The president is a reality TV star (so’s the transportation secretary), so of course in the year of our lord 2026 the sharpest commentary on the Texas Senate race came from a comedian on a podcast.
This week, Ron White, the scotch-in-hand veteran of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, sat down with Joe Rogan and took apart Texas Attorney General and Republican Senate nominee Ken Paxton. There was no hedging and no “both sides.”
“He’s a criminal,” White said. “Just a piece of shit.”
This happened on Rogan’s show, a regular campaign stop for Republicans, and not in a debate hall or a newspaper editorial. And White didn’t just insult Paxton, he cited the record: Paxton cost Texas taxpayers $6 million after firing whistleblowers, and his own party impeached him.
Both of those things are true. If anything, White went easy on the math.
Back in 2020, a group of Paxton’s senior aides went to the FBI accusing their boss of taking bribes and using his office to help Nate Paul, an Austin real estate developer and campaign donor. Several of them were fired soon after and sued under the Texas Whistleblower Act. In 2023 Paxton agreed to apologize and pay $3.3 million, which he cast as a way to “save taxpayer dollars.” Then the legislature refused to pay for the deal, and it fell apart. A Travis County judge later awarded the whistleblowers about $6.6 million. Paxton vowed to appeal, then dropped the appeal. So the “$6 million” White mentioned is the rounded-down version.
That settlement request is also what led to the impeachment. When Paxton asked lawmakers to cover his bill, the Republican-controlled Texas House took a closer look and made the belated discovery that its attorney general was a raging fireball of corruption. In May 2023, the House voted 121-23 to impeach him. Paxton skipped testifying at what he called an “evil” proceeding, and the Texas Senate acquitted him that September. His separate securities fraud case had been hanging over him for almost a decade, and it ended with a whimper when he finally made a deal with prosecutors: restitution, community service, and legal ethics classes. That last part is a little on the nose for the state’s top lawyer.
The Senate campaign has also been controversy laden. Paxton beat John Cornyn in the primary runoff, and then his estranged wife released an endorsement slate that pointedly skipped his race. Next, it turned out that his own defense lawyer had donated to Democrat James Talarico. While Paxton was asking Texans to report illegal voters, a ProPublica/Texas Tribune report found that he voted six times from an address he’d already moved out of. And a man who won’t discuss his own marriage has no problem regulating yours.
So that’s the guy Rogan’s audience heard about. Rogan himself wasn’t ready to go as far as his guest.
“I don’t know enough about him,” Rogan said. “But I do know that they’re surprised that Talarico’s ahead of him in the polls.”
White wasn’t surprised at all.
“I’m not,” White said. “I think that people are sick of what’s going on right now in Texas. They’ve been in control for 30 years. What have they given us? Let somebody else fucking drive.”
Ron White made a career out of the line that you can’t fix stupid, and Texas voters are about to find out whether they can fix corrupt.
Earlier: Ken Paxton Won His Senate Primary And His (Estranged) Wife Couldn’t Be Bothered To Endorse Him
Ken Paxton Can’t Even Get His Own Lawyer’s Vote
Ken Paxton Wants Texans To Snitch On Illegal Voters. A New Report Suggests He Should Check The Mirror.
Ken Paxton Won’t Discuss His Marriage With Thousands Of Strangers. He’ll Just Regulate Yours.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Bluesky @Kathryn1
The post Of Course The Texas Senate Race Is Being Litigated On Joe Rogan appeared first on Above the Law.
The president is a reality TV star (so’s the transportation secretary), so of course in the year of our lord 2026 the sharpest commentary on the Texas Senate race came from a comedian on a podcast.
This week, Ron White, the scotch-in-hand veteran of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, sat down with Joe Rogan and took apart Texas Attorney General and Republican Senate nominee Ken Paxton. There was no hedging and no “both sides.”
“He’s a criminal,” White said. “Just a piece of shit.”
This happened on Rogan’s show, a regular campaign stop for Republicans, and not in a debate hall or a newspaper editorial. And White didn’t just insult Paxton, he cited the record: Paxton cost Texas taxpayers $6 million after firing whistleblowers, and his own party impeached him.
Both of those things are true. If anything, White went easy on the math.
Back in 2020, a group of Paxton’s senior aides went to the FBI accusing their boss of taking bribes and using his office to help Nate Paul, an Austin real estate developer and campaign donor. Several of them were fired soon after and sued under the Texas Whistleblower Act. In 2023 Paxton agreed to apologize and pay $3.3 million, which he cast as a way to “save taxpayer dollars.” Then the legislature refused to pay for the deal, and it fell apart. A Travis County judge later awarded the whistleblowers about $6.6 million. Paxton vowed to appeal, then dropped the appeal. So the “$6 million” White mentioned is the rounded-down version.
That settlement request is also what led to the impeachment. When Paxton asked lawmakers to cover his bill, the Republican-controlled Texas House took a closer look and made the belated discovery that its attorney general was a raging fireball of corruption. In May 2023, the House voted 121-23 to impeach him. Paxton skipped testifying at what he called an “evil” proceeding, and the Texas Senate acquitted him that September. His separate securities fraud case had been hanging over him for almost a decade, and it ended with a whimper when he finally made a deal with prosecutors: restitution, community service, and legal ethics classes. That last part is a little on the nose for the state’s top lawyer.
The Senate campaign has also been controversy laden. Paxton beat John Cornyn in the primary runoff, and then his estranged wife released an endorsement slate that pointedly skipped his race. Next, it turned out that his own defense lawyer had donated to Democrat James Talarico. While Paxton was asking Texans to report illegal voters, a ProPublica/Texas Tribune report found that he voted six times from an address he’d already moved out of. And a man who won’t discuss his own marriage has no problem regulating yours.
So that’s the guy Rogan’s audience heard about. Rogan himself wasn’t ready to go as far as his guest.
“I don’t know enough about him,” Rogan said. “But I do know that they’re surprised that Talarico’s ahead of him in the polls.”
White wasn’t surprised at all.
“I’m not,” White said. “I think that people are sick of what’s going on right now in Texas. They’ve been in control for 30 years. What have they given us? Let somebody else fucking drive.”
Ron White made a career out of the line that you can’t fix stupid, and Texas voters are about to find out whether they can fix corrupt.
Earlier: Ken Paxton Won His Senate Primary And His (Estranged) Wife Couldn’t Be Bothered To Endorse Him
Ken Paxton Can’t Even Get His Own Lawyer’s Vote
Ken Paxton Wants Texans To Snitch On Illegal Voters. A New Report Suggests He Should Check The Mirror.
Ken Paxton Won’t Discuss His Marriage With Thousands Of Strangers. He’ll Just Regulate Yours.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Bluesky @Kathryn1
