. Instead of telling voters why he should win, they are playing defense and doing damage control."
Talarico returned to the campaign trail Friday after time off reported as the flu. He has called for debates for months, challenged Paxton in July to three televised debates, and last month invited him to debate on Fox News. Trump said this week that Paxton should debate Talarico. Talarico has charged that Paxton’s “handlers claim he’s willing to debate, but every time a reporter asks a question, he literally runs away.”
Paxton used the Friday return to draw a contrast of his own. On X he said Talarico “skipped out on the Hispanic business leaders, canceled on the Central Texas African American Civic Engagement Symposium, and tried to pass off old content as new,” and that the flu “didn’t stop him from meeting with New York billionaires and Hollywood elites, or from partying with celebrities” at the Austin City Limits Music Festival “most working Texans don’t have the luxury of attending.”
Republicans also circulated “MISSING” posters aimed at the Democrat’s absence. The race remains framed by that unfinished debate fight and by the pile of leaked private talk on the Republican side.
Primary scars, withheld endorsements, and serial leaks do not draft the November message voters need. They hand a competitive Democrat free innings while Republicans argue with each other on tape.
