Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is smashing Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) directly on Friday with the longtime senator’s own litany of tirades against President Donald Trump.
“John Cornyn has spent years trying to destroy President Trump and undermine the America First movement,” Paxton said in a statement provided to Breitbart News. “Time after time, when President Trump was under attack, John Cornyn joined in with the Swamp to try and tear him down. From his support for the lawfare against the President to his relentless attempts to stop both his 2016 and 2024 presidential campaigns, Cornyn has worked tirelessly to hurt Donald Trump. While he has been engaged in his anti-Trump witch hunts, I have always stood by the President—fighting the stolen 2020 election, standing up to corrupt lawfare against President Trump, and supporting his 2024 campaign on Day 1.”
A brutal digital ad, provided exclusively by Paxton’s campaign to Breitbart News ahead of its public release, captures many of Cornyn’s long history of examples of attacking Trump repeatedly and siding with Trump’s long list of enemies.
The two-minute digital ad opens with text on the screen that says: “Time after time, John Cornyn has helped the swamp try to destroy President Trump.”
Then it cuts to news anchors describing how Cornyn turned against Trump in the lead-up to the 2024 election, when Cornyn aggressively messaged against Trump returning to the White House.
“The senator didn’t say who he intends to support, but he did double down on who he believes the Republican Party should not nominate and that is former President Donald Trump,” one newsman says.
“Cornyn is saying, ‘I think President Trump’s time has passed him by,’” another newsman says at the outset of the ad next. “And he adds, ‘I don’t think President Trump understands that when you run in a general election, you have to appeal to voters beyond your base.’”
Then, the video cuts to Cornyn himself roasting Trump. “President Trump fed that fantasy by repeatedly claiming the election was stolen,” Cornyn says in the next clip, which came after the Jan. 6, 2021, protests.
“The president’s actions were reckless,” Cornyn said next.
Another clip, with Cornyn wearing a mask, shows the senator pondering whether he would vote to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial. “Do you believe that the president committed impeachable offenses?” A reporter asked him.
“I’m going to listen to the, uh, what’s presented,” Cornyn replies.
Next up is a clip of Cornyn defending former FBI Director James Comey and spreading the Russiagate Hoax. “It is our responsibility to get to the bottom of what exactly happened due to Russian involvement in our elections,” Cornyn said on the Senate floor.
After that, a clip of Cornyn on CBS’s Face the Nation discussing the Russia hoax is played. “This question of whether there are any ties to the Trump campaign — that’s a legitimate area of inquiry, and the committee is engaged in that? It’s not a witch hunt?” Cornyn is asked by the CBS anchor.
“It is a legitimate area of inquiry,” Cornyn replies, undercutting Trump, who at the time called it a witch hunt.
After that, a clip of Cornyn defending the Jack Smith weaponization against Trump is played. “You simply do not take classified documents out of a secure facility,” Cornyn said of that, before he next attacks Trump and claims Smith’s raiding of Mar-a-Lago was all Trump’s fault. “He’s created a circumstance for himself, which is, I think, very, very serious.”
“This one is basically something he’s admitted to on the material facts,” Cornyn added of that.
Next up is Cornyn lavishing praise on Lisa Monaco, the woman who would become the Deputy Attorney General in Joe Biden’s Justice Department after Cornyn supported her confirmation. “Ms. Monaco is a lifelong public servant,” Cornyn said in the clip played in the video. “I believe she is well-qualified to serve as Deputy Attorney General, and I plan to support her nomination.”
After that, the Paxton ad cuts to Cornyn defending Robert Mueller, the former FBI director who led a massive part of the Russia Hoax witch hunt against Trump back in his first term. “I have a lot of respect and admiration for Director Mueller,” Cornyn said.
It then cuts to more news footage of anchors saying Cornyn does not believe Trump should run again and then to a reporter asking Cornyn if Trump’s time has passed, to which he responds: “I do.”
The last 20 seconds or so of the ad focus on how, while Cornyn was attacking and fighting Trump, Paxton was instead supporting the president.
The ad comes after Cornyn, by almost all accounts, seems to have lost out at least for now on a possible Trump endorsement after last week’s primary and the upcoming runoff in May against Paxton. Cornyn seemed to have the endorsement in hand, but then a barrage of the above material resurfaced, combined with Paxton’s move to offer himself up if Cornyn were able to get the Senate to pass the SAVE America Act.
Paxton offered to withdraw from the race if Cornyn could figure out a way to get the bill to the president’s desk, something Cornyn has failed to accomplish. As such, Trump, according to many reports, seems to have moved on from flirting with a possible Cornyn endorsement, leaving the 24-year senator, who is seeking a fifth term in the U.S. Senate, twisting in the wind as the president remains neutral for the time being.
