{"id":321186,"date":"2026-06-03T17:13:31","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T17:13:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/321186\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T17:13:31","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T17:13:31","slug":"a-week-after-gop-senate-runoff-win-ken-paxton-in-trumps-oval-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/321186\/","title":{"rendered":"A week after GOP Senate runoff win, Ken Paxton in Trump\u2019s Oval Office"},"content":{"rendered":"

The attorney general met late Tuesday with Trump and\u00a0Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick<\/a> in the Oval Office, where the trio posed with a caricature of Democratic nominee James Talarico<\/a> as the Republicans turned their attention to the fall campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was an honor to be with President Trump and [Patrick] today as we work to defend Texas and save America,\u201d\u00a0Paxton posted on X<\/a> along with two photos from his White House visit.<\/p>\n

One traditionally posed picture showed Paxton standing next to Trump, seated at his desk.<\/p>\n

A more candid shot included Trump, Paxton and Patrick in the Oval Office holding up side-by-side head shots of Talarico and MAD magazine\u2019s fictional character Alfred E. Neuman.<\/p>\n

Patrick posted on X one of the images<\/a>, signed by Trump. The close-up made clear Talarico\u2019s image has been manipulated so that he shares Neuman\u2019s signature goofy gap in his front teeth.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe President shared this piece of artwork with me today in the Oval Office,\u201d Patrick said. Trump \u201cknows how to paint a picture like no one else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Talarico, a state representative from Austin, will face Paxton in November. He has said Texans are more interested in the state’s future than another round of partisan attacks.<\/p>\n

Paxton is in Washington meeting with Republican leaders and raising money for the general election campaign.<\/p>\n

Talarico has seen a surge in fundraising<\/a> in a campaign expected to feature big spending by both sides. Paxton, who was vastly outspent in the primary, is unlikely to get much help from Cornyn.<\/p>\n

The senator said Monday he plans to focus<\/a> on helping Republicans in other states with tight races, such as Maine and Alaska.<\/p>\n

Cornyn suggested that after endorsing Paxton, it\u2019s up to Trump and his political operation to find funding for Paxton\u2019s campaign.<\/p>\n

The four-term incumbent based much of his primary campaign on\u00a0electability<\/a>, saying Paxton was unfit for office and that his legal and ethical troubles put the seat at risk of flipping to Democrats.<\/p>\n

Cornyn on Tuesday posted on X a link to a news story about Libertarian Senate candidate Ted Brown\u2019s efforts to court Texas conservatives not sold on Paxton.<\/p>\n

Cornyn added a Scooby-Doo quote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The attorney general met late Tuesday with Trump and\u00a0Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick in the Oval Office, where the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":321187,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[160,162,161],"class_list":["post-321186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-plano","tag-plano","tag-plano-headlines","tag-plano-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321186","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=321186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/321187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}