{"id":183801,"date":"2026-02-28T01:06:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T01:06:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/183801\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T01:06:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T01:06:15","slug":"trump-two-steps-around-texas-primary-in-corpus-christi-swing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/183801\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump two-steps around Texas primary in Corpus Christi swing"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Donald Trump<\/a> remained noncommittal about endorsing a candidate in the closely watched Senate GOP primary during his visit to Corpus Christi, Texas<\/a>, following his fourth State of the Union address<\/a> this week.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s visit to Corpus Christi comes during a grueling and bitter Senate GOP primary between incumbent Sen. John Cornyn<\/a> (R-TX), Rep. Wesley Hunt<\/a> (R-TX), and state attorney general Ken Paxton<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Trump teased before his speech on Friday that he had \u201cpretty much\u201d decided who he would endorse, but declined to tell reporters which candidate had his support.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d Trump said when reporters asked him who he was backing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He did, however, greet all three candidates while speaking, signaling his friendliness but refusal to truly wade into the primary.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The president called both Paxton and Cornyn \u201cgreat\u201d and the election \u201cinteresting\u201d during his remarks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a great attorney general, Ken Paxton. Where\u2019s Ken? Hi Ken. And we have a great Sen. John Cornyn, Hi John, thank you, John,\u201d Trump said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd another friend of mine who\u2019s doing very well, Wesley Hunt. Where\u2019s Wesley? Wesley Hunt, doing a good job,\u201d Trump also said. \u201cThank you, Wesley.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cornyn, who flew to Corpus Christi with Trump aboard Air Force One, is in the fight of his political career despite being backed by the National Republican Senatorial Committee <\/a>and his more than 20 years in the Senate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With three candidates in the field, it is not expected that any single lawmaker will win the primary. Instead, the top two candidates will advance to the primary runoff on May 26.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But Republicans are worried that the popular but\u00a0scandal-plagued<\/a>\u00a0Paxton could eventually win the primary, boosting Democrats\u2019 chances of finally flipping the seat blue after decades of false hope.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Vice President Kamala Harris threw her support behind<\/a> Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) on Friday and has recorded a robocall for the Congressional Democrat\u2019s primary battle against Texas State Rep. James Talarico.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Trump also publicly acknowledged the embattled Rep. Tony Gonzales<\/a> (R-TX), who sent explicit late-night texts to former aide Regina Santos-Aviles before she set herself on fire last year.<\/p>\n

Gonzales has refused to step down from office after the texts were made public this week, and at least six Republicans have called for his resignation, upending another Texas race with primaries looming.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cCongressman Tony Gonzales is here. Tony, congratulations,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

Trump was in Corpus Christi to underscore his economy and energy policy agendas before November\u2019s midterm elections<\/a>, though he veered off script during his address to tell the crowd an anecdote intended to emphasize how well the stock market is performing at the moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis wonderful, tough policeman from New York, he\u2019s taking good care of us, and he said, \u2018Sir, it\u2019s so good. My married life has gotten so much better. Why? My wife thought I was a loser. Financially, I couldn\u2019t make any money because my 401(K) was dying for years, and now she thinks I\u2019m the smartest financial genius ever. It\u2019s made my sex life good. It\u2019s made my life. It\u2019s given me, it\u2019s given me a tremendous boost in life, sir.\u2019 This is a big, tough cop. He said, \u2018My wife treated me like a dog, and now she admires my financial genius, and I haven\u2019t done anything, my 401(K) has gone through the roof.\u2019 So I said, thank you very much,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

When he was on script, Trump told the audience the oil tanker docked in the Port of Corpus Christi behind him was carrying 360,000 barrels of Venezuelan oil.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to keep something for ourselves,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to give some to them, and they\u2019re going to make more money than they\u2019ve ever made before.\u201d<\/p>\n

VANCE LEADING TRUMP\u2019S \u2018WAR ON FRAUD\u2019 COULD BE DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD<\/a><\/p>\n

In addition to Cornyn, Actor Dennis Quaid accompanied Trump to Corpus Christi on his presidential plane and, at one point during his speech, came on stage to say, \u201cI love Corpus Christi \u2014 and I love Donald Trump!\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump, donning a \u201cGulf of America\u201d red baseball cap, similarly used the platform to quip about considering nominating Sen. Ted Cruz<\/a> (R-TX) to the Supreme Court<\/a>, criticize Rep. Ilhan Omar <\/a>(D-MN) for heckling him during his State of the Union, and claim he is \u201centitled\u201d to a third term as president.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe we do one more term?\u201d he asked. \u201cShould we do one more? One more term? Well, we\u2019re entitled to it because they cheated like hell in the second.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump now heads to Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, for a weekend of political meetings and fundraisers, stopping at a Whataburger fast-food chain en route to the airport. \u201cHamburgers for all!\u201d he shouted to those in the restaurant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Donald Trump remained noncommittal about endorsing a candidate in the closely watched Senate GOP primary during his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":183802,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156,145,3309,1967,7883,27,1917,6474,11030],"class_list":{"0":"post-183801","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-corpus-christi","8":"tag-corpus-christi","9":"tag-corpus-christi-headlines","10":"tag-corpus-christi-news","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-john-cornyn","13":"tag-ken-paxton","14":"tag-ted-cruz","15":"tag-texas","16":"tag-washington-d-c","17":"tag-wesley-hunt","18":"tag-white-house"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183801\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}