If President Donald Trump is looking for a senator who embodies the spirit and action of “Republican in Name Only,” he couldn’t find no better man than milquetoast Texas Sen. John Cornyn.
The four-term RINO locked in a contentious GOP primary run-off battle against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton boasts a storied Senate career of genuflecting at the altar of the Swamp. Cornyn has been begging for Trump’s platinum endorsement more shamelessly than he’s prostituted himself for establishment cash.
And it’s looking like he might get the president’s seal of approval, if you can believe the Trump-hating Atlantic and other Pravda Press publications.
“President Trump’s political advisers expect him to endorse Senator John Cornyn in Texas’s May 26 Republican-primary runoff election following the incumbent’s better-than-expected finish against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the first round of voting [Tuesday] three people briefed on the deliberations told us,” The Atlantic’s Michael Scherer and Ashley Parker write.
“Republican strategists,” the corporate reporters assert, “hope the endorsement will make the Texas Senate race less expensive and less competitive.”
‘Be Careful What You Wish For’
But here’s the thing: Trump hates RINOs — and rightfully so. He’s said so many, many times. Just ask Indiana’s “pathetic” state Senate RINO’s who got a collective tummy ache over a midterm redistricting bill pushed by Trump that would have boosted GOP membership in a wafer-thin Republican majority House. Meanwhile, Democrats are redrawing blue state maps left and left to get a leg up in the midterms.
Just ask John Cornyn. In 2022, Trump blasted Cornyn for bowing alongside then-Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to the invidious gun control lobby.
“The deal on ‘Gun Control’ currently being structured and pushed in the Senate by the Radical Left Democrats, with the help of Mitch McConnell, RINO Senator John Cornyn of Texas, and others, will go down in history as the first step in the movement to TAKE YOUR GUNS AWAY. Republicans, be careful what you wish for!!!” Trump wrote on his social media site, Truth Social.
And another thing: Trump loves loyalty. I mean really loves loyalty. It is perhaps his most defining leadership requisite, responsible for the president’s unprecedented political successes and some of his head-scratching foibles.
Cornyn is as loyal to Trump and the MAGA movement as he is to $5 donors. That is to say, not much.
Cornyn and his establishment pals have prematurely written Trump’s political obituary too many times to trust. In 2023, as Trump was mired in a multi-front leftist lawfare campaign to keep him off the ballot and put him in prison, Cornyn was writing off the GOP’s eventual nominee and walking away from him when Trump needed him most.
“I think President Trump’s time has passed him by,” Cornyn claimed in 2023. “I don’t think President Trump understands that when you run in a general election, you have to appeal to voters beyond your base.”
“You know, in politics, unless you can win an election then you’re pretty much irrelevant,” Cornyn later said. “I have concerns about the President’s ability to win in November.”
Cornyn’s political instincts were as shaky as his loyalty. Suffice to say, the senator’s comments didn’t age well. Defying the odds and a political silencing campaign like no other, Trump won — bigly.
When he did, guess who was back to curry political favor. That’s right, RINO John.
‘Hand-in-Glove’
“Congratulations to President Trump on his historic victory,” Cornyn said. “I’m confident President Trump will hit the ground running to restore the Office of the President to what it should be — one that keeps the American people safe and prosperous.”
He quickly ingratiated himself, asserting that he and the president “have worked closely together,” hoping the fresh scars on Trump’s back had healed.
One hundred days into Trump 2.0, Cornyn boasted how he had worked “hand-in-glove” with the president he had previously written off in accomplishing the MAGA agenda. Of course he failed to note how little the shiftless Republican-led Senate has done to put Trump’s government reform policies into law.
Which brings us to the most pressing bill now gathering Senate dust thanks to spineless leaders like Cornyn’s good pal Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D.
Word on the Hill is that Cornyn’s endorsement of the critical SAVE America Act is all for show. The Texas Republican looking for a fifth six-year term wants nothing to do with an actual vote on the voter verification bill that bars noncitizens from voting in U.S. elections and is backed by the vast majority of Americans, sources say.
The SAVE America Act is one of Trump’s leading domestic priorities.
Trump thus far has stayed out of the Texas GOP primary. That’s sound strategy moving forward. Endorsing the Senate’s leading RINO would be disloyal to Texas’ loyal conservative base — and to himself.
As the president said just a few years back, be careful what you wish for.
Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.
