Turning Point USA’s political-action committee showed just how “family friendly” it is Monday – by endorsing serial adulterer Ken Paxton for Texas’s open Senate seat.
Paxton, who’s battling Republican incumbent John Cornyn and Congressman Wesley Hunt for his party’s nomination, accepted the endorsement, saying, “I’m proud to be standing alongside Turning Point Action in carrying on the fight to save this country and defend our freedoms.”
Sensible Republicans, of which there are at least a half dozen left, understand the hypocrisy of the organization started by the late Charlie Kirk, the world’s most earnest family man, backing one of America’s most ethically compromised politicians. Texas lawyer and Cornyn supporter Amy Miller seemed to have the final word about this dubious endorsement on X, saying, “Ken Paxton screwed around on his wife at least 3 times, committed securities fraud, perjured himself, and spends his days sending out spurious pieces of collateral complaining about things outside his purview. But ok.”
The endorsement caps off an eclectic few weeks for Turning Point. The organization welcomed Nicki Minaj to their AmericaFest conference in December and then hosted an “alternative” Super Bowl halftime show, which featured bad lip-syncing, a song about the “the drinking class” and cutting off Kid Rock halfway through his final number because the game had started.
With three weeks to go until the primaries, Paxton leads in the polls.
On our radar
YOUNG TURKS Vice President Vance deleted a tweet that said he and SLOTUS Usha were laying a wreath “to honor the victims of the 1915 Armenian genocide” during his swing through the Caucasus today.
GOT TO GO! Pop star Chappell Roan dropped her talent agency, Wasserman, after the revelation of emails between its founder Casey Wasserman and Ghislaine Maxwell.
WAKA FLOCKA-GAIN CJ Pearson’s Cruel Kids “MAGA is in the Air” Valentine’s Day party changed its headline act for a second time. Now Waka Flocka Flame (who played Pearson’s inauguration bash) will replace Da Baby, who in turn replaced Fetty Wap.
Cringe on Maine
Time to look elsewhere in the build-up to the 2026 midterms (do read Charles Lipson’s excellent cover piece for our latest magazine if you’ve yet to). Up north in Maine, the Senate race is a tale of two social-media games. On the right, you have incumbent Senator Susan Collins, who announced her reelection campaign with a rather awkward unboxing video:
Unwrapping a pair of New Balance sneakers, the 73-year-old says, in a quivering voice, “This is perfect for 2026, because I’m running.” Hey, it is cold.
Her Democratic rival Graham Platner, who you recall either from his days at Hotchkiss, his ruddy-faced viral town-hall videos or his questionable body-art choices, reminds us that Collins had pledged to only serve two terms in the Senate. “That’s just one of a hundred reasons she doesn’t deserve a sixth term,” he wrote.
Platner’s campaigning is also proving somewhat unorthodox. Last night he joined the Dropkick Murphys on stage, singing along with the Irish-American punk band and crowdsurfing while wearing a soccer shirt (Cockburn’s tenacity means he can identify it as the 2023-24 third kit for CD Palestino, a pro-Palestinian team from Chile). To each their own.
Redaction of the day
Representative Thomas Massie dropped a fresh piece of Epstein-files intrigue on X Monday evening, displaying an FBI Criminal Investigations document into Epstein-related child sex trafficking. There are several people profiled in the document, all of their identities hidden except Ghislaine Maxwell and the late Jean-Luc Brunel, who ran a modeling agency rumored to supply Epstein with girls.
Massie highlights one “co-conspirator,” about whom all information is redacted except “Location: Ohio.” “This is a well known retired CEO,” Massie writes. “DoJ should unredact this. Why did they redact it?” Rumors flew about X, including one that the mystery CEO’s name rhymes with “Phil Yates.”
Quelling the rumors, Deputy AG Todd Blanche quote-tweeted Massie: “The document you cite has numerous victim names. We have just unredacted Les Wexner’s name from this document, but his name already appears in the files thousands of times. DOJ is hiding nothing.”
Eighty-eight-year-old Ohio billionaire Wexner is the founder of L Brands, which, at its height, ran Victoria’s Secret and Bed Bath & Body Works. Epstein was Wexner’s money manager for decades before Wexner accused Epstein of stealing millions of dollars from him. Wexner’s name appears in the Epstein files more than 1,000 times, and he’s set to testify before Congress on February 18.
“Mr. Wexner terminated Epstein and cut off all ties with him following Mr. Wexner’s discovery of Epstein’s theft and criminal conduct,” a spokesperson told Ohio public media.
Massie said yesterday that there are six men named in the files, one of whom is “pretty high up” in a foreign government, “who are implicated in the way that the files are presented.”
Comments