Breaking News from Pod Save America - Trump-Backed Ken Paxton Is TERRIBLE News for Republicans

Episode Date: May 27, 2026

Ken Paxton’s Texas primary victory is already causing panic inside Republican circles as Democrats see a major opening. Jon Favreau and Tommy Vietor break down the latest. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Texas voters went to the polls Tuesday, John, and has Democrats excited about our prospects of winning back the U.S. Senate in November. That is because Texas Attorney General Ken Paxon crushed incumbent Senator John Cornyn in the Senate primary there. Paxon got nearly 64 percent of the vote to Corny's 36.2. That is a massive improvement from the March 3rd results that led to this Tuesday runoff. In the March results, Cornyn barely edged out Paxon with 41.9 percent of the vote. And now it looks like Paxon improved his result in literally. nearly every county as of this recording. Quarter won three counties.

It's pretty bad. I think that Delta tells you the power of a Trump endorsement in a deep red state's Republican primary. Let's watch some of Ken Paxton's election night's speech. Give us a sense of what the general election will be like. My opponent is the most extreme radical that Democrats have ever nominated. He's even running a vegan campaign, whatever that is. He goes by a few names that you may all have heard of.

Some people know him as tofu Tala Rico. Some people call him six-gender Jimmy. I've even heard some people call him James Talofriko. And others refer to him simply as low-tie Tala Rico. But no matter what you call him, let me tell you this. James Talariko is a threat to everything we hold dear in this state and in this country. He's a threat to our security and our safety. He wants open borders and even said a welcome mat should be at our southern border.

He's a threat to our children. He wants boys and girls' sports. Gender mutilation surgery performed on kids. And when asked what he loved outside of his family and friends, you heard what Brandon Gill said. His first answer was trans kids. That's weird and that's a radical guy. Charisma just jumps off the screen. I was going to say, I did not expect Ken Paxton to sound.

like that? I guess I've never heard him speak. He's a tough look. He sounds like an insurance commissioner from Connecticut. Yes. He doesn't sound like a I thought it sounded like an old Texas boy. Wow, that's weird. And he was just reading the lines. He's like, uh, ha, ha, ha, ha. Also, Ken Paxson has a little too much

tea, according to his soon-to-be-ex-wife. Anyway, so that was the guy the Democrats want to face in November, James Tyler Rico in particular. How hopeful did this result make you feel about our chances in November? I think it boosted Talley Rico's chances for sure. I think I would put him at

fifth, I would put I think he's still the underdog Tell Rico, but I think the chances are like 55-45-45. Polymarket has 53 Republican 47 Democrats. Oh, look at me. I'm close to Polymarket. Yeah, you're close. Yeah, you're close. Yeah, that's what I would say now. We'll see how the campaign unfolds.

We should also say that just about nothing that Paxton said there was true about Telarico, just about. He's not a vegan. He's not a vegan. He's not running a vegan. He's not running a vegan. Canis. No, wasn't a vegan. Never said he was a vegan. You did say vegan. He did say vegan. John, you know who's not a vegan freak. Who? Us. Which is why we hope you'll watch Pod Save America here on YouTube. Love meat. We love meat. We also love politics. We love to create content that helps us push back on the right wing garbage you find on YouTube. I think that we here at Pod Save America are mostly responsible for the demise of the Daily Wire and Ben Shapiro. I heard you and Rhodes talk about that. Yeah, we're just taking credit left and right. That's great. I'm in. Please subscribe. POTS of America here on YouTube. You're helping us do good work, get good information to people,

and it really helps. Interesting that he talks about him being a, wanting to mutilate children, and he's doing the children thing, since Ken Paxton is literally a pedophile protector. He offered a plea deal to a man who admitted molesting a child to serve only one day in jail. Well, that seems like a stiff penalty. It is. It's hard to figure out the right attack against Ken Paxon. because there's so many opportunities, read about that case. It is, fucking, it's horrifying. Yeah. Like, I mean, if a Democrat was Attorney General and, and controlled that case, they would

never run for public, they'd be driven out of public life forever. That is the story of Ken Paxton. It's just like there's so many targets to shoot at. It's like hard and aware. For what it's worth, you know, I think Politico had a poll out today from a pro-Talorico super PAC that showed 45% for Tala RICO, 38, Paxton, 14 undecided. But importantly, Tala Rico's favorables were 41 fave, 35 unfave, whereas Paxon was 30% fave, 56% unfave. Tala RICO is plus 13 on handling the economy and representing values.

So it's clear that they're just going to run a brutally negative campaign and try to make Tala RICO seem weird as what was said there. Now, part of the challenge is going to be the Tala RICO has a lot more money. He raised $26 million in the first quarter of 2026. He has $10 million on hand. Tala Rico said he raised 600 grand in two hours after Paxton's win. Paxton has only 2.3 million on hand at the end of March. And like Texas is a massive state, as people know, 19 million voters, size of France, a bunch of expensive media markets.

So it's hard to get them your message. That said, you know, Ken Paxson was outspent by John Corny by $80 million and he's still won. And I suspect that a bunch of corporate, you know, MAGA money is just going to flow into Texas. So they'll solve that problem. One more thing that was interesting about the primary last night. So Ken Paxton improved his number of votes by about 7,000. He got about 7,000 more votes than he got in the first race. Cornyn lost about 400,000 votes.

Wow. 400,000 people who vote. So the turnout was really, so obviously the Trump endorsement helped, but it helped in an interesting way, which is if you were a Paxton voter the first time, you went out to vote. If you were a Cornyn voter the first time, most of those people stayed home.

You're just demoralized. Yeah, I think I watched Paxton speech and I watched Cornyn's speech, which was just sad. And he also did this riff at the end about how people who know me know that I think the person who gets the most votes won the election.

It's like, hmm, do you? Tell that to Donald Trump, but he was saying, I forget the exact number of you was saying like 8% of voters turned out. It was like a pretty low turnout. Very low turnout. So James Talarico, is faced with the same challenge we just described of like Ken Paxson is so corrupt. It's hard to know where to even point your fire.

This video, though, that he released Tuesday night seems like it may be a blueprint for how he runs the race. Let's watch. Something just happened in Texas. The most corrupt politician in America just became the Republican nominee for the United States Senate. Three years ago, Ken Paxton was impeached by his own party for using his public office to enrich himself and his donors at the expense of the people. That kind of corruption is the rot

at the core of this broken system. It's why we can't afford anything. It's why we can't get ahead no matter how hard we work. For 50 years, mega donors and their puppet politicians like Ken Paxton have stolen from us with their bribes, their bailouts, and their billionaire tax breaks. Ken Paxton has gotten away with it. They've all gotten away with it. But that ends this year, in this state, in this race. If we the people can come together to defeat the most corrupt politician in America, we can defeat this entire corrupt system.

We can start unrigging this economy. We can start raising our pay, cutting our taxes, lowering our costs. We can finally get ahead. it's time to come together, the people versus Ken Paxton. I like that. What do you think about this attempt to connect Paxton's personal corruption to like the broader affordability challenges? I think it's really smart. I think we've heard this from Assoff too.

Yeah, the corruption is why everything's more expensive. So he connects it. I think that if the danger with Paxton is because there are so many targets, if it becomes a race about Ken Paxton's character versus James Tala Rico's character, I actually think it's tougher for Talleyico because if it's criminal adulterer who still has the right positions versus weird freak who might put our children in our country at risk and all that shit, then like, you know, you could, the Texas is a more Republican state. You could see Paxton eking it out. But if it's corrupt politician who made everyone poorer versus an outsider who will shake up the system,

and you saw there, Tala RICO trying to make the whole race bigger than just Ken Paxton, but about the whole corrupt system and how he's going to take it on, then I think he's got a much better chance. Yeah, I agree with that too. I mean, for what it's worth, Paxton, it's like, I have a hard time keeping track of all the scandals because Paxton is so corrupt

and they kind of overlap in certain places. But it's like, the list is impeached by the Texas Republican Statehouse on multiple abuse of power charges. So to imagine how corrupt you have to be, to be. 60 Republicans. Your own party in the Texas Statehouse. His own staff reported him to the FBI

for allegedly using his power to help a donor. He was also charged with retaliating against a whistleblower on his staff who then reported him to the FBI. When Paxton was the state senator, he was charged with defrauding his own colleagues by telling them to invest in some company and then not disclosing that he was getting a commission off of those investments. He had to settle that case and pay 300 grand. There's a ton of infidelity allegations. His current wife is running around telling people that he's endorsing Paxton on biblical grounds or adultery. I talked to someone who was at an event and she like came up to this person and said that to them specifically. specifically. It's a, it's gross and also a funny story, the biblical grounds thing. But

that is the attack that I find least persuasive that I hope they don't jump on. Like, people don't care if he's an adulterer. And I know that that outsiders think that because Texans are religious and stuff like that, you know, they might be like, oh no, he's an adulterer and he's a hypocrite. Like no one fucking cares. They like Trump. They like, exactly. So as long as you do the things they want. Yeah, people expect, people think all politicians are like bad characters who are corrupt and so you've got to specifically say that Ken Paxton's corruption hurt the taxpayers of taxes.

Do you see there's one other story that I really love is that Ken Paxton was accused of stealing someone's pen. They're going to a courthouse and like, you know how you have to like scan your shit like it's a TSA? Some guy put it in like a thousand dollar pen and Ken Paxson apparently just sniped it.

I mean, it's incredible. He's a fucking thief. It's incredible. He's a thief. There's a couple other polls. One poll had the Tala Rica versus Pacton tied in late April, early May. That was Robert Jordan Public Policy Research at the Texas Southern University. Another poll from April 17th through 20th had Tala Rico 46 Pacton 41. This was Texas public opinion. So it's a jump ball. We'll see. It's going to be tough. You want to see the Tala RICO number get closer to 50, obviously, in these polls.

45 makes me real nervous. Right. Because the low Paxton number is sort of a mirage right now because because all these Texas Republicans will come home and there was a sort of divisive primary. Yes. That's exactly. So on the question of this divisive primary, I mean, it will help to tell RICO that until today, the entire Republican establishment was savaging Ken Paxson.

We're going to play two things for you. The first is an actual ad by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, or NRSC, about Paxon. Let's watch that. This is the sound of Texas. And this is how... Visit BetMGM Casino and check out the newest exclusive.

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It sounds under... So, which text list do you want to hear? I mean, I would just play that ad and say, brought to you by the Republican Party. Yeah, I'm not voting for that guy. That guy seems terrible. I love the good image there at the end. And then, John, this is John Cornyn talking about Ken Paxson literally yesterday. It was Tuesday election day.

An embarrassment, his misbehavior, and he's completely unrepentant. I mean, it's one thing for a person to make a mistake and then say, you know, I'm sorry, I'll do better next time. But that's not Ken Paxton. It's just emboldened him to the point of recklessness and now to the point of self-destructiveness, especially with regard to his own family. The basic problem is you can't trust Ken Paxton. He's lied to Texas taxpayers. He's lied to his senior staff who turned him into the FBI.

And then it's his own family. And, of course, with his wife allegations made of, unfaithfulness. I just think you cannot trust Ken Paxton. Would you endorse Paxton if he's a nominee? I've said before and I'll say it again that I would support the ticket. It's just like it's like all the problems with the Republican Party in one quick second sound bite. I mean, looks, I think ultimately voters will probably come home to Paxton. But those aren't like, hey, he's bad on health care. That's like this man is bad character. You can't trust him. He's unrepentant. He's a lot. I mean, that is a tough shot.

You know, I haven't heard comments like that about a fellow Republican since Donald Trump in 2016. Yeah, right. When Marco Rubio. Ted Cruz. So there is a history of them coming home. But I do think, you know, those are valuable clips to play. So valuable. For the Tellerigo campaign.

Also, the NRC is like deleting all press releases, all of their old tweets, everything else, which, you know, you can't do. Right. The internet is forever. So I think that's fun. Yeah. I do think Maga probably hates John Cornyn in part because of those clips. So, like, you know, I would definitely have an ad track that is, like, playing that stuff on Fox News, but you're probably prying away the kind of soft, the people who I still identify

as Republicans and not MAGA and who knows how many of those there are in Texas. That was Mandu Raju at CNN. He was, like, interviewing some voters yesterday, and there was a couple of Cornyn voters who were like, oh, yeah. Yeah, I don't like him that much, but, like, Ken Paxton's a fucking criminal. So there's, like, there's going to be some of the, I bet in the excerpts of Dallas in Houston, like, you're going to get some voters like that. Yeah, some like traditional country club.

Like, I just don't want high taxes and big government Republicans. They still exist. The question for Tel Rico still is we're seeing in national polls, all these Hispanic voters that voted for Trump in 2024 snap back to the Democrats. Does he get those voters? Does he get them in the Rio Grande Valley? Yeah. And then, you know, there's just a lot of rural areas in Texas with a bunch of voters that

adds up. Yes. And because Texas is such a big state, it adds up to. get close to some of the margins or some of the population that you get in the big cities. So, like, he's got to make, he's just got to lose less in those areas than probably even Beto did. Yeah, we need a lot of voters to just stay home. And Donald Trump not being out a ticket, probably a good thing. Are you going to turn out to vote for Ken Paxson?

He's a weirdo. Right. Yeah, there could be a lot of, or there could be a lot of people just leaving, leaving a blank. Yep, leaving a blank. For what it's worth, James Talleyco, also had a tough primary. He ran against Jasmine Crockett, the congresswoman. Talleyico got 52.4% of the vote. She got 46.2% of the vote. Crockett was quoted in Politico today, talking about Tala Rico's strategy so far. This is from that story. But to Ms. Crockett, Mr. Tala Rico's

public emphasis on appealing to moderate Republicans who were repelled by Mr. Paxson and Mr. Trump has come at the expense of talking to her supporters across the state. Quote, he is struggling with some of our consistent black voters, she said Tuesday, I'm pretty doubtful that infrequent black voters will be motivated as I'm not convinced that they are a target. The target seemingly has been disaffected MAGA. We don't know what she's referencing or if there's communities she's hearing from. I think it's a weird quote

because you can do both and frankly have to to win in a state like Texas that Trump won by 14 points. You know, your chances are winning Texas if you don't target disaffected MAGA voters? Zero. That's a zero.

It's just a math problem. Yeah, I don't know how she could know other than anecdotally that he's struggling with. It's one infrequent black voters. Yeah, you worry about that. Infrequent any voter you worry about that. But like some of the most consistent black voters, like I just don't know how she could know that.

Yeah. And we probably, like we're talking about a huge number of voters in aggregate. So it'd be impossible to know right now. There is this constant debate about whether Democrats win because of failed turnout efforts or lose because of failed turnout efforts or win because we fail to persuade people in Texas. You just have to persuade people. Yeah. It's going to have to be both. And so we need that much money too. Hopefully we can come together to persuade them all. But for what it's worth, Trump doesn't seem to give a shit about any of this. So we're watching him do a cabinet meeting before we walked in. I was hoping to see something about what's going on with the Iran talks because we spent, you know, the weekend getting a little tease. Some mixed messages.

Yes, some mixed messages on whether there'd be a deal, still no deal. But what I caught was 20 minutes on random DC monument renovations. Jesus Christ. So that was good. The Fox News, Kyron John started with D.C. Or sorry, Trump, D.C. is looking beautiful, hard-hitting coverage. And then, you Trump did extended, scripted remarks about the brave decision to paint the reflecting pool. And then Fox went with Trump. Reflecting Pool was filled with dirty water. I thought you'd enjoy this quick clip of him talking about the renovations himself. Let's watch as it can be.

And we're now covering it with the most beautiful blue, very thick. You think of it as a very sophisticated form of rubber. No leaks, no problems. And it's beautiful. It's called American Flag Blue. That was the color we chose. Is that the kind of message from the White House that you think will help Ken Pax and turn out those Republicans in November? Yeah, I think when you also go to fill up your car and it's now close to $5 a gallon, and then you tune in and you hear the president say, it's a beautiful blue, very thick like rubber.

Rock, thick, rock hard. Gertie blue. What if, what, he is, actually insane. Everyone knows that. but like it's just the obsession is weird The obsession is weird

And I mean look at his head He's reading He's reading prepared remarks About the very blue Very thick rubber That he asked someone To paint on a fountain They're turning the entire city

Into a fucking Low Rent Carnival For They're building the UFC thing Which is like a giant Arch over the White House The reflecting pool Is thick rubber blue

It's just a wild set of the ballroom is still, you know, half built. He is very focused on this 250 anniversary. By the way, Freedom 250, they announced the music icons who will be performing on the National Mall June 25th through July 10th. Can I read you a few? Yes. Martina McBride.

Okay. I don't know who that is. Classic Republican country singer kind of person. C&C Music Factory. What? That's a good one. Vanilla Ice. They're still around?

C&C Music Factory? Who knew? Vanilla Ice. haven't seen him since Des Moines. Millie Vanilly. Millie Vanilly. I kind of thought the scandal around the up sinking. Well, one of them is.

Scandals are no longer an obstacle. Yeah, you're right. In this White House. Young MC. The Commodores, actually a talented, and Morris Day in the time, Flo Rida. Flo Rida is MAGA? Like, every once in a while, like, Flo Rida will do stuff.

The Nelly is a big, Mattie. Yeah, Nellie's a MAGNA. Junior event. Brett Michaels. you know, the lineup might have crushed in 1989. I don't know about now.

I'm excited for C&C Music Factory. CNC Music Factory. I feel like Borod had like a CNC Music Factory bit that was really good. C&C Music Factory and Millie Vanilli and Vanilla Ice

is quite a lineup. That's a lot of... That's a lot of 1990. Yeah, 90. Yeah, like 89. Yeah, 89, 90, right? Yeah, because I think, yeah, or 912, I think that's when

CNC Music Factory went to the top of the charts. Did they have any... Was there any other song? There was a whole album. I think I might have owned the album. I think I probably owned the album too. I think it was my Columbia Records. Actual CD. Back in the day. I spotted Tulsi Gabbard at the cabinet meeting. She announced her resignation last week when we were off for a love its wedding. She got the faintest of praise from Trump today. Ben and I paid tribute to her on

Pottaic World this week. I know you're a big fan though. She really had such a little impact? Like what she didn't really do anything during her whole tenure. Well, she fired a I hired some intelligence analysts who tried to tell the truth about Venezuela. Yes. For example. Right. She twisted herself and not to contort what the intelligence actually said about Iran's nuclear program, but also sounds supportive of the regime change war that she told us it was her life's work to avoid.

Yeah. One thing you notice is that like the heterodox crew that joined the Trump administration, the Tulsi Gabbard's, like it hasn't worked that well. I sort of wonder if RFK Jr. Will we'll continue on. See that Goober catching snakes on Dr. Oz's porch yesterday? What a fucking weirdo? What are we doing here?

They're talking about James Talafrico and we've got RFK Jr. picking up snakes and they're just like sniping his arm over and over again. It doesn't seem to care. Such a weirdo. The Tulsi thing was weird too because she announced that she was leaving because her husband has bone cancer, which is obviously awful and sad. And we wish her the best and everything. But then the Trump administration, like his lackeys ran to a bunch of news outlets.

And we're like, actually, we fired her ass. Oh, I didn't see that. They ran to writers. No, no, no, she got pushed out. And also, he talked about firing her a month ago and also, you know, he thinks she sucks. Man, another one bites the dust. Nice people. Still waiting on the cash departure. Yeah, we're, how is Cash Patel still there? He must just be doing terrible things behind the scenes. Head down. He must be like sucking up too. Yeah. I wonder if we'll get some of those cash bourbon bottles at the big 250 anniversary event. Oh yeah. That's going to be a big, big night for him. Oh yeah. He's going to be. He's going to tear it up. Yeah. Maybe I wonder if his, um, country singing, girlfriend will be in that line up a lot with Martina McBride and C&C music that's a good call I mean she is one of the best country singers in the world in the world she's played tens of wrestling events I was gonna say she's yeah she's been at

fights before so yeah she'll crush it maybe she'll do yeah maybe she'll do the anthem that would actually be like a pretty good troll by them just to fucking stick it to us yeah um anyway excited to see C&C music factory Millie Vanilli and Vanilla ice and that blue rubber pool that blue rubber pool thank you for watching this episode of Pod Save America right here on YouTube. Please subscribe and talk to you guys soon.