WarRoom Battleground EP 951: Breakdown Of The Texas Attorney General Debate
The Texas Attorney General debate pits Stephen K. Bannon’s endorsed candidates—Aaron Wrights (former Marine, Paxton ally), Joan Huffman (prosecutor, Senate finance chair), and Mays Middleton ("MAGA Mays")—against Chip Roy (Cruz-backed Tea Party veteran) over Sharia law bans, CCP land ownership restrictions, and violent crime tied to "Soros-funded" DAs. Huffman vows to remove progressive prosecutors in her first month, while Wrights pushes for AG-led cartel terrorism designations and wind turbine border wall solutions. Roy counters with legislative experience but faces attacks for opposing Trump’s federal transgender bans, framed as a betrayal by rivals who claim 222 Houston murders stem from lenient DA policies. The race underscores Texas’s conservative legal battles amid rising crime, foreign influence fears, and culture war tensions. [Automatically generated summary]
It's Wednesday, 18 February in the year of the Lord, 2026.
Last night was the only debate in this entire race, in the primary, at least, for the Texas Attorney General.
Remember, the Attorney General in Texas, you being part of the War Room posse, Ken Paxton, is absolutely essential to the fight to get President Trump back into the presidency, as you all remember.
As Attorney General, Texas, he was our first guest on the afternoon show of 20 January 2021.
President Trump left the tarmac from Andrews Air Force Base on Air Force One.
We had that very dramatic show in the morning that ended at noon, right when Biden was going to take the oath of office.
President Trump kind of went into exile for a while down in Mar-a-Lago.
And what we did in the afternoon, the very first guest we had was Ken Paxton of Texas, the Attorney General.
And why we had Paxton, we knew that the Attorney Generals, the state attorney generals, are going to be so important.
And Texas is the jewel of the crown, so Texas would be the most important.
Now, tonight, we're going to break down the debate that we live streamed last night.
The central figures are Aaron Wrights, who is endorsed by Ken Paxon, former Justice Department guy, Marine Corps, former Marine officer, Chip Roy, who we've had on for years, part of the Tea Party Chief of Staff of Ted Cruz.
Chip is also part of the Freedom Caucus, been one of the fighters in the Congress.
And of course, Mays Middleton, more, I think, of kind of a Bush guy.
He is Abbott's.
He's endorsed by Abbott.
Cruz has endorsed Chip Roy.
Attorney General Paxton has endorsed our one and only Aaron Wrights.
This is really where the throne haymakers.
What I was really impressed and really proud of.
I think the first question out of the box was on Islam.
But the questions you're going to see tonight, they're going to make introductory remarks.
You're going to see some very tough questions.
Our friend Chris Kobak from the great state of Kansas will also join.
They had a bunch of attorney generals there last night from some of the more MAGA red states.
And so we're going to break this in pieces.
I'll be back in closer to the break at the bottom to give you an assessment.
But it's the gloves come off.
I think you see the measure of each man.
You got Mays Middleton, Chip Roy, and of course, Aaron Wrights.
So let's go ahead and check it out.
This is last night.
We streamed it live.
The one and the only Attorney General's Attorney General's debate live from North Dallas.
I guess they called the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex.
I'm running for Attorney General because I believe that we're in a battle for the soul of our state and our nation.
And I know from long-fought personal experience that the primary arena in which we fight the dark forces of the left is the justice system.
President Trump understands this better than anyone and as one of his very first orders of business in his new administration was to elevate me to the senior ranks of his Justice Department.
And when he did, he said Aaron Wrights is a true MAGA attorney and a warrior for the Constitution.
Why?
Because of my battle-tested record leading legal troops into legal combat to deliver legal victories for Texas and for Texans.
Attorney General Paxton has served our state effectively and faithfully for over a decade.
But now the time has come to choose a new chief legal officer.
Remember, under the Texas Constitution, this is a legal, law enforcement, executive branch job, not a legislative job.
So while my opponents may spend tonight talking about their legislative record or bills that they've worked on, you'll see a glaring absence of any real legal record.
That might be fine if you're running for re-election to the House or Senate, but it's wholly inadequate to the task of Attorney General.
In contrast, my record litigating, investigating, suing, defending, and appealing on all the major issues that we Republicans care about throughout the justice system sets me apart.
It's that record that led Attorney General Paxton to endorse me to succeed him, and it's that record that can give Texans the confidence that I'm ready to lead the fight in court.
I'm excited about the opportunity to introduce myself to you.
I'm Joan Huffman.
I started my career in 1981 as a secretary at the Harris County District Attorney's Office and put myself through law school at night.
Once I graduated, I was hired as a prosecutor where I served Harris County for over 15 years, tried over 100 jury trials, including death penalty cases, was chief gang prosecutor, chief of the Organized Crime Narcotics Task Force.
And then I ran for a criminal district court judge where I was twice elected, served two terms.
In 2008, I ran for the state Senate where I've served ever since.
In those years, I have served as chairwoman of the major committees in the Senate, state affairs, jurisprudence, redistricting.
I'm currently the chair of finance and have been for the last four years, where I write the state's $340 billion budget.
During that time period, I've led on major conservative fights.
I passed the first voter ID bill that passed court muster in Texas.
I passed the first Sharia law bill when people weren't paying attention.
I passed campus free speech and have led the funding, led the fight with President Trump on border security as chair of the committees and the finance committee that focus on all the border security.
I have the qualifications, the will, and the work ethic to be your next Attorney General and be the fighter that you need and you want as your Attorney General.
Really, all you need to know about me in this race is I'm the only one that's been protested at the Texas Capitol during this campaign.
They had these big, ugly green signs with my face on it, and they called me the bathroom bigot.
Why?
Because I don't want men in my little girl's restroom or locker room or shower.
And this is a calling for me.
This is not a job.
Like our president, I don't take the salary.
I don't take the pension.
I don't take the health care.
I don't take the state license plate.
I am only here to serve and fight for the conservative values that we believe in.
And that's what I've done since day one in office.
I've always been ranked as the top one or two most conservative members in the House.
Now, the Senate, I was chairman of the Texas House Freedom Caucus, and President Trump called me a MAGA champion and my conservative record second to none.
And this is a show-me-don't tell me business.
And I can show you the results.
I took on the woke left's gender ideology.
One, stopped men from playing women's sports, kicked perverted men out of women's private spaces like restrooms and locker rooms, defeated the atheists and put prayer and the Ten Commandments back into our public schools and took on our foreign adversaries in Austin, stopped China from buying our land, designated cartels as terrorists, tripled border security, and am now taking on our most growing threat, which is Sharia law and Islamification.
Republican primaries should be for Republicans, not for liberals, not for Democrats, not for people who are coming into our party business to try and screw around with our elections to choose our best Republicans.
That's our business.
I'm proud of the fact that Attorney General Paxton filed litigation in defense of the Republican Party of Texas and against the Secretary of State in her defense of a facially unconstitutional provision in the Texas Election Code that these two senators, well, maybe just one senator, I'll give Mays some credit here for trying to fix that.
But this is a First Amendment freedom of association issue.
This is not just quibbling over the words in a statute.
Our party has the right to freely associate with whomever we want.
It's a First Amendment issue.
And while I did a moment ago give Mays some credit for attempting to pass that law, even if he had got it through, what no one on this stage has ever done is successfully litigate First Amendment appeals or litigation at the district court or up to the U.S. or Texas Supreme Court.
That's the issue.
Have you litigated First Amendment issues?
On this stage, I'm the only one, once again, the only one who has successfully done it.
And I'll continue to keep my foot on the gas in the same direction as Ken Paxton.
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As Texas Attorney General, what will you do to push back against blue state overreach and help protect carbon-based fuels like oil, gas, and coal to ensure that America leads the world in energy production and that Americans have access to reliable and affordable energy?
In 2015, as the first Assistant Attorney General, we were proud to work with West Virginia to challenge the so-called clean power plan.
And that was impressive and important litigation that was built upon the team that you develop when you work together among attorneys general across multiple states.
And that's one of the important things that is so great about this organization.
The second thing that I think is important to know is you've got to be willing to stand up and fight when it counts.
Last May, when the Big Beautiful bill was moving forward, the Green News scam subsidies that we were going to repeal and undo were being put back in by a handful of senators and members of Congress.
Four of us in the budget committee stood up and said no.
And the entire world, all of the eyes were on us, from the White House to the Speaker's office, and we said no.
And we were able to get those Green News scam subsidy repeals put back in that bill.
You need someone who will stand up and fight when it counts, regardless of the arrows being tossed at them.
I've been at the very cutting edge throughout the justice system fighting against blue state overreach and environmentalist activists.
When I was Attorney General Paxton's deputy, leading 46 lawsuits against the 46th president and winning 85% of those lawsuits, a quarter of those lawsuits were on environmental regulations, on what the Biden administration was trying to cram down on Texas, to destroy our oil and gas economy, to push the Green News scam on us, to push subsidies on us.
I know how to fight against these forces and win.
Not only did I do it as Paxton's deputy, but I also did it when I was a senior executive at the Justice Department, when one of President Trump's very first executive orders was to roll back the Biden-era environmental litigation that was oppressing oil and gas exploration and production.
And as the head of the Office of Legal Policy, I worked with the Environment and Natural Resources Division at DOJ to roll it back.
And as the next Attorney General, we are also going to turn our attention to the local environmentalists that want to obscure local ordinances to stop exploration and production.
Would you use the Attorney General's office to investigate or challenge district attorneys if their leniency appears to be contributing to rising violent crime, Mr. Ikes?
Crime is spiking in Texas, in all of our big blue cities and our big blue counties.
We're talking right now in Dallas County, where this district attorney is one of the worst in the state, if not the nation.
He is part of a network of Soros-funded district attorneys who are intentionally and maliciously not prosecuting crimes, abusing their prosecutorial discretion, turning a blind eye, encouraging light sentences, and our families and our communities are the victims of their malfeasance.
That is a violation of their oath.
It is a violation of state law.
It is a violation of the local ordinances and statutes to which they are bound.
As Attorney General, I have committed from day one that within the first month of taking office, I will seek the removal of the Dallas County District Attorney, Travis County District Attorney, and Harris County District Attorney, because I will not allow these awful leftist, insurrectionist, communist, Soros-funded district attorneys turn Texas into something it never was designed to be.
I was visiting with Crime Stoppers down in Houston a couple weeks ago, and they told me a statistic that should turn your head.
And that is that there are 222 Houstonians who have been murdered over the last seven years by multiple-time felons who were released and back out on the streets in Houston.
That can't happen in Texas.
This is Texas.
And the fact is, we've got DAs and judges that are allowing it to happen.
So of course we should enforce the law and we should make sure that DAs and judges are held to account.
I think the legislature ought to give greater authority to the governor, like Governor DeSantis out in Florida, to remove recalcitrant DAs and to have greater flexibility to do that.
And we ought to be able to do that to judges.
But importantly, I think the governor has been right when he's been talking about a state prosecutorial function.
The Office of Attorney General has prosecutors' assistance.
But for a state the size of Texas, with the eighth biggest economy in the world with over 30 million people, we ought to be able to have a function and not have to rely on Department of Justice as a backstop, but a state function to be able to make sure bad guys are in jail, that gang members are in jail, that cartel members are in jail and not on our streets harassing the people of Texas.
Well, there's a reason why I've been endorsed by Texas Crime Victims United and all the major law enforcement agencies in the state of Texas.
That's because I've been fighting this fight for a very long time, for almost 40 years now.
And recently in the Texas Senate, at the legislature, we finally got passed some major bail reform where we can hold those violent offenders from multiple offenders who commit violent crimes without bail.
So thank you for bringing that up, Congressman Roy.
And we've done other major things, but it's going to take time for all this to go into place.
As far as the rogue prosecutors go, I wrote that bill.
That was the bill I wrote.
And it cannot be done on day one, like some claim they're going to do or in the first month.
It is a process.
It's a constitutional and statutory process.
Are there bad DAs?
Yes.
But I will say the vast majority of the prosecutors in this state are great people who have their constituents a good will at heart, their best interest at heart.
Our laws, our Constitution, those are not suggestions.
And anytime a district attorney is treating it that way, which they are, right?
They're not prosecuting criminal trespass in Travis County, for example.
The list goes on.
They have violated their oath of office because they were supposed to put their hand on the Bible to protect and defend all of our laws, all of the Constitution.
And when they're choosing not to do that, they're choosing to violate their oath and they should be removed from office.
It is that simple.
They have disqualified themselves.
We also have to have that backup power to prosecute, right?
Because families are suffering.
Communities are suffering.
Children are suffering.
And I wholly support Governor Abbott's idea for a statewide prosecutor.
In addition, I would like to see for the AG be able to prosecute any violation of state law, which would require a change in the legislature.
And I've been endorsed by 51 Trump-endors legislators.
So this idea that I'm saying things that can't be done is exactly the sort of loser mentality why Republicans often don't win.
I'm the only one on this stage who, in my position at both DOJ and as Paxon's deputy, who has wielded the tools and the weapons of the law in creative ways.
Don't be fooled by the kind of Republican that says it can't be done.
We have to go through a process.
If you have the courage to get something done in the justice system, as Paxon has shown us for over a decade, you can get it done, and I am going to get it done despite her mistake.
We're going to take a short break here in a moment.
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They're huge supporters of the grassroots in Texas and a major force.
And of course, they were essential, I think, in bringing down, they had a collection of state attorney generals that came down for this debate.
Why?
Because the Texas Attorney General, if you look at the country, federal offices and state offices, it's one of the most important offices in the country.
And why?
Because Texas is so important to the MAGA movement and it's also been such a leader, given Ken Paxon.
Remember, Ken Paxton is now in, I think, the toughest and most controversial primary of the season, of this cycle.
And that's he's running for the United States Senate against John Cornyn and Wesley Hunt in a three-way.
One thing to keep in mind, in Texas, the primary rules, you have to get 50% plus one vote.
So in a three-way race, or it's actually a four-way race.
You've got a person from the state Senate who's very prominent.
But in a three or four-way race, it's quite tough to get above the 50%.
That's why this debate was so important.
It is the one time that they really get to address the people of Texas.
And Texas is a nation unto itself.
It's 31 million people.
Geographically, it's massive.
It's got the eighth largest economy in the world.
It's essentially the size of a country.
It's not like running in one of the smaller states.
You have to go out and get that message out in very expensive TV markets, particularly in Austin and Dallas, Fort Worth, and in Houston, some of the biggest and San Antonio, some of the biggest TV markets in the country.
Okay, we're going to talk to a short commercial break.
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We're going to be back in a moment with the AG's debate.
Okay, you can tell the intensity of this debate and plus the quality of the people.
Aaron Wrights, former Marine Corps officer, and endorsed by Ken Paxton, Chip Roy, the former chief of staff of Ted Cruz, endorsed by Ted Cruz and Mays Middleton, or he calls himself MAGA Mays.
Remember, for the folks in Texas, this is one of the most important positions in the country.
That's why you got to turn out.
You really got to think this through.
The Attorney General of the great state of Texas.
Think of what Ken Paxton has done.
It breaks my heart that Ken Paxton is leaving.
He'll be great in the United States Senate.
My God, does President Trump need him in the United States Senate?
But he was really a force of nature as the Attorney General of Texas.
And given the size of Texas and the importance of Texas, I continue to call Texas the jewel in the crown, just given the size of the economy, the folks down here, particularly the intensity, how it's the railhead of the mega movement.
That's why the Attorney General in Texas is so important.
I want to thank once again our sponsors.
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So don't be fooled when Chip tells you that he was Paxton's chief deputy and he wants to cite his record there.
Remember, he was so ineffective, so bad at serving as Paxton's deputy that Paxton fired him.
Now, that's not often covered in the media, but I hope that the media pool does their due diligence because they will realize that even though he wants to cite that experience, it was so bad he shouldn't be running on it today.
But I know someone who both of us work for that's endorsed me, and that's Senator Ted Cruz.
And he has put his full confidence in me to serve as the Attorney General of Texas.
Ted, having served as Solicitor General for this great state, he knows what is necessary in that office, and I'm proud to have his full support and endorsement.
So, what specific steps would you take as Texas Attorney General to stop the CCP from infiltrating to take control over Texas land and doing other things that might make Texas a foothold for their influence in the United States?
While Sharia is the greatest civilizational threat that we're confronting right now, China and its ruling Chinese Communist Party is the greatest geopolitical threat that we're facing right now.
And they are reaching out the tentacles of its red dragon directly into Texas.
They want to exploit us.
They want to undermine us.
They want to demoralize us.
And they want to do it at a high dollar value.
I'm proud that Texas has banned the incursion of the CCP into land sales, critical infrastructure, and important technologies.
I'm also proud of the fact that Attorney General Paxton is already leading the way and showing what it looks like to muster the full weight of the Attorney General's office to investigate the pushers of CCP spy technologies and is actively litigating against them.
If we want to continue that fight, you need Paxton's endorsed successor to do that.
And you need someone who just came from the Justice Department to partner with the federal resources to make it a full frontal assault on the CCP.
In 2019, as a freshman member of Congress, I talked to my staff about how ridiculous it was that we weren't stopping the CCP from owning land, and not just within 100 miles of military bases, but generally.
So I introduced legislation to ban ownership of lands by the Chinese Communist Party or anybody affiliated with it.
Now, everybody at the time said, well, that's awfully aggressive.
What are you doing that for?
Because we should.
And it matters if you leave.
It was the first bill that was put out there.
It was the first bill to get traction.
And then we were able to get some legislation and some of our funding bills, and states took action subsequent to that.
But also remember the importance of standing up when it matters, when there's a lot of pressure against you.
For example, standing up on TikTok.
It mattered that some of us in Congress stood up and said, no, the Chinese Communist Party is not going to be able to comb over all of the information and the data collected on our children and use it by virtue of TikTok.
So now we've gotten some reforms in place.
And by the way, I think we need to go further.
We need to review all that's been happening with the deal making.
But it's important that we look at the corporations, the corporate ownership.
And by the way, it's not just the Chinese Communist Party.
I don't know why any foreign nationals, frankly, are able to own American land.
Well, I would agree with you that definitely the Chinese Communist Party, the Chinese, a threat to America, to Texas, and to your state.
And so recently in the Texas legislature, Senator Colehorse, I joint-authored the bill with her, passed one of the strongest bills in the country against disallowing foreign ownership of state land, of land in Texas.
And it gave significant authority to the Attorney General to enforce that.
And that's great.
And I would certainly follow up with that.
But I think it's so new to us that we need to dive in.
We need to do an assessment of what's out there because I don't think we really know, right?
It's been going on, to your point, for so long.
We need to work with the land commissioner's office, look through the data, figure out who owns what and where, and do a serious assessment as Texans so that we have that information and then go about the procedures that have been put in place by the legislature to actually enforce this law.
This is a national security issue, and they mean us harm.
That law did not pass in 2023, by the way.
And I'll never forget getting phone calls in my office saying, I'm afraid to show up and testify for this bill stopping China from buying our land because of what could happen to our family back in China.
Does that not show you we're on the right side of this?
But not only that, we found out that WeChat, which is a Beijing-based social media company, was interfering with that law, trying to stop it, organizing the opposition through Gene Wu, who's actually in the Texas House, working with mainland China.
They mean us harm and they interfered with the Texas legislative process.
But I was on that conference committee.
We got it done this time, and there was something very important I wanted in there, and that was to make sure that the AG has the power to bring an action to force them to divest of this real property.
Not just land, minerals, water, timbers.
The list goes on.
And it's an in-rim action that we have to have, and I will enforce to make sure these enemy entities do not buy Texas out from underneath us.
Would you use the Attorney General's office to investigate or challenge district attorneys if their leniency appears to be contributing to rising violent crime, Mr. Rikes?
Crime is spiking in Texas, in all of our big blue cities and our big blue counties.
We're talking right now in Dallas County, where this district attorney is one of the worst in the state, if not the nation.
He is part of a network of Soros-funded district attorneys who are intentionally and maliciously not prosecuting crimes, abusing their prosecutorial discretion, turning a blind eye, encouraging light sentences, and our families and our communities are the victims of their malfeasance.
That is a violation of their oath.
It is a violation of state law.
It is a violation of the local ordinances and statutes to which they are bound.
As Attorney General, I have committed from day one that within the first month of taking office, I will seek the removal of the Dallas County District Attorney, Travis County District Attorney, and Harris County District Attorney, because I will not allow these awful leftist, insurrectionist, communist, Soros-funded district attorneys turn Texas into something it never was designed to be.
I was visiting with Crime Stoppers down in Houston a couple weeks ago, and they told me a statistic that should turn your head.
And that is that there are 222 Houstonians who have been murdered over the last seven years by multiple-time felons who were released and back out on the streets in Houston.
That can't happen in Texas.
This is Texas.
And the fact is, we've got DAs and judges that are allowing it to happen.
So of course we should enforce the law and we should make sure that DAs and judges are held to account.
I think the legislature ought to give greater authority to the governor, like Governor DeSantis have in Florida, to remove recalcitrant DAs and to have greater flexibility to do that.
And we ought to be able to do that to judges.
But importantly, I think the governor's been right when he's been talking about a state prosecutorial function.
The Office of Attorney General has prosecutors' assistance.
But for a state the size of Texas, with the eighth biggest economy in the world with over 30 million people, we ought to be able to have a function and not have to rely on the Department of Justice as a backstop, but a state function to be able to make sure bad guys are in jail, that gang members are in jail, that cartel members are in jail and not on our streets harassing the people of Texas.
Well, there's a reason why I've been endorsed by Texas Crime Victims United and all the major law enforcement agencies in the state of Texas.
That's because I've been fighting this fight for a very long time, for almost 40 years now.
And recently in the Texas Senate, at the legislature, we finally got passed some major bail reform where we can hold those violent offenders from multiple offenders who commit violent crimes without bail.
So thank you for bringing that up, Congressman Roy.
And we've done other major things, but it's going to take time for all this to go into place.
As far as the rogue prosecutors go, I wrote that bill.
That was the bill I wrote.
And it cannot be done on day one, like some claim they're going to do or in the first month.
It is a process.
It's a constitutional and statutory process.
Are there bad DAs?
Yes.
But I will say the vast majority of the prosecutors in this state are great people who have their constituents a good will at heart, their best interest at heart, and I don't want us to ever forget that.
Our laws, our Constitution, those are not suggestions.
And anytime a district attorney is treating it that way, which they are, right?
They're not prosecuting criminal trespass in Travis County, for example.
The list goes on.
They have violated their oath of office because they were supposed to have put their hand on the Bible to protect and defend all of our laws, all of the Constitution.
And when they're choosing not to do that, they're choosing to violate their oath and they should be removed from office.
It is that simple.
They have disqualified themselves.
We also have to have that backup power to prosecute, right?
Because families are suffering.
Communities are suffering.
Children are suffering.
And I wholly support Governor Abbott's idea for a statewide prosecutor.
In addition, I would like to see for the AG be able to prosecute any violation of state law, which would require a change in the legislature.
And I've been endorsed by 51 Trump-endors legislators.
So this idea that I'm saying things that can't be done is exactly the sort of loser mentality why Republicans often don't win.
I'm the only one on this stage who, in my position at both DOJ and as Paxson's deputy, who has wielded the tools and the weapons of the law in creative ways.
Don't be fooled by the kind of Republican that says it can't be done.
We have to go through a process.
If you have the courage to get something done in the justice system, as Paxson has shown us for over a decade, you can get it done, and I am going to get it done despite her misgivings.
Next, we'll focus on the damage caused by transgender ideology.
Many young Texans have suffered irreversible damage to their bodies caused by doctors who prescribed them puberty blockers, administered cross-sex hormones, and performed surgeries such as double mastectomies.
In 2023, Texas banned these practices for minors.
So as Attorney General, how will you ensure affected Texans can seek justice against the doctors who brutalized them?
Chloe, I got to know when she came to testify about the brutal treatment that was levied against her.
It's the first time I've seen significant members of Congress in the dais breaking down to tears on the testimony of someone coming before them.
And the fact is, I've sat down with Chloe to understand what we can do.
And we need to have aggressive legislation and aggressive defense of our laws in the state of Texas.
The state of Texas has taken action.
I'm not sure if it's far enough.
But I want to address something here.
I've been criticized for allegedly not being strong enough on this issue, despite supporting legislation to remove funding and to stop these terrible procedures, and they're grotesque.
I stood up to try to improve legislation in December that is currently dead in the United States Senate and to make it something that we could pass with a funding string rather than what my opponents want to criticize me for.
The truth matters, and I've stood up alongside those victims, and I will do it as Attorney General.
Yeah, I'm glad that the Texas legislature has banned these sorts of monstrous procedures.
But that couldn't have happened but for Attorney General Paxton and I providing the legal framework to give the lines within which the legislature colored.
I'm proud of the fact that I was the lead author under Attorney General Ken Paxton's opinion that defined unequivocally these trans procedures as child abuse under the Texas Family Code.
Once we provided the legislature with that guidance, they finally acted.
Now, I hope that I get a minute in rebuttal to say this too.
Mays is exactly right about Chip.
Chip did what exactly President Trump described about him, which was to make a mountain out of a molehill to grandstand to make nothing out of an issue.
So the legislation in question was authored by Marjorie Taylor Green, who was leaving Congress two weeks later and who has since gone on a tirade attacking President Trump.
The fact of the matter is that legislation is dead.
It is dead in the United States Senate and it will not do any of the things that my opponents say it will do because it won't become law.
The fact of the matter is we had an amendment that was supported by a significant number of Republicans that would have stopped these grotesque procedures for being funded with taxpayer funds.
And it is amazing to listen to Republican attorneys general candidates standing up saying they want massive federal laws to step over the state of Texas.
I'm in this for one reason, and that's to win for the people of Texas.
I'm not a trust fund kid spending my family's money.
I didn't get a precious Senate-confirmed slot, spend 70 days of the administration so I could ladder climb back home in Texas.
What I did do is survive cancer 15 years ago when I was diagnosed with stage 3 Hodgkin's lipoma.
And when I got through the other side of that, through the faith in God and through the love of my wife and family, I promised my kids, I promised my wife that I would leave it all on the battlefield to try to save this great state and this great nation.
We cannot lose Texas.
We cannot lose Texas or we lose America.
We need an attorney general who will put it all out there, who has a demonstrated track record of success, who is independent and strong, willing to work with this administration, and willing to fight for the people of Texas.
That's why I'm asking the people of Texas for their vote.
The first time I ever swore an oath to the U.S. Constitution was as a brand new second lieutenant in the Marine Corps.
I was 22 years old, my hair sadly fast approaching its current state.
And I raised my right hand and I said, I, Aaron Reitz, do solemnly swear to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
The next time that I swore that oath was in the West Wing with my wife and four kids on my left and the Attorney General of the United States on my right.
And I raised my hand and I said the exact same oath.
Now, as a younger man, I primarily thought about the foreign threats to our Constitution, and I lived it as somebody who deployed to the Hellman province of Afghanistan.
But I had come to fully appreciate that today the primary threats that we are facing are the domestic enemies of the Constitution.
And they are fighting a vicious war against us in the justice system.
We need an attorney general who is battle-tested, who is proven, who's been endorsed by Paxton to succeed him, to wage war and win on behalf of our conservative, Republican, Christian, Texas, and American values.
What we don't need is someone as an attorney general like Chip Roy that has spent 10 years fighting President Trump, defending Liz Cheney, calling us MAGA effers, and we could kiss his you know what if we didn't like it.
We can't afford that in the AG's office.
And look, that's why I'm running here to defend Texas and defeat the left.
That's why we showed up tonight.
And there's a reason why I'm the only one that's been protested in this AGs race.
There's a reason why they've threatened my life and my family's life.
There's a reason why the two Democrats that are leading in the AGs race can only talk about me.
They keep saying, let's stop this MAGA Mays guy.
We can't let him win.
And not only that, they're saying the number one law that they will not enforce is the Texas Women's Privacy Law.
Why are they doing that?
Because the left knows who their true enemy is in this race.
I am already defeating the left.
That is why we're here tonight.
And I'm not retreating from Washington, D.C. because I'm never going to Washington, D.C.