No One Wants to Give Money to Ken Paxton’s Campaign Anymore

Texas’s Republican Senate nominee, state Attorney General Ken Paxton, is struggling to raise funds thanks to his scandal-laden career and a nasty primary. The New York Times reports Wednesday that major Republican donors have so far refused to spend money on Paxton’s campaign, where he is polling behind James Talarico, who could be the first Democrat Texas sends to the Senate since 1993. Those donors had spent money in the state’s Republican primary, which placed a spotlight on Paxton’s extramarital affair and criminal charges over alleged state securities fraud. After Paxton narrowly secured the GOP nomination following a runoff with incumbent Senator John Cornyn, these donors’ opinions haven’t changed, especially since the attorney general has been seen traveling with his mistress and now has been accused of committing voter fraud. Two of the GOP’s biggest money committees, the Senate Leadership Fund and MAGA Inc., haven’t spent any money on Paxton’s campaign despite President Donald Trump backing him. It’s become an open secret that each is waiting for the other super PAC to pony up millions of dollars, according to the Times. The former is run by people close to Senate Majority Leader John Thune and who backed Cornyn in the primary, while the latter is run by Trump advisers. “Somebody is going to have to spend big money,” Dan Eberhart, an oil executive raising funds for Paxton, told the Times. “We’ll see who blinks.”Other national Republican groups plan to spend money on other Senate races in Ohio and Kansas, even though those races aren’t as close as Texas. As of early July, Talarico has nine times as much cash in his main campaign account as Paxton does, and has already spent $12 million in ads. He also continues to rake in money from wealthy Democrats in places such as Chicago and Martha’s Vineyard. Will Trump and the GOP step up to bail out Paxton? American taxpayers are about to get hit with additional charges for the Trump administration’s Great American State Fair.The Department of the Interior asked Congress for an additional $10 million to cover portions of the Freedom 250 event, including the state fair, a prayer event, and a massive July 4 fireworks display that tried to break the world record (but has still not been recognized by Guinness three weeks after the fact).Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations subcommittee, told The Washington Post Wednesday that the administration had initially presented the funding need as part of a broader stopgap funding measure for the whole government. It asked for an unspecified amount of funding “to recoup costs associated with support of events celebrating America’s semiquincentennial,” according to Merkley.But that only raised questions about the administration’s spending habits—particularly since Trump’s One Big Beautiful Act set aside $150 million last year specifically to cover the semiquincentennial’s expenses. Most of that financial support was redirected to Freedom 250, a Trump-backed public-private partnership that largely replaced the congressionally created bipartisan America250 group that was organizing the historic anniversary celebration, according to the Post.But that’s not all the money that went into funding the president’s highly politicized, poorly attended 250th celebration. In June, Trump officials diverted roughly $90 million away from the National Park Service, utilizing entry fees to some of the country’s most popular parks—such as Yellowstone and Yosemite—to fund anniversary related projects.Private donors also contributed a significant sum to the event: Freedom 250 has accepted donations from corporate sponsors that are currently doing business with the Trump administration, including Palantir, Boeing, Chevron, Lockheed Martin, and more, according to the Freedom 250 website.Administration officials offered up more details about the new funding request in a follow-up meeting with Merkley’s office, clarifying that they needed the money to cover routine National Park Service costs incurred during the events.But the Department of the Interior offered a different reason entirely to the Post. When reached for comment, the agency claimed that the funding was needed to address heightened security needs in light of recent threats levied at the president, citing the Ultimate Fighting Championship event held on the White House lawn in June and the assassination attempt during the White House correspondents’ dinner in April.“Given the elevated security threats against high-profile events in Washington, D.C. … an elevated security posture was needed to ensure the safety of the public at these events. This funding would help address the expenditures associated with the elevated security posture,” the department wrote in an email.In a letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum shared with the Post, Merkley wrote that it is “unacceptable to ask the American people to bail out Freedom 250.” Reminder of how this fair went:Republican Senator Bernie Moreno is getting blasted for losing his temper at Dr. Anthony Fauci during a Senate hearing Wednesday, while remaining silent on the alleged abuse of his daughter by her ex-husband, Republican Representative Max Miller. Fauci continually pleaded the Fifth rather than answer invasive questions from Senate Republicans who accuse him of a cover-up with the Covid-19 pandemic, and Moreno flipped out.“Who the fuck do you think you were for doing that? It is a total disgrace what you did to this country, and then my Democrat colleagues are standing there defending you,” Moreno said. “You may have had a 50-plus year legacy of public service, but it ends in total and complete disgrace.”It’s harsher language than anything Moreno has said about Miller, who has a long list of alleged abuse against his ex-wife, Moreno’s daughter Emily. Miller allegedly threw boiling water from a skillet onto Emily Moreno’s chest, scalding her; put a gun to her head; pushed her against a wall, hitting her head; and fractured their two-year-old daughter’s collarbone and bruised her shoulder. Several people on social media quickly pointed this out. ScreenshotScreenshotScreenshotScreenshotSenator Moreno seems more concerned with scoring political points against one of the GOP’s favorite punching bags than he is with defending his daughter. Miller not only denies the allegations against him, but he claims Emily is lying, has bipolar disorder, is stalking him, and is trying to damage his reputation. Miller and Emily Moreno’s daughter even told her mother, according to court documents, “Daddy kill you.”Read more about the hearing:Todd Blanche’s chance at becoming attorney general is in genuine jeopardy after Republican Senator John Cornyn canceled a meeting with the nominee amid an ongoing standoff over President Trump’s $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund.”Cornyn was approached by CNN’s Manu Raju in the Senate halls on Wednesday after news that his morning meeting with Blanche had been canceled.“So, are you a ‘no’? Are you a ‘no’ tomorrow if this comes to a vote?” Raju asked. “Well, [Senate Judiciary Committee Chair] Grassley tells me that we need to know by four o’clock this afternoon whether the markup is still on. So we’ve still got a little time,” Cornyn responded. “And hopefully they now recognize the seriousness of this, and will be responding.” “But if it stands as it is now … right now, would you vote ‘no’?”“I’m not prepared to vote ‘yes,’ lemme put it that way,” Cornyn said. Cornyn, along with Senator Thom Tillis, has been demanding written termination of Trump’s $1.776 slush fund to help his allies. Tillis told Semafor on Wednesday that there’s “no daylight” between himself and Cornyn on the anti-weaponization fund’s termination. Even one Republican “no” vote would effectively kill Blanche’s nomination, as he needs the support of all 11 Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee to move forward, assuming every Democrat votes ‘no.’ All Blanche has to do is deliver a written statement assuring them that Trump’s fund is dead—and yet he’s refusing. “We’ve still got what, about another five or six hours? That’s plenty of time to resolve this,” Cornyn continued. “There’s no real need to have a meeting if they will just produce the documentation that we’ve requested—and that he testified to under oath during his hearing.”“Sir, you’ve been incredibly clear with what you would like Todd Blanche to do … for days now,” another reporter asked. “What do you think the holdup is here?”“Beats me. Maybe they think I’m just going to give up or, you know, go along, but they’re mistaken.” John Cornyn’s demands for written language to kill $1.8B anti-weaponization fund have NOT been met as meeting with Todd Blanche scrapped ahead of key committee vote tomorrow. Blanche has til 4p to respond, or vote could be delayed. “I’m not prepared to vote yes,” Cornyn told us pic.twitter.com/qLBnXOCkLr— Manu Raju (@mkraju) July 29, 2026 Read The TNR Blue Book, our new newsletter on the Democratic Party:Donald Trump may have personally undone the criminal case against one of his political nemeses, former FBI Director James Comey, thanks to his deep involvement.The Department of Justice accused Comey of threatening the president’s life when he posted a photo of seashells to his Instagram account last year, arguing that the message the shells spelled out—“86 47”—would be interpreted by any person “familiar with the circumstances” as a “serious expression of an intent to do harm to the president,” according to Comey’s indictment.But on Tuesday, Comey’s lawyers argued that the entire case should be moot due to Trump’s personal involvement in Comey’s questioning, according to a motion to dismiss first reported on by The New York Times. According to government documents handed over to Comey’s team, Trump told Secret Service agents who interviewed the former FBI director to send their notes to Air Force One for Trump’s personal review.The Secret Service questioned Comey by phone hours after he shared the protest message on Instagram on May 15. Despite being informed by a Secret Service agent that the telephone interview would likely suffice, Comey agreed to further questioning in Washington. “From that point forward, high-level DOJ and White House officials (including the President) involved themselves in the investigation,” stated Comey’s attorneys.The Secret Service chose to monitor Comey the next day on his drive to Washington despite lacking a warrant—a decision that was noted by at least one agent as, legally, a “bad idea” since there was no “imminent danger to life” that could justify the warrantless surveillance.They did so at the behest of the “number three” person at the DOJ, according to the legal document. That individual is not named in the memo, but the number three person at the DOJ is the associate attorney general, a position that was not filled by a Senate-confirmed official at the time of Comey’s surveillance. The agents tailed Comey and his wife even as they visited the grave of their deceased son, according to the filing.A government document obtained by Comey’s team revealed that “POTUS was requesting a copy of the interview notes to use in his 6 p.m. press conference.” One Secret Service agent described the interview as “a hot topic on the plane,” noting that Trump was “very interested,” according to the Times.Trump has been very public about his contempt for Comey since the FBI director led the investigation into Trump’s ties to Russia following the 2016 presidential election. Trump fired Comey in the midst of that probe, prompting a follow-up investigation by Comey’s predecessor, special counsel Robert Mueller, that determined that Russian influence in the 2016 election was “sweeping and systemic” and found substantial (if non-prosecutable) evidence that Trump had obstructed justice by firing Comey.In another section of the legal filing, Comey’s attorneys revealed that the Trump administration attempted to prove the lethality behind Comey’s “86” post by questioning Sammy “The Bull” Gravano, a notorious gangster who was at one point the underboss in the Gambino crime family and was personally responsible for at least 19 murders. Gravano apparently confirmed the term’s violent definition, though he noted that a “gangster would never use that term” because it was too obvious to law enforcement.In the hours following Comey’s post, the Secret Service instituted a new policy that redefined “86 47” as a formal threat to the president’s life. However, the agency rolled back the change by the day’s end and returned to “business as usual” as the policy shift resulted in an overwhelming number of potential leads that lacked “threatening language,” according to the filing.Comey has denied the accusations, claiming that he was only familiar with the term via restaurant slang, where it contextually means to remove an item off the menu.More on the Department of Justice: