Screenshot via X.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) dropped a subtle parting shot at his erstwhile primary opponent, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R), in a gift he gave to his successor, Sen.-elect James Talarico (D-TX).
Prior to the 2026 election cycle, rumors circulated that Cornyn was considering retiring, but he declared he was running for re-election after Paxton threw his hat in the ring. There was no love lost between the two, and their primary battle was notoriously brutal.
Paxton scored President Donald Trump’s endorsement and the primary win, but it required a runoff, burned through campaign funds, and put a spotlight on the series of scandals, lawsuits, a bitter divorce from his state senator wife, and other controversies that have dogged the AG for years.
From the beginning of the campaign, Cornyn blasted Paxton as a “conman and fraud” and declared he was “not going to turn over the Senate seat that was once held by Sam Houston to somebody like him.” Houston is one of the giants of Texas history, serving as the first and third President of the Republic of Texas and then became one of the Lone Star State’s first two U.S. Senators after it joined the union, as well as a later stint as the state’s governor.
Few were shocked when Cornyn declined to campaign with Paxton or fundraise for him, although he did say he would “support the Republican ticket.”
When Texas Democrats managed a shocking sweep of all the statewide races last Tuesday, Talarico absolutely clobbered Paxton, beating him by just over 12 points in a state that had not elected any Democrats since the late 1990s.
Cornyn congratulated Talarico in a social media post that evening, writing that the “voters have spoken” and adding, “I look forward to meeting him and offering my assistance with his transition as he prepares to serve Texans in the U.S. Senate.”
On Monday, that meeting came to fruition. Both Cornyn and Talarico shared a photo taken in the outgoing senator’s office, showing the pair warmly smiling and shaking hands. Talarico wrote Cornyn “has served our state honorably” and that he was “grateful for his advice and guidance.”
“Now is the time for us to come together — Democrats and Republicans — to deliver for Texas,” Talarico added.
In an interview Monday that aired on C-SPAN, Cornyn said that while “obviously [Talarico’s] politics are different from mine,” but “I wish him well,” adding that he viewed it as his “responsibility” to help Talarico “in his transition as the next Senator from Texas, because I’ve had the honor of representing 32 million Texans for a long time, and that’s where my allegiance lies.”
Mediaite reached out to Cornyn for comment on the meeting with Talarico, and brought up how he had repeatedly described Paxton as “not worthy of Sam Houston’s Senate seat.”
“Do you think Senator-elect Talarico is worthy of Houston’s seat?” I asked.
“I am bequeathing him the Sam Houston portrait over my desk,” Cornyn replied — the implications about the worthiness of his successor clear — and sent along a photo of said portrait.
Photo provided by Sen. John Cornyn.
A longtime Texas Republican consultant, who spoke to Mediaite anonymously in order to be able to freely criticize his party’s Senate nominee, was not surprised at Cornyn offering Talarico not just a warm welcome to the Senate, but the gift of the historic portrait.
Sanguine about his party’s statewide wipeout, the consultant commented, “We’ve known that’s why [Cornyn] was in this fight, that he didn’t want a piece of sh*t like Paxton in Sam Houston’s seat.”
“I think James is meeting the moment, he’s knocking it out of the park right now,” the source added, praising the newly victorious Texas Democrats for reaching across the aisle — “it’s gorgeous, these people are adulting” — the Cornyn-Talarico meeting, Gov.-elect Gina Hinojosa (D) appointing Republicans to her transition team, and other Democrats bringing in Republicans who were primaried out of their legislative seats by allies of current Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and the West Texas oil billionaires who have heavily funded years of nasty internecine battles within the Texas GOP, not to mention Paxton’s political rise.
Cornyn’s gracious gesture of the portrait was not an endorsement on issues, the consultant mused, but about his stewardship of the legacy of the seat, and him “doing the nice thing just tells you what voters already said — they might not agree with Talarico, but he’s a decent guy and cares about something other than himself and it’s obvious to anyone with eyes.”
“Of course Cornyn is going to be great to James because the guy gives a damn about something other than himself, and that’s true for Cornyn too,” the consultant said.
Trump was interviewed by 60 Minutes correspondent Ross Douthat on the episode that aired on Sunday, and grumbled about Paxton’s loss, claiming, “Cornyn would’ve lost also.”
In response, Cornyn pointed out that he had won his previous election in 2020 against Democratic challenger MJ Hegar by 9.6 points (53.51% to 43.87%), while Trump had won Texas by only 5.6%.
“Of course it is true that Trump was an albatross around all Republicans’ necks, but some of the down ballot wipeout might’ve been averted,” Cornyn told Mediaite. “Paxton never had a good response to the corruption charges, which were all true. That resulted in many Republicans either voting for Talarico or not voting at all. This midterm election, like most midterm elections, was a referendum on the president with predictable results.”
Mediaite reached out to Paxton and a spokesperson for Talarico for comment, but did not receive a response by the time of publication. We will update this article if we get a reply.
The post Cornyn Takes a Parting Swipe at Paxton with Gift to Senator-Elect Talarico first appeared on Mediaite.
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