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Less than 24 hours into the Texas Senate runoff between Sen. John Cornyn and state Attorney General Ken Paxton, President Donald Trump looks poised to stab one of his most loyal allies directly in the back.
On Wednesday afternoon, Trump posted this on Truth Social:
And right around the same time, The Atlantic published a piece suggesting that Trump’s mind was already made up.
President Trump’s political advisers expect him to endorse Senator John Cornyn in Texas’s May 26 Republican-primary runoff election following the incumbent’s better-than-expected finish against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the first round of voting yesterday, three people briefed on the deliberations told us.
Axios later confirmed the report — citing a “source with knowledge of the talks.”
If the reporting is right — and I have no doubt it is — then what Trump is about to do to Paxton is right out of pro wrestling.
Paxton has been a loyal Trump ally for years. Hell, Paxton was the lead plaintiff on the case that tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the swing states the president lost!
But as any wrestling fan knows, the upsetting of expectations — aka the “heel turn” in wrestling parlance — is a tried and true tactic.
The most famous heel turn ever was, of course, Hulk Hogan, the perennial good guy, turning bad:
(In this metaphor, Ken Paxton is Randy “Macho Man” Savage.)
Loyalty, for Trump, is a one-way street. He expects total fealty when it comes to how people behave toward him. But his loyalty to anyone — Paxton included — is only good as so far as he believes it serves his interests.
The question now — assuming that Trump does endorse Cornyn — is what price Paxton will extract from the president to leave the race.
As Chuck Todd speculated:
Or is it possible that Paxton can’t be bought? If that’s the case, it’s FAR more interesting because it means that we will have a 10-week run-off that I think Paxton could still win — even if Trump endorses Cornyn.
Stay tuned!
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