00:00Julie, let me start by asking about this astonishing $135 million figure.
00:05You've been living this on the ground in Texas, seeing the amount of money that's been poured into this Senate
00:09race.
00:10What does that look like on the ground, and how has this endorsement by the president at the 11th hour,
00:15how does it stand to kind of upend the work that John Cornyn has been trying to do here?
00:18He's known it's going to be a slog to this runoff. How has it complicated his path forward?
00:24It's a complicated path forward for John Cornyn right now.
00:27Yeah, this is a very expensive, expensive race, as you just spoke about.
00:31But most of it, of course, being spent on the Republican side.
00:34You know, there were questions whether the president would even endorse.
00:37He said he was going to do it immediately after the primary, as the runoff began.
00:42There were a lot of reports it was going to go John Cornyn's way.
00:46However, that did not happen.
00:48So, I mean, you turn on the television here, you turn on the radio here, there is an ad,
00:53there is something related to this race, and all this time, while the Republicans are really beating each other up,
01:00this gives James Tallarico time to just raise more and more money.
01:04So that's what we've been talking about.
01:06It's not just that you always have this problem where you run to the right or to the left in
01:10a primary,
01:11and then you've got to pivot for the general.
01:13They're now, you know, the president in a lot of these cases is bouncing the more moderate candidates
01:17who stood up to him on different issues, electing someone who's more MAGA and more to the right.
01:22So not only are you getting that infighting, but you're also spending money.
01:25Republicans are having to spend so much money in these primaries.
01:28Is that going to hurt them, especially in a general like this,
01:31where Democrats have been able to hold back because they only have one candidate at the moment?
01:35Well, there was a lot of concern from more moderate Republicans that if Ken Paxton became the nominee,
01:41they would have to sink a lot more money into Texas.
01:44That concern becomes more and more real for them.
01:47James Tallarico has really shown that he can raise a lot of money.
01:51However, I covered the race in 2018 between Beto O'Rourke and Ted Cruz.
01:56Beto O'Rourke greatly outraised Ted Cruz.
01:59That was over $100 million six years or almost eight years ago.
02:04That really shows how much a Republican can do with fewer dollars.
02:10Let's talk a bit about John Cornyn and how he fell out of the president's favor.
02:14We've all seen the post that he's pinned to his ex-profile of him reading the art of the deal.
02:18He made a lot of overtures to the president trying to secure this endorsement.
02:22Perhaps he thought he was going to get it.
02:24But, Julie, walk us through where he has crossed the president of the United States.
02:27Why, when Donald Trump sat down at the Resolute desk, he decided,
02:30look, I'm going to throw my support behind Ken Paxton and not behind the incumbent senator.
02:35Well, John Cornyn said years ago when President Trump was attempting to run again,
02:40he basically said, I don't know that he should be the candidate because I am not sure that he is
02:45electable in a general election.
02:47As you know, President Trump has a very, very long memory, obviously, remembering that.
02:53Also, after the horrible shooting in Uvalde at the elementary school,
02:58John Cornyn was among the group that worked on a gun safety law for Mitch McConnell.
03:04So he's been part of the establishment.
03:06He was very close to Mitch McConnell for many years.
03:09He was spoken of as a possible candidate for majority leader before John Thune received that position.
03:17When it comes to President Trump's endorsement, he waited, as we've been talking about, fairly late in this.
03:22Is that because, to your point, it wasn't really clear who was going?
03:25I mean, Paxton had the edge, but it wasn't huge.
03:27Was he waiting to see who would come out on top before he endorsed?
03:31And as these candidates then have to run in the general, you know,
03:35we saw the president last week go to Mike Lawler's district here in New York,
03:39which is usually a Democratic seat.
03:40It flipped to Republicans.
03:42Is there any kind of concern that the endorsement of President Trump could backfire again in the general,
03:47especially when you look at things like the war in Iran, the economy, and gas prices?
03:52You know, Democrats have generally felt that it would be much easier to run against Ken Paxton than John Cornyn.
03:59It will be interesting to see in the next few months how that does go.
04:03But again, Democrats feel a little bit more confident running against Ken Paxton in that general election.
04:09Also, Ken Paxton has led in the polls recently.
04:12He's been up as much as three points, I believe.
04:15That may have had something to do also with the endorsement.
04:19You have to understand in the Texas primary here, it's a very interesting primary.
04:23If you vote in the Democratic primary, you cannot vote in the Republican runoff.
04:29If you vote in the Republican primary, you can vote in the Republican runoff.
04:34If you didn't vote at all, you can vote in the Republican runoff.
04:37Well, it will be interesting to see how those numbers play out as well.
04:41Julie, I don't know what the equivalent of the New York Post is in Texas.
04:43You can fill us in on that.
04:44But whatever tabloid is there has had a heyday with Ken Paxton's scandals, legal scandals, ethical scandals, digging into his
04:51messy divorce as well.
04:52I covered his impeachment in 2023, and we were told the night before that he was going to lose the
04:58trial.
04:58And then all of a sudden it flipped, and he's quite a survivor.
05:01Quite a survivor.
05:04As you've listened to John Cornyn making his case, how much of it centers on that, the fact that all
05:08of this stuff doesn't even have to resurface,
05:10but it's going to be there front and center for James Tallarico to pull from as we look ahead to
05:14the general election?
05:15It will be there for James Tallarico to pull from, but you have to remember this stuff has been here
05:21for years, and Ken Paxton continues to win.
05:25I mean, if you live in the state of Texas, it's not tabloids covering it.
05:29It's the Dallas Morning News.
05:31It's, you know, it's regular publications because these were adjudicated.
05:35They were in court.
05:36They were in the Texas legislature.
05:37So it'd be very difficult not to know about them until right now.
05:44We do have some polling from The New York Times that says, if midterms were today, which party's candidate would
05:50you vote for?
05:5150% Democratic, 39% Republican, 11% I don't know.
05:57How are Texans feeling, and where do you see this going?
06:00Well, it'll be a very interesting race.
06:02You have to understand, though, that a Democrat has not won statewide here since the 90s.
06:10No matter who this person is, it's a difficult battle.
06:15It's an uphill battle because you've got to move moderates in your direction.
06:18You have to move independents in your direction.
06:20By the way, the Republicans have spent a lot of time beating each other up.
06:25Now it's going to be the turn of the Democrat to really be in the attention span.
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