Ken Paxton caught criticizing D*n*ld Tr*mp in leaked audio: “So to be honest with you…”

Texas transphobe Ken Paxton received a dressing-down from legendary drag queen Alyssa Edwards last week, but that’s not the only thing making his Texas Senate run a nightmare. This morning, the New York Times released leaked audio that shows Paxton speaking candidly about his endorsement daddy Tr*mp, and it’s not exactly flattering.

In audio obtained by the Times, one man asks Paxton if he thinks Tr*mp’s presence at the Dallas RNC was a “drag” on the candidate’s polling numbers, which continue to fall behind Democratic challenger James Talarico. Paxton, while admitting that he’s still a big fan of Tr*mp’s, concedes, stating: “the numbers — when we did that convention — it dropped our numbers. Everybody’s numbers dropped. Right now, yeah, not good.”

Wow, a Republican convention that broke Grindr servers being bad for business? Go figure!

The disastrous Texas event definitely didn’t help MAGA’s case, but to be fair, things were already looking pretty rough before then. Paxton may want to blame his recent polling lag on Tr*mp, and fair dues. But Paxton should probably look at his own record before passing the buck.

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This month, Paxton not only had to endure an elegant dressing down by Alyssa Edwards, he also had to answer to serious charges from trans Texans concerning his anti-trans crusade. Recently, one young trans victim of Paxton’s policies let the world know how the Texas AG almost drove her to desperation. In 2022, when Paxton released an opinion classifying gender-affirming care as “child abuse” under the law, Gov. Greg Abbott followed suit, leading to a statewide witch hunt that threatened to tear trans kids away from their loving, supportive families.

That’s far from the only anti-LGBTQ+ black mark on Paxton’s record. That same year, he tried to cancel a high school’s Pride celebration. Earlier than that, he advocated for bringing back Texas’s anti-sodomy laws. Those laws, struck down in 2003 as a result of the Laurence v. Texas case, were the only extant measures in the country that criminalized homosexuality. Paxton defended the law in 2022, claiming that the Supreme Court has often “stepped into issues that I don’t think there was any constitutional provision dealing with.”

In 2022, it might have helped his standing with fellow MAGAites. In 2026. Paxton’s anti-LGBTQ+ chickens are finally coming home to roost. Despite the fact that Texas hasn’t been blue since Jimmy Carter’s presidency, Talarico’s current 4-point lead is making MAGA Republicans sweat. The problem isn’t just that the rizzless Paxton has to go head-to-head with high T Talarico. It’s that Paxton’s anti-human rights platform is suddenly out of date. Nobody is buying the MAGA lie anymore, even in deep red Texas.

So Paxton is doing what all mid politicians do: blaming his poor performance on someone else. Tr*mp himself shoulders plenty of the blame for driving the GOP into the ground, but in the case of Paxton’s sinking hopes, there’s more to the story. If the Texas transphobe is looking for someone to blame, he might start by looking in the mirror.

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