Video News Clips: In Their Own Words

‘Don’t Know’ Him: John Kennedy Does Not Say Yes When Asked If Ken Paxton ‘Has Character To Serve’ In Senate

Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Republican Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy did not answer in the affirmative when NBC News’ Kristen Welker asked him Sunday if his party’s Senate nominee in neighboring Texas has the “character to serve.”

During Kennedy’s appearance on “Meet the Press,” Welker asked the lawmaker to give his take on what she observed was “one of the most hotly contested” and expensive Senate races between Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Democratic State Rep. James Talarico. She specifically pressed Kennedy on whether he thinks Paxton — who is dogged by corruption allegations which resulted in his 2023 impeachment and acquittal as well as an acknowledged extramarital affair — possesses the requisite “character to serve as a U.S. senator.”

“That’s the decision of the people of Texas,” the senator responded. “I don’t know Ken Paxton. I don’t know Mr. Talarico.”

“You’re not confident though? You’re not confident in his character, Sen. Kennedy?” Welker continued to press.

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“As best I can tell, the race is an unpopularity contest,” Kennedy said.

While the lawmaker conceded he ultimately thinks Paxton will win because of Texas’ strong Republican lean, he noted that the race is “going to be very, very close.”

A late September New York Times/ Siena poll showed Talarico leading Paxton 51 percent to 46 percent, despite the Lone Star State having voted for President Donald Trump by 13 percentage points in 2024. The non-partisan Cook Political Report rates the race between Paxton and Talarico as a toss-up.

Paxton unseated longtime Republican Texas Sen. John Cornyn in a May primary runoff by a landslide margin. Talarico defeated firebrand Democratic Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett in a contentious primary.

Paxton’s estranged wife Angela, a Republican Texas State Senator, filed for divorce from him in July citing “biblical grounds.” However, Mrs. Paxton still appeared in a campaign ad to endorse voting for “the Republican ticket,” without mentioning candidate Paxton by name.

Talarico has also come under scrutiny for various left-wing views he has expressed over the years. In 2021, the lawmaker — who is a Presbyterian seminarian and has frequently invokes Christianity throughout his political career — made headlines when he said that “God is non-binary” during a speech in the state legislature opposing a GOP bill protecting girl’s sports. He later admitted that he loved “trans children” during a 2023 podcast interview.

However, during his Senate campaign, the Democrat appeared to distance himself from his previous rhetoric and came out in opposition to child sex changes in June.

Paxton has spent much of his campaign differentiating himself from Talarico’s various past stances, which he called “weird” in a June interview with the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“I think if you look at the scripture it’s pretty clear God is not ‘nonbinary.’ He is expressed in three forms in the trinity, and not as James Talarico is suggesting,” Paxton told DCNF Senior Investigative Reporter Emily Kopp at the time.