{"id":325352,"date":"2026-06-06T08:24:22","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T08:24:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/325352\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T08:24:22","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T08:24:22","slug":"john-cornyn-sticks-with-senate-gop-after-primary-loss-to-paxton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/325352\/","title":{"rendered":"John Cornyn sticks with Senate GOP after primary loss to Paxton"},"content":{"rendered":"

Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. See our AI policy<\/a>, and give us feedback<\/a>.<\/p>\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 A handful of Senate Republicans this week joined Democrats to oppose a controversial Trump nominee and vote against the president\u2019s \u201canti-weaponization fund\u201d and East Wing ballroom \u2014 the latest display of defection from a band of GOP moderates, retiring members and vulnerable incumbents in the upper chamber.<\/p>\n

Sen. John Cornyn<\/a> was not among them.<\/p>\n

The senior Texas senator\u2019s recent primary loss to Attorney General Ken Paxton<\/a> has raised speculation that he could join the so-called YOLO Caucus<\/a> \u2014 an unofficial group of Republicans who, with nothing electorally to lose, have broken with President Donald Trump on select votes.<\/p>\n

But while some of his colleagues supported Democratic proposals or spent hours negotiating assurances to stick with leadership Thursday, Cornyn voted with the majority of his party to defeat an amendment from Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-New York, to quash a GOP immigration funding bill over the Department of Justice\u2019s settlement fund. He stuck with leadership to beat back a proposal to prohibit construction on Trump\u2019s White House ballroom project without congressional approval, even as Democrats peeled off seven Republicans. And he stood against an amendment to bar Bill Pulte, Trump\u2019s pick for interim director of national intelligence, from serving in the role.<\/p>\n

And alongside GOP leadership and most of his Republican colleagues, Cornyn supported the final product, a party-line budget bill to fund immigration enforcement agencies through 2029, which Democrats used as a vehicle to force a series of votes on other contentious issues. <\/p>\n

In all, eight Republicans voted for at least one Democratic amendment to the bill, including Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who, like Cornyn, lost his primary to a Trump-backed opponent last month. Also among the defectors were GOP senators facing tough reelection fights in November, like Sens. Jon Husted, R-Ohio, and Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska; and moderates including Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska. Cornyn never did. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have Republican senators who understand that we succeed as a team, we fail as a team,\u201d Senate Majority Leader John Thune said earlier this week, when asked if Trump\u2019s endorsement against Cornyn, among other incumbents, made his job harder. \u201cAnd notwithstanding what\u2019s happened in primaries around the country, our senators are very committed to ensuring that the Republican Senate succeeds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since the runoff, Cornyn has expressed doubts about Pulte \u2014 who has no intelligence experience \u2014 saying he sees \u201cno evidence of any qualifications for that job\u201d \u2014 though he added he was \u201cwilling to listen.\u201d He\u2019s said he has concerns about the taxpayer-funded DOJ fund, which Democrats and even some on the right have equated to a slush fund for Trump\u2019s allies, including rioters at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. <\/p>\n

He also made an eyebrow-raising social media post<\/a> over the weekend about the fable of the scorpion and the frog, in which a scorpion stings a frog giving him a ride across the river, sinking them both. Cornyn said the parable is a \u201cmetaphor for Washington, D.C.\u201d rather than a barb at anyone specific.<\/p>\n

In the end, the senior senator didn\u2019t stray from the party on any of this week\u2019s key votes. On Tuesday, before the vote-a-rama on Republicans\u2019 reconciliation<\/a> bill, he told reporters his approach to legislation remains the same as ever.<\/p>\n

\u201cI intend to try to be as constructive and productive as I always have, but I\u2019ll be making decisions on a case-by-case basis,\u201d he said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A handful of senators have broken with the majority on key issues, and been more willing to criticize the president and the administration in interviews. Members of the so-called YOLO Caucus include Cassidy and retiring Sens. Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, and Thom Tillis, R-North Carolina.<\/p>\n

Republicans have a 53-47 majority in the upper chamber, meaning it only takes four Republicans to join with all Democrats to kill GOP legislation or pass Democratic proposals that require only a simple majority. For example, Senate Democrats were able to pass a resolution to compel Trump to end the Iran war last month after Cassidy, days removed from his primary loss, flipped his vote to yes, joining nearly all Democrats along with Collins, Murkowski and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky.<\/p>\n

Cornyn\u2019s post-runoff return to the Senate coincided with a period of tension between the White House and a Senate GOP frustrated by Trump\u2019s maneuvers against incumbents and his push to reimburse victims of alleged lawfare. And his primary loss has meant a bevy of reporters will be parsing his every word in the Senate hallways, as other retiring senators have found themselves the subject of new attention.<\/p>\n

But Cornyn\u2019s experience is different from some of his colleagues. Unlike Collins and Murkowski, he\u2019s never been a moderate. He didn\u2019t publicly cross the president like Cassidy did when the Louisiana senator voted to convict Trump in his post-Jan. 6 impeachment case. Cornyn himself spent years in Senate GOP leadership, including as the conference whip \u2014 meaning he\u2019s had to deal with bringing holdouts in line.<\/p>\n

Those who have grouped him in with the YOLO<\/a> Caucus need to \u201cget a life,\u201d he told<\/a> CNN.<\/p>\n

Republicans have been publicly hostile to the Justice Department\u2019s $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund to compensate alleged victims of the agency department under the Biden administration. <\/p>\n

The White House announced Monday it was complying with a court order temporarily stopping the fund, and acting attorney general Todd Blanche testified Tuesday that the department would not be moving forward with it. But Democrats \u2014 and some Republicans \u2014 remained eager to ensure it did not return.<\/p>\n

Schumer\u2019s amendment would have banned the DOJ from ever setting up such a fund. Collins, Husted and Sullivan voted with Democrats for the amendment, but Cassidy sided with the rest of the GOP to narrowly sink the effort.<\/p>\n

Cornyn also voted against a Democratic amendment to bar anti-weaponization payouts from going to Jan. 6 rioters who assaulted police officers \u2014 eight Republicans defected on that one \u2014 and another to repurpose the fund to provide settlements to law enforcement officers at the Capitol that day, which pulled seven Republicans. <\/p>\n

A Republican-led effort by Tillis to redirect the money to the DOJ\u2019s anti-fraud division was the only amendment that Cornyn voted for. The Tillis effort was resoundingly rejected by most Democrats and a majority of Republicans, receiving just 15 votes of support. Cornyn was one of 12 Republicans who voted yes.<\/p>\n

In a brief interview Wednesday, before the vote, Cornyn said he prefers individual tort claims for people who believe they\u2019ve been victimized by the government rather than a pot of money like the anti-weaponization fund.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoth sides have grievances in that area,\u201d Cornyn said of the fund. \u201cI just think this wasn\u2019t very well thought out.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition, Cornyn voted with the GOP majority to include the SAVE America Act, a voting restrictions bill that was a flashpoint during the primary, in the immigration bill. The effort was voted down by all Democrats and a few Republicans.<\/p>\n

The amendment votes were an instructive episode for how Cornyn plans to spend his final seven months in the Senate, casting doubt on the idea that he could join the renegades after being spurned by Trump. Sen. Ted Cruz<\/a> was among those who speculated as much, saying on his podcast ahead of the May 26 runoff that if Cornyn lost, \u201cI can imagine he\u2019s going to be pissed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cruz also voted to kill every Democratic amendment to the immigration bill. <\/p>\n

Cornyn, however, did appear to back off of his proposal before the runoff to rename U.S. Route 287 as Interstate 47 in honor of Trump, \u201cotherwise known as Trump Interstate.\u201d The senator told Hearst Newspapers<\/a> the bill \u201cmay not make it into my priorities the next seven months.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. See our AI policy, and give…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":325353,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2137,2671,145,3309,1967,27,29,28,2134,6588],"class_list":["post-325352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-2026-elections","tag-congress","tag-donald-trump","tag-john-cornyn","tag-ken-paxton","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-u-s-senate","tag-well-c-homepage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325352","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=325352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/325353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}