MAGA political commentator Scott Jennings has blasted Ken Paxton after the Texas Senate candidate was recorded trashing Donald Trump for hurting his election chances.
Jennings, who is believed to be in the running to be the next White House press secretary, said during Wednesday’s episode of CNN’s NewsNight with Abby Phillip that the Texas attorney general should keep such damning criticism “to yourself.”
Paxton was recorded on audio obtained by The New York Times saying his polling numbers “dropped” after he attended Trump’s flop midterm convention in Dallas last month.
“So, to be honest with you, the numbers—when we did that convention—it dropped our numbers. Everybody’s numbers dropped,” Paxton replied. “Right now, yeah, not good.”
“Ken Paxton has an excellent chance to win, and he needs Donald Trump’s help, and he needs Donald Trump’s voters to do that,” Jennings said. “For a lot of reasons, I was not happy with this comment today from Ken Paxton. Even if he thinks he was being honest, sometimes keep it to yourself and say, ‘We’re grateful for everyone’s support.’”
Phillip then asked whether Jennings believed that Trump’s midterm convention, which scores of Republican lawmakers boycotted to avoid being associated with the deeply unpopular president, was beneficial to the GOP.
“Well, the Republican Party thinks so,” Jennings said. “A lot of the candidates that are running in individual House races and people you’ve never heard of got a chance to get up on a big stage, and many of them rose to the occasion and gave great speeches.
“There were tons of donors down there. Donors were gathered and told, ‘Here’s what we need your help for. Here’s where your money needs to go.’”
The CNN panel had earlier been discussing how it is a very bad sign for the GOP that Republican groups are having to pump hundreds of millions of dollars into Paxton’s Texas Senate campaign in what is usually considered a safe red state.
Polls have shown that scandal-plagued Paxton is trailing Democratic candidate James Talarico in the crucial Texas Senate race. A Marist Poll published last week showed Talarico with a 6-point lead over Paxton (50 percent to 44 percent), with the midterms just weeks away.
Paxton was among the Republican figures who attended Trump’s midterm convention. However, the president decided he would try to help his election chances by mocking Paxton on stage, saying he “may not talk exactly perfectly, and he may not be the best-looking guy I’ve ever seen.”
The audio obtained by the Times was recorded at a private fundraising event in Washington, D.C., last month. The audio features someone asking Paxton, “Do you feel like he’s a little bit of a drag?” although it is unclear whom the other person was referring to.
Trump dodged a question in the Oval Office on Wednesday about Paxton’s remarks and immediately pushed completely false claims about how many people watched his midterm convention.
“I can tell you that the convention was amazing, as you probably know. We had 107 million views. But we had over 100 million views, I think 107,” Trump said. “The NFL had 25 million views.”
Trump’s speech on the opening night of the convention drew 3 million TV viewers. His 100 million figure appears to relate to social media impressions, which is not an accurate measure of how many people watched the speech.
