‘He wants me to lose’: Paxton complains about lack of support from Cornyn in leaked audio

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Ken Paxton has publicly said he would “love to have” John Cornyn’s support after their bruising Republican primary runoff in the Texas Senate race. But privately, Paxton has grown frustrated with the outgoing senator’s distance from his campaign.

“He’s clearly not helping. He wants me to lose,” the Texas attorney general said at a fundraiser last month, according to an audio recording obtained by CNN from an attendee who opposes Paxton.

While Paxton has minimized his criticism of Cornyn following their runoff, the private remarks demonstrate how their long-running tensions continue to roil the race, coming as national Republicans mount an all-out effort to help Paxton defeat Democratic state Rep. James Talarico . With polls showing a tight race, Republicans have poured well over $100 million into the general election in Texas, a state that has not elected a Democrat to statewide office since 1994 but is now critical to Republican hopes of holding a Senate majority.

‘He wants me to lose’: Paxton complains about lack of support from Cornyn in leaked audio

Paxton made the comments at a September 24 gathering in Washington after receiving a question about Rep. Jasmine Crockett, the Democratic congresswoman whom Talarico defeated in his primary, according to two sources familiar with the discussion. The recording obtained by CNN begins with Paxton apparently referencing Crockett, who has not campaigned for Talarico, saying he does not “know how much she really affects votes.”

“I mean maybe a little bit around the margins, just like Cornyn, basically how much he affects me,” Paxton said.

After saying Cornyn wants him to lose, Paxton pointed to a recent encounter that he said a friend had with the senator at a Dallas restaurant. Paxton said the friend bought Cornyn’s table dessert and sought to thank him for “supporting the ticket” — and for “supporting Ken Paxton” — and Cornyn reacted angrily.

“Cornyn’s face went red. He backed off,” Paxton said. “He said, ‘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.’”

“That’s what he’s trying to do,” Paxton said. “That’s John Cornyn.”

CNN has not independently confirmed Paxton’s account, and a Cornyn representative, Rob Jesmer, told CNN that the conversation at the restaurant did not happen.

“If Sen. Cornyn wanted Ken to lose, I can assure you he’d be more active in the campaign,” Jesmer, a longtime political strategist for Cornyn, said. “He has said he supports the Republican ticket. Given all Ken has said and done, I think that’s a pretty good place for Sen. Cornyn to be.”

Asked for comment on the audio, Paxton’s campaign dismissed it as “a story that doesn’t exist” but noted that Paxton “has called, texted, and offered to have a conversation with Senator Cornyn.”

“Like all Texans, General Paxton appreciates his decades of service to the Lone Star State,” Paxton senior adviser Nick Maddux said in a statement. “We hope he will join us in our fight to preserve the institution that is the United States Senate and help save our majority.”

The two lobbyists who hosted the fundraising event, Chris Brinson and Susan Hirschmann, did not respond to requests for comment, nor did Talarico’s campaign.

A spokesperson for Crockett said she has taken a different approach than Cornyn since losing her own primary.

“Cornyn is the sitting senator and continues to attack his party’s nominee,” the spokesperson, Karrol Rimal, said in a statement. “Crockett endorsed Talarico on March 4th and has not stopped working to support Democrats across the nation since.”

Paxton’s problems with his own base, including former Cornyn supporters, have loomed over the final weeks of the race.

A Paxton campaign memo dated Tuesday, reported by Punchbowl News , told supporters that the “biggest challenge we face is shoring up Republicans following a bruising primary.”

A Fox News poll done late last month found that nearly a third of Republican likely voters had an unfavorable opinion of Paxton. While he was winning 90% of GOP voters, about a fifth of “non-MAGA” Republicans were breaking for Talarico.

The clip obtained by CNN is at least the fifth recording that has leaked from the fundraising event last month and put Paxton’s campaign on the defensive in the final weeks of the race. Previous clips have featured Paxton saying the GOP’s midterm convention damaged him politically and that he feels like he has lost “control” over his campaign as outside groups have handled most of the spending.

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President Donald Trump, who backed Paxton in the primary, has said he is “worried” about the Texas race but largely declined to address the recordings when asked about them. He said Wednesday he was not second-guessing his endorsement.

“I would have no regrets at all,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

The president visited San Antonio on Wednesday night for a rally with Paxton where he praised him as “perhaps the greatest attorney general in the United States of America.”

The bad blood between Cornyn and Paxton goes back years.

Cornyn, who served as Texas attorney general from 1999 to 2002, has long made clear that he believes Paxton has disgraced the office and served as an example of what happens when Republicans do not police their own. Paxton has dished it back, painting Cornyn as a relic of a bygone era of Republican politics in Texas, especially after Cornyn ushered through a bipartisan gun safety law in 2022.

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When Paxton faced a competitive primary for reelection in 2022, Cornyn did not make an endorsement but said Paxton’s long-running indictment on state securities fraud charges was an “embarrassment.” The case finally ended two years later with a deal where Paxton agreed to do community service and pay restitution .

After Paxton was acquitted in a state Senate impeachment trial in 2023, which centered on allegations he abused his office to help a donor, he wasted little time teasing a potential run against Cornyn in 2026. “Everything’s on the table,” he told former Fox News host Tucker Carlson in a triumphant interview days after the trial.

“Hard to run from prison, Ken,” Cornyn said in a February 2024 social media post after Paxton called for Texans to elect a new senator in 2026.

Paxton, who denies all wrongdoing, launched his campaign in April 2025 with a promise to “send John Cornyn packing.” Cornyn and allied groups unleashed tens of millions of dollars of bitter, negative ads against Paxton, some of them highlighting allegations of infidelity. Cornyn finished narrowly ahead of Paxton in the primary but did not earn enough support to avoid a runoff against Paxton.

“I refuse to allow a flawed, self-centered and shameless candidate like Ken Paxton to risk everything we’ve worked so hard to build over these many years,” Cornyn said on primary night, adding, “Judgment Day is coming for Ken Paxton.”

But Trump ultimately had other plans. He endorsed Paxton a week before the runoff, dealing a crushing blow to Cornyn and his hopes of stopping a fellow Republican who, to him, embodied much of what is wrong with the modern GOP.

Cornyn had long promised to support the “Republican ticket” regardless of the outcome of the primary. But since losing, he has avoided helping Paxton and even leaned into his frustrations with the nominee and his wing of the party at times.

The senator criticized Paxton as a “poor campaigner” and “lazy” candidate in an August interview with the Texas Tribune . Cornyn and former President George W. Bush headlined a fundraiser in Dallas last month for six Senate GOP candidates in battleground races – but not Paxton.

Cornyn’s refusal to endorse Paxton has annoyed some Texas GOP leaders, including Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a top Trump ally in the state. Patrick suggested in June, following the primary runoff, that Cornyn was part of “sore losers undermining our party.”

Talarico, meanwhile, has sought to appeal to people who supported Cornyn in the GOP primary. He told CNN last month that he hopes to “live up to” Cornyn’s legacy and that he welcomes the incumbent’s supporters to “join this movement we’re building.”

The Democrat’s campaign even hired a former staffer in Cornyn’s office over the summer. Cornyn defended the staffer’s move amid some intraparty backlash, saying on X that “those concerned might want to channel their energy into broadening R[epublican] outreach.”

Some prominent supporters of Cornyn from the primary continue to show reluctance about voting for Paxton.

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“I’m supporting the party, but he was not my first choice, and I do think it’s going to have an impact down-ballot,” Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas told CNN last month. “And I do think there are Republicans … that may just not vote, and that’s the danger.”

Paxton has made some headway with his intra-party opponents. In the weeks after the primary runoff, he was joined on the campaign trail by state Rep. Jeff Leach, who endorsed Cornyn in the primary and served as a leader in the 2023 impeachment case against Paxton.

Yet some Texas Republicans continue to worry that GOP voters could simply skip the race. Ken Paxton’s estranged wife, Angela Paxton, addressed that possibility during a recent speech to a group of GOP women, urging them to set aside their reservations with any particular candidate for the good of the party.

“When you can’t vote for, then vote against,” she said, “but vote.”

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在德克萨斯州参议员竞选共和党初选决胜轮激烈角逐后，肯·帕克斯顿曾公开表示，他“非常希望”得到约翰·科宁的支持。但私下里，帕克斯顿对即将卸任的科宁与其竞选活动的疏远态度感到越来越失望。

据 CNN 从一位反对帕克斯顿的与会者那里获得的录音显示，德克萨斯州总检察长上个月在一次筹款活动上说：“他显然没有帮上忙。他想让我输。”

尽管帕克斯顿在决选后尽量减少了对科宁的批评，但这些私下言论表明，两人之间由来已久的紧张关系仍在持续发酵，搅动着选情。与此同时，共和党全国委员会正全力以赴，帮助帕克斯顿击败民主党州众议员詹姆斯·塔拉里科。民调显示选情胶着，共和党已在德克萨斯州大选中投入超过1亿美元。自1994年以来，德克萨斯州从未选出过民主党籍的州级官员，但如今，该州对于共和党能否保住参议院多数席位至关重要。

“他想让我输”：帕克斯顿在泄露的音频中抱怨科宁缺乏支持

据两位知情人士透露，帕克斯顿是在9月24日华盛顿的一次集会上发表上述言论的。当时有人问及民主党众议员贾斯敏·克罗克特，塔拉里科在党内初选中击败了她。CNN获得的录音显示，帕克斯顿在讲话中似乎提到了克罗克特，而克罗克特并未为塔拉里科助选。帕克斯顿说，他“不知道她究竟对选票有多大影响”。

“我的意思是，可能只是在边缘地带，就像科宁一样，基本上就是他对我的影响有多大，”帕克斯顿说。

在表示科宁希望他落选后，帕克斯顿提到了他朋友最近在达拉斯一家餐厅与这位参议员的一次偶遇。帕克斯顿说，这位朋友给科宁那桌买了甜点，并想感谢他“支持我们竞选”——以及“支持肯·帕克斯顿”——结果科宁却勃然大怒。

“科宁的脸涨得通红，他退缩了，”帕克斯顿说。“他说，‘帕克斯顿要输了。我们需要给那些共和党人一个教训。这会很难，但他们必须明白，他们的决定是有后果的。’”

“他就是想这么做，”帕克斯顿说。“这就是约翰·科宁。”

CNN尚未独立证实帕克斯顿的说法，科宁的代表罗布·杰斯默告诉CNN，餐厅里的那次谈话并没有发生。

“如果科宁参议员希望肯落败，我可以向你保证，他会在竞选活动中更加积极主动，”科宁的长期政治策略师杰斯默说道。“他已经表示支持共和党候选人。考虑到肯的言行，我认为这对科宁参议员来说是一个相当不错的选择。”

当被问及这段录音时，帕克斯顿的竞选团队驳斥其为“根本不存在的故事”，但指出帕克斯顿“已经打电话、发短信，并主动提出与科宁参议员进行对话”。

“和所有德州人一样，帕克斯顿将军非常感激他数十年来为孤星之州所做的贡献，”帕克斯顿的高级顾问尼克·马杜克斯在一份声明中说。“我们希望他能加入我们，共同捍卫美国参议院这一机构，并帮助我们保住多数席位。”

主持筹款活动的两位游说人士克里斯·布林森和苏珊·赫希曼没有回应置评请求，塔拉里科的竞选团队也没有回应。

克罗克特的发言人表示，自从她自己在初选中落败后，她采取了与科宁不同的策略。

发言人卡罗尔·里马尔在一份声明中表示：“科宁是现任参议员，他仍在攻击本党候选人。克罗克特于3月4日公开支持塔拉里科，此后一直致力于支持全国各地的民主党人。”

在竞选的最后几周，帕克斯顿与自己的支持者（包括前科宁的支持者）之间的矛盾一直困扰着他。

据 Punchbowl News 报道，帕克斯顿竞选团队周二发布的一份备忘录告诉支持者，“我们面临的最大挑战是在一场激烈的初选之后巩固共和党人的支持。”

福克斯新闻上月底进行的一项民调显示，近三分之一的共和党潜在选民对帕克斯顿持负面看法。虽然帕克斯顿赢得了90%的共和党选民的支持，但约有五分之一的非“让美国再次伟大”（MAGA）共和党人转而支持塔拉里科。

CNN获得的这段视频至少是上个月筹款活动泄露的第五段录音，这些录音让帕克斯顿的竞选团队在最后几周陷入被动。此前的视频片段中，帕克斯顿曾表示共和党的中期选举大会对他造成了政治损害，而且由于大部分竞选经费都由外部团体承担，他感觉自己已经失去了对竞选活动的“控制权”。

通往2026年中期选举的道路现在开始

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在初选中支持帕克斯顿的特朗普总统表示，他对德克萨斯州的选情感到“担忧”，但在被问及录音事件时，他基本上拒绝置评。周三，他表示自己不会后悔当初的支持。

“我一点也不后悔，”特朗普在椭圆形办公室告诉记者。

周三晚上，总统前往圣安东尼奥与帕克斯顿一起参加集会，并在集会上称赞帕克斯顿是“美国历史上最伟大的司法部长”。

科宁和帕克斯顿之间的宿怨由来已久。

科宁曾于1999年至2002年担任德克萨斯州总检察长，他长期以来一直明确表示，他认为帕克斯顿玷污了总检察长的职位，并成为了共和党人不自律的典型例子。帕克斯顿则予以回击，将科宁描绘成德克萨斯州共和党政治黄金时代的遗物，尤其是在科宁于2022年推动通过了一项两党共同支持的枪支安全法案之后。

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2022年，帕克斯顿面临激烈的党内初选，科宁虽然没有公开支持他，但表示帕克斯顿长期以来因州证券欺诈指控而受到起诉“令人尴尬”。两​​年后，此案最终以帕克斯顿同意进行社区服务和支付赔偿金的协议告终。

2023年，帕克斯顿在州参议院弹劾审判中被判无罪，该审判的核心是他被指控滥用职权帮助一名捐赠者。审判结束后不久，帕克斯顿就暗示可能会在2026年挑战科宁。“一切皆有可能，”他在审判结束后几天接受前福克斯新闻主持人塔克·卡尔森的采访时，得意洋洋地说道。

“肯，想从监狱里逃出来可不容易，”科宁在 2024 年 2 月的一篇社交媒体帖子中写道。此前，帕克斯顿呼吁德克萨斯州人民在 2026 年选举一位新的参议员。

帕克斯顿否认所有不当行为，他在2025年4月启动竞选活动，承诺“把约翰·科宁赶下台”。科宁及其盟友斥资数千万美元，投放大量恶毒的负面广告攻击帕克斯顿，其中一些广告还着重指控他婚外情。科宁在初选中以微弱优势领先帕克斯顿，但未能获得足够的选票，最终不得不与帕克斯顿进行第二轮投票。

科宁在初选之夜表示：“我绝不允许像肯·帕克斯顿这样有缺陷、以自我为中心、厚颜无耻的候选人，拿我们多年来辛辛苦苦建立的一切冒险。”他还补充道：“肯·帕克斯顿的审判日即将到来。”

但特朗普最终另有打算。他在决选前一周宣布支持帕克斯顿，这给了科宁沉重一击，也粉碎了他阻止这位在他看来体现了现代共和党诸多弊病的共和党同僚的希望。

科宁曾长期承诺无论初选结果如何都会支持“共和党候选人”。但自从败选后，他不仅没有帮助帕克斯顿，有时甚至还公开表达了对这位候选人及其党内派系的不满。

这位参议员在8月接受《德克萨斯论坛报》采访时，批评帕克斯顿竞选能力差、懒惰。上个月，科宁和前总统乔治·W·布什在达拉斯为六位共和党参议员候选人举办了一场筹款活动，但帕克斯顿并未出席。

科宁拒绝支持帕克斯顿，这激怒了一些德克萨斯州共和党领导人，其中包括该州副州长丹·帕特里克，他是特朗普在该州的重要盟友。帕特里克在6月份初选决胜轮投票后暗示，科宁是“输不起的人”之一，他们正在破坏我们的党。

与此同时，塔拉里科试图争取那些在共和党初选中支持科宁的人。他上个月告诉CNN，他希望“不辜负”科宁的政治遗产，并欢迎现任议员的支持者“加入我们正在建立的这场运动”。

今年夏天，这位民主党竞选团队甚至聘用了科宁办公室的一名前工作人员。面对党内一些反对的声音，科宁为这一举动辩护，他在X电台节目中表示，“那些对此感到担忧的人或许应该把精力放在扩大共和党的宣传推广上。”

一些在初选中支持科宁的知名人士仍然对投票给帕克斯顿表示犹豫。

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“我支持共和党，但他不是我的首选，而且我认为这会对后续选举产生影响，”德克萨斯州众议员迈克尔·麦考尔上个月告诉CNN。“而且我认为有些共和党人……可能根本不会投票，这才是危险所在。”

帕克斯顿在与党内对手的较量中取得了一些进展。在初选决胜轮后的几周里，州众议员杰夫·利奇加入了他的竞选活动。利奇曾在初选中支持科宁，并在2023年针对帕克斯顿的弹劾案中担任领导角色。

然而，一些德克萨斯州的共和党人仍然担心共和党选民可能会直接放弃投票。肯·帕克斯顿的妻子安吉拉·帕克斯顿（两人已分居）在最近一次面向共和党女性的演讲中谈到了这种可能性，她敦促她们为了党的利益，搁置对任何特定候选人的保留意见。

“如果你不能投赞成票，那就投反对票，”她说，“但一定要投票。”