Cornyn’s Weak Fight For the SAVE Act Cost Him Trump’s Support

As the longest-running primetime scripted series, The Simpsons has delivered a mountain of memorable TV moments in its 36-plus years on the air. The most hilariously heartbreaking happened in Season 4, with an episode titled, “I Love Lisa.”

If you’re a Simpsons fan you know. If you’re not, I won’t bore you with a lot of details. But things end very badly for poor Ralph Wiggum, the second-grade’s village idiot, when he declares his love for second-grade intellectual Lisa Simpson on live TV. A gesture of kindness turns to horror when Lisa, furious and fed up, screams that she doesn’t like Ralph, has never liked him, and that the cherished Valentine’s Day card she had given him was offered out of pity, not affection. 

“You can actually pinpoint the second when his heart rips in half,” big brother Bart tells Lisa as he plays back in agonizing slow motion the video tape immortalizing Ralph’s obliterated heart.  

I imagine the moment of heartbreak when four-term Texas Sen. John Cornyn learned that President Donald Trump’s coveted endorsement was going to his Senate primary challenger instead. In the parlance of Lisa’s locomotive-themed Valentine’s Day card, Trump did not “choo-choo choose” Cornyn. He choo-choo chose real conservative Ken Paxton, the Lone Star State’s “MAGA warrior” attorney general. 

And Cornyn — with his RINO instincts, pointedly his unwillingness to fight hard for Trump’s top election-integrity legislation request — has only himself to blame.

Perhaps more crushing is the fact that by all accounts Trump was on the cusp of giving Cornyn his stamp of approval after March’s primary election, when Paxton and the incumbent swamp creature finished within 1.2 percentage points of each other. Neither scored a majority, necessitating next Tuesday’s runoff. 

And that’s the other crushing blow. Trump’s endorsement arrived one week before the election. Ouch! 

Cornyn told a gathering of Plains Cotton Growers in Lubbock Tuesday that he’s “not giving up the fight.” But ouch!

“I know who gets to choose our senators, and it’s the people of Texas,” the incumbent Republican said. 

Red state Texas Republicans like Donald Trump. The president won the Lone Star State by just under 14 percentage points in 2024. 

‘Pretty Much Irrelevant’

Trump’s endorsement has been gold in a string of recent primaries. In Kentucky on Tuesday, Republican challenger Ed Gallrein defeated longtime Rep. Thomas Massie. Massie became the darling of the Epstein Files mob, earning Trump’s ire for his made-for-TV grandstanding on the release of said files. 

Over the weekend, Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, who voted to convict Trump in 2021’s failed Democrat-led impeachment campaign, lost a bitter primary. Two challengers, including a Trump-backed candidate, will face off election in a runoff in late June. 

In Indiana, all but one state senator who voted against a redraw of the Hoosier State’s congressional maps aimed at expanding Republican representation in the House lost their primary elections. 

While corporate media has made the string of Trump-endorsed candidate wins about the president’s wrath over disloyalty, GOP primary voters clearly want candidates who will fight for the Make America Great Again movement, not institutionalized RINOS. 

Which brings us back to Cornyn. 

In a post on Truth Social, the president called Paxton a “true MAGA Warrior.” Cornyn, he said, “was not supportive of me when times were tough.” Like in 2023 as the field of GOP presidential candidates was growing and Trump was in the middle of multiple political witch hunts against him and his allies. Cornyn said, “President Trump’s time has passed him by.” 

“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.”

I bet Cornyn is now concerned about his own ability to win in May. 

The president noted the Texas senator’s tardiness in support “in what turned out to be a Historic Run for the Republican Nomination, and then, the Presidency, itself.”

Paxton, like Trump, has gone through the political gauntlet, surviving an impeachment trial before the Texas state Senate. 

“Ken Paxton has gone through a lot, in many cases, very unfairly, but he is a Fighter, and knows how to WIN. Our Country needs Fighters, and also Loyalty to the Cause of Greatness.”

‘The SAVE America Act is the Most Important Bill’

Paxton, unlike Cornyn, was willing to sacrifice his Senate run for the sake of a critical election-integrity bill that Trump has described as his “top priority.” 

In early March when it appeared that the president was about to give his blessing to Cornyn, Paxton said he would “consider dropping out of this race if Senate Leadership agrees to lift the filibuster and passes the SAVE America Act.” The legislation would require documentary proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote in U.S. elections and photo identification to cast a ballot. 

Spineless Republican leadership and several RINO senators have refused to employ the talking filibuster or nuke the filibuster altogether to pass the bill. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., last week said despite his “spirited debate” for a couple days on the floor there isn’t support to move the legislation. 

“The Save America Act is the most important bill the U.S. Senate could ever pass, and I’m committed to helping President Trump get it done,” Paxton wrote. He knew full well that the weak-kneed Senate majority wouldn’t do what was necessary to pass the election protection act. 

Cornyn, curiously, had a change of heart on the matter following Paxton’s offer, penning a New York Post op-ed declaring his support for stripping the filibuster. 

“After careful consideration, I support whatever changes to Senate rules that may prove necessary for us to get the SAVE America Act and homeland security funding past the Democrats’ obstruction, through the Senate, and on the president’s desk for his signature,” Cornyn wrote. “This could be a ‘talking filibuster’ that removes the obstructionists’ free pass and makes them defend their indefensible views on the Senate floor, or it could be a different reform.”

Trump’s endorsement was still on the line then. As true believers in MAGA will tell you, actions speak louder than words. And Cornyn has said a lot of things. Texas conservatives see through the summertime soldier mask. 

So does Trump. 

“Ken is a Strong Supporter of TERMINATING THE FILIBUSTER and, very importantly, THE SAVE AMERICA ACT, something which polls at 87%, including Dumocrats, and yet can’t seem to get approved,” Trump wrote in his endorsement, driving home what’s on the line in November’s midterms.

He predicted Democrats would end the filibuster “on their First Day in Office, giving us two extra States, D.C. and Puerto Rico, and a greatly enlarged Supreme Court of the United States…” 

‘Out of Step’

Cornyn’s RINO allies, particularly Thune, were in the president’s ear as much as they could urging him to pick Cornyn, former Trump adviser and America First warrior Steve Bannon told NBC News. Clearly, they weren’t convincing. 

“This is as much a vote of no confidence in John Thune as it is a vote of confidence in Ken Paxton,” Bannon said.

Trump’s endorsements, contrary to the Pravda press’ revenge narrative, are about sending a message. No doubt, in part, the president is letting Senate Republican leadership know more forcefully his displeasure in their failure theater performances on the SAVE America Act. A Rasmussen Reports poll released late last week found support for the legislation remained strong. American voters, too, are trying to send Thune and crew a message. 

“I think the message that people should take from this is fundamentally you have got to serve the people who sent you, and if you don’t do that, you’re going to find yourself out of step with voters,” Vice President JD Vance told reporters Tuesday at the White House following Trump’s Paxton endorsement. 

Heartbroken 

In a post on X, Cornyn’s message seemed wistful as he kept a brave face. He’s had Trump’s back, he faintly protested. The senator said he has “worked closely” with the president, voting with Trump “99% of the time.”

“He has consistently called me a friend in this race,” Cornyn said of the president.

You can actually pinpoint the second when his heart rips in half.

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.