EATING HIS WORDS

Must-Win MAGA Candidate Cornered on Flood of Embarrassing Leaks

Ken Paxton has emerged as his own worst enemy in the race for a Texas Senate seat.

Embattled Senate candidate Ken Paxton is begging voters to ignore audio leaks of him trashing Donald Trump that have helped throw his campaign into crisis.

“Just because they were able to clip a few things doesn’t mean that’s actually what I meant,” the Texas attorney general, 63, told Fox News on Sunday.

CLOSED DOOR, OPEN MIC

MAGA Candidate Caught Laughing in Humiliating Leaked Audio

Sarah Ewall-Wice

He started by trying to assure his potential constituents that he is, actually, very fond of the 80-year-old president. “I have supported President Trump, I love President Trump,” he said. “He’s been out working extremely hard to help me get elected, and I really appreciate him. He’s done a great job as president.”

Paxton’s campaign is reeling after he was caught out by at least five embarrassing leaked audio recordings from a single D.C. fundraiser in late September. The first leak shows him bashing Trump’s appearance at that month’s Republican Midterm Convention in Dallas for supposedly damaging the candidate’s standing with voters.

A second exposed him suggesting that he felt the White House had effectively hijacked his campaign, while a third caught him blaming low numbers on Trump’s war on Iran and widespread unaffordability.

The fourth and fifth audio leaks showed Paxton laughing about mandatory spending cuts to federal welfare and taking shots at incumbent Sen. John Cornyn, whom he beat in a runoff after winning Trump’s endorsement. His team has also been hit by a leaked fundraising appeal showing him at a significant ad funding disadvantage against his Democratic opponent, up-and-comer James Talarico, as well as a leaked deposition blaming his wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, for a securities fraud probe he faced in 2014.

The Texas attorney general took aim at Talarico during his Fox appearance on Sunday. “Let’s just go back to the record, not this game that James Talarico’s played the whole time, which is, let’s not talk about Ken Paxton’s actual record, and let’s not talk about my actual record, let’s muddy the water and try to trick people into believing that he’s something that he’s not, which is a real Texan, believing in real Texas values,” he said.

Paxton’s record includes facing impeachment in the Republican-controlled Texas House in 2023 over allegations he abused his office to grant political favors to a donor. The state Senate later acquitted him, but not before proceedings revealed he allegedly got that same donor to hire a woman with whom he was having an extramarital affair. His wife is currently divorcing him on “biblical grounds.”

His habit of bashing Trump behind the scenes has sat awkwardly with the president’s efforts to publicly bolster Paxton’s campaign. Trump flew out to San Antonio last week to personally speak on Paxton’s behalf at a rally built around his Senate race.

That appearance followed a CNN report only the week before that found Paxton, whose polling has fallen increasingly behind Talarico since the summer, has set a record as the least popular Texas Senate GOP nominee so far this century.

The Daily Beast has contacted Paxton’s campaign for comment on this story.

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