Bulwark Takes - Ken Paxton’s Divorce Drama Gets “Biblically” Messy

Episode Date: July 11, 2025

Texas AG Ken Paxton’s messy divorce just blew up as Angela Paxton blasts the filing on Twitter/X. Sam Stein and Will Sommer break down the scandal, from “biblical grounds,” MAGA backlash, Paxton’s history of alleged affairs, and that infamous $1,000 pen incident.

Bettering your business takes working with the best with the James Hardy Alliance. You gain access to leads training, networking, and support from the number one brand of siding in North America, achieve new levels of success by joining the James Hardy Alliance today. All right. Hey guys, Sam Stein managing out at the Bullwork drum by Will Summer, who's looking jacked, well muscle T. Thank you.

Look at that muscle. I thought we were done for the day, but this is an emergency podcast. We got a video. It's not every day that the Senate candidate was the attorney general of one of the more popular state in the country gets, you know, I don't know, serve with the divorce

filing. I don't know how to do. What do you even say? Anyways, Ken Paxson's wife said she's filing for a divorce. That's what happened today. And there was this very interesting statement out from the NRSC. I want to go find it because they're going to have to walk this bad boy back at some point when Ken Paxton. Yeah. So this is the Senate Republicans campaign arm

that works to get more Republicans elected to the Senate. Yes. I have more respect for our viewers than you do because I feel like they should know that. But don't worry about that. We'll put that aside. The NRSC, National, national Republican senatorial committee says what Ken Paxson has put his family through is truly repulsive and disgusting.

No one should have to endure what Angela Paxson has. And we pray for her. And she, as she chooses to stand up for herself and her family during this difficult time, ouch, that's kind of rare. That's crazy. It's crazy. It's a little crazy because he's going to win. Now let's back up.

Ken Paxton is challenging John Cornyn who is the incumbent senator. The NRC has obviously taken a stand here. They want Cornyn to win the primary. He's losing badly in all these primary polls. So they're putting themselves into corner. But what do you make of all this? Ken Paxton, kind of a shady character to begin?

Yeah, well, I can tell you as a sort of native Texan myself. Oh, credentials. Ken Paxton's antics. Yeah, I mean, he's a, you know, if folks Google Ken Paxton scandal, you'll spend the whole night reading about different ones. There's some good ones. I'll tell you my favorite in a little bit, but go ahead. So, so yeah, I mean, this is a guy, he's the attorney general. He is a kind of constantly embroiled in investigations. He's had at least I think one affair that came out previously. And then this like got to the floor of the legislature and his wife is a state senator. So she was there for it. I mean, it's really, but, but this suggests,

so I think her statement, she says that there were new discoveries or new revelations. So that suggests to me that maybe Ken something else has come out. Well, so there were allegations of an affair with a woman who at one point in time may have been colleagues with Ken Paxson's wife who is, correct me if I'm wrong, she's a state lawmaker, right? Is she in the state house? Yes. Okay. And even when Ken Paxson was going through his, the impeachment proceedings, his wife, Angela, was just by his side the entire time. She was not allowed to participate in the proceedings because, well, she's clearly biased.

And so voting on her own husband's impeachment... Though one wonders in which direction. At the time, there was concern that she would be biased in his direction. She, but she sat there during the proceedings wearing red, which was the color of Paxton supporters and glaring at her colleagues through it all. She stood by his side amid all this stuff. Ken Paxton is an unsavory character. Let's put it that way.

There's a whole load of problematic things in his past. My favorite one is this. I'm going to just read from Wikipedia, but supported by a number of different articles. There was surveillance video from a Collin County courthouse in 2012 that showed Paxton taking a Montblanc pen worth $1,000, which had been accidentally left behind at a metal detector by a fellow lawyer, Joe Joplin.

The pen was later returned, quote, "'When the error was realized,' said a spokesman for packaging, the surveillance video was pretty conclusive that he saw the pen realized it was an incredibly valuable pen, and then snatched it was a fast. He just took the pen and he got caught. And then he was like, Oh, I didn't realize it was not my pen. No, it just goes to show you it goes beyond kind of like typical, you know, uh, politicians and

allegation corruptions. I mean, his, his famously like a huge amount of people in his office quit and then worked as whistleblowers. Um, and these were, you know, otherwise came back to the loyalists who were like, Whoa, like, you know, if I stay here, I might face an indictment, something like that. And he would always fundraise from, uh, ethically dubious characters to help fund his legal bills. He would ask for taxpayers to help support his his legal bills. And yet he keeps winning.

And he keeps moving up the ladder. Yes, he does. I mean, I mean, my experience with him was that he was involved with these efforts to shut down this this Muslim housing development epic city in Dallas, and they epic city hired his lawyer and then he was furious about it because obviously he has like a very good defense lawyer himself. You know where do we think this is gonna have, how does this play into the primer? God knows but if you judge by, if you go by the online reaction, I'm gonna pull this up, this might be a shock to you but if you just look at the Twitter sphere and how they're reacting because they both tweeted about the divorce the wife put up

I think she said what did she say something like I have to do this for biblical reasons Yes, I filed for divorce on biblical grounds and that she says in light of recent discoveries, right? So if you look at like someone was pointing to that if you look at the responses to her tweet about it They're like there are no biblical grounds for divorce. Marriage is indissoluble. Like, I mean, they're all it's just nasty, nasty stuff directed at her. And then when Ken tweets out about it, he's like, you know, it's a sad thing, sad chapter in our lives, but I wish her the best. It's like, all of them is like prayer, emojis, send you our prayers with love. Can we love you? And I forget what the quote was. Maybe you remember who, who had the famous quote, but it's like in these Republican primaries, like you just got to be the crazy son of the

bitch in the room. And, um, do you remember who the quote was? I feel like that before, but it's good advice. It's good in Tomascy, honestly, but I'll have to double check it. But anyways, I feel like that's just the case here. It's like being the craziest son of the bitch in the room is what gets you to victory in this primary. And Ken Paxton is like proof point of it. Well, you know, one thing I thought, thought is interesting here. I mean, her post is obviously very heavily implying an affair or some other sordid thing to come right.

Like what did she discover that wasn't already known? Like, well, I don't know. I need to know this. Like, I think we do a lot. I suspect one suspected it'll come out, right? Like this is going to be a very nasty primary. Um, and then his post is saying, you know, he says, the libs have been added again, you know, after so many slings and arrows, my marriage has suffered, you know, we had to break up because of, you know, rude tweets or whatever. I know, and this probably is why I can never do politics in my

life. But like, at one point, don't you like, does the spin? Do you ever like say, no, maybe I shouldn't, you know, spin this one. Like this is, this is too much. Like this is too personal. How close is he to saying like, oh, you know, the deep state is like involved in this shit. Like, I mean, we're like one step away from that. Right. I mean, I suspect, I mean, in all seriousness, I mean, if, if I think of Angela

Paxman keeps talking about it, I'm sure there's a smear campaign that's going to, that's going to work up. Well, I, you know, the Democrats are kind of excited about Texas this year. Our colleague, Lauren Egan was reporting that there's like newfound optimism that they could, that this is one of those seats where they need, you know, they need to flip a couple of Republicans that, you know, packs and were to emerge from the primary that it would put this in play. Uh, Colin Alleread, who ran against Ted Cruz and came relatively close, is up, is running again this cycle. It's going to be a more favorable cycle this time around.

And then there's this guy, this representative, James Tallarico, who I don't know if you've seen any of this stuff, but he is like this young Texas rep. I don't follow Texas state house stuff at all, honestly. I mean, I do a little bit of tangential, but this guy is constantly popping up in my social media feeds because he does these incredibly viral, and it's not like gimmicky stuff. He just gives these really impactful speeches

and he has this incredible way of doing these questionings and these hearings, including on stuff like the 10 Commandments in the School and School Choice. And his clips go viral constantly. And he's going on Joe Rogan. And it looks like he also is considering a Senate bid. And that would be really fascinating because this dude is articulate in ways that not many Democrats are. And I have a suspicion that he's got some smart people pushing him along as well. So we'll see what happens. I'm never one to consider that a Democrat will actually pull it off in Texas. It's been a while, but you would know this, you know, the state a little bit better than I do. Is it possible?

I mean, you know, I think, as you said, we've heard this song a lot, you know, extremely unlikely. But then again, it does seem like Kim Paxton, you know, we'll see what remains to come out here. But he's ahead of John Cornyn by like 50 points. A lot. A lot. Geez. Yeah. Well, the Dacia and Ken Paxson is incredible. I would encourage people, if they're kind of interested in it, our friends over at Crooked, Aaron Ryan and Lister Mastromonaco, they did this incredible video.

They have a whole series of things called This Fucking Guy, where they just go after one dude about destroying America. And they did want to a little while ago on Ken packs and then impacts, but 30 minutes of scandal, and they probably could have gone for another 30 minutes. It's worth a watch if you haven't seen already. Can't believe I'm plugging them so hard, but it's worth it. In the meantime, I will plug us well, thanks for doing this on short notice. Really appreciate it.

Thank you guys for watching.