President Donald Trump paused for a long moment when Fox News asked, “Why go to Texas?” after Senate nominee Ken Paxton (R-TX) privately cast shade on the president’s convention for hurting his campaign.
Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy asked the question Thursday afternoon outside the White House as Trump prepared to board Marine One for his first campaign stop of the week.
The White House had again removed CNN from the broadcast pool at the last moment, leaving no pool camera, and drums in the background made the president difficult to hear.
“If Ken Paxton is telling people behind closed doors that he thinks the convention hurt his poll numbers, why go to Texas?” Doocy asked.
“Well…” Trump replied, before a long, uncharacteristic pause.
“I’ll tell you what… We have to win this election. That convention, you were there. That convention was a tremendous success,” the president eventually said before claiming the convention drew 107 million views compared with 24 million for an NFL broadcast airing against it.
“In other words, we beat the NFL by four times,” he insisted.
Paxton told about a dozen conservative donors and lobbyists at a private Washington fundraiser last week that Trump’s midterm convention in Dallas this month had hurt him, according to an audio recording obtained by The New York Times.
“Do you feel like he’s a little bit of a drag?” someone asked Paxton on the recording, though the Times said it was unclear who the questioner meant.
“So to be honest with you, the numbers — when we did that convention — it dropped our numbers. Everybody’s numbers dropped. Right now, yeah, not good,” Paxton replied, according to the recording.
“The convention helped Ken Paxton a lot,” Trump said a few days after the Dallas event, according to the Times.
“This is more manipulated nonsense from The New York Times to create a story that doesn’t exist,” senior Paxton adviser Nick Maddux told the Times. “Our latest poll from the last week has Ken Paxton leading by three points, and every serious pollster will tell you that our numbers have improved since early September.”
“Ken Paxton is going to win this race, and he looks forward to closing strong alongside President Trump including when he comes to Texas this week,” Maddux added.
Paxton, a longtime Trump loyalist, defeated Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) in this year’s Republican primary. Despite endorsing the Texas Republican, Trump has repeatedly insulted his appearance.
Paxton has narrowly trailed Democratic state Rep. James Talarico (D-TX) in many recent polls, the Times reported. Trump’s super PAC, MAGA Inc., has put $20 million behind Paxton’s bid with Election Day five weeks away, according to the newspaper.
Back outside the White House, Trump told reporters his first stop was Oklahoma, where he said he wants to win all 77 counties for the third time.
“So I’m going to Oklahoma now because I want to…” Trump said, trailing off.
“So they say, why are you going? I’m going there because… Like Alabama, same thing. I’m going because you have to thank these states that are with you a thousand percent,” he continued.
“So I love Oklahoma. I love Alabama. I love a lot of people in Texas, as an example. But I go there because they want to see me there,” Trump said.
“Has Ken Paxton contacted you?” Doocy followed up, but Trump moved on to questions about Cornell University and Iran without answering.
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