The following is a lightly edited transcript of the May 20 episode of The Daily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.Donald Trump just endorsed MAGA nutjob Ken Paxton in the Texas GOP primary for Senate. This all but ensures a weaker GOP nominee, which improves Democratic odds in Texas and makes a Democratic Senate takeover a little bit more likely. In fact, Republican senators were furious about what they regarded as a betrayal. But Trump made things clear in his endorsement: Paxton got it because he was loyal to Trump—the only thing that matters. Too bad, Republicans, this is the guy you hitched yourselves to. So does this mean Texas actually is gettable for Democrats, or is heartbreak looming once again?Sawyer Hackett, a Democratic operative who has worked on numerous Texas races and knows the state well, is going to walk us through all of it. Sawyer, thanks for coming on.Sawyer Hackett: Good to be with you, Greg.Sargent: So in a long Truth Social rant, Trump endorsed Ken Paxton, the attorney general of Texas. Trump called Paxton someone who has “always been extremely loyal to me and our amazing MAGA movement.” Trump also cited Paxton’s support for ending the Senate filibuster to pass the SAVE Act, which is a disgusting voter suppression bill. And Trump ripped Senator John Cornyn, the current GOP incumbent, as “not supportive of me when times were tough.” Sawyer, your reaction to that?Hackett: Yeah. I mean, you said it up top. This is all about loyalty, right? He mentioned Paxton’s loyalty to Trump in the first sentence of that multi-paragraph statement, goes on to talk about the filibuster. And this is kind of coming up in the context of him wanting to build this ballroom and overturn the parliamentarian’s ruling on the ballroom funding. So clearly this was all about Trump’s own personal wishes for this race. He wanted a sycophant in this race that he could control, that he could manipulate, and that’s what he’s going to get with Paxton.Sargent: It’s interesting that you talk about the larger context legislatively, because Senator John Cornyn, we should tell people, has opposed doing away with the filibuster. And so anybody who won’t wreck the system entirely for Trump has to go, basically, is the situation.Hackett: Yeah, Cornyn is someone who has voted with Trump 99 percent of the time. I mean, this is somebody who goes out of his way to post these kind of obsequious, subservient pictures of Trump and holding Trump’s book, constantly trying to flatter Trump and voting with Trump 99.2 percent of the time in the Senate. And he was not loyal enough to Trump. This is somebody who did not go far enough in his loyalty, his obsequiousness to Trump.On the other hand, you have someone like Paxton who—I mean, this is a guy who travels down to Mar-a-Lago as often as he possibly can. He’s probably scheduling tee times around Trump’s tee time just so he can have a chance of running into him on the links. I mean, it’s pathetic how these Republican primaries have essentially just become contests in who can bootlick Trump the most. And in Texas, in a state known for kind of independent, these Western cowboys who stand up for their values and fight for the things that they believe in, you have two men essentially competing for who can lick Trump’s boots the best. And clearly Paxton has come away winning that contest.Sargent: And he very consciously set out to do that. Punchbowl News reporter Andrew Desiderio posted on Twitter that this is the, quote, “nightmare scenario for Senate Republicans.” Sawyer, can you give us the case for why Paxton is weaker as a candidate than Cornyn is, due to the corruption, the extremism, and everything else?Hackett: Yeah, I mean, with Paxton, you have an extremely vulnerable candidate who is not only disliked by a lot of independents and Democrats in the state, but also by a fair number of Republicans. He’s somebody who’s been underwater on his approval rating for many, many years. He’s somebody who’s been impeached by a Republican-controlled legislature. He’s somebody who has been federally criminally indicted on multiple felony counts—securities fraud and bribery and many other things. And he’s somebody who has intentionally gone out of his way to make an enemy of people of color in the state, of women in the state, at a time when I think Democrats are starting to turn those coalitions back around in our favor. It’s only going to play into Democrats’ hands in November.I think that polling—head-to-head polling between Paxton and Cornyn as who would be the better nominee—I don’t necessarily think reflects the depths of a campaign, a vigorous campaign between two nominees where you’re going to have negative ads running constantly. Democrats are going to be able to weaponize Paxton’s record and Paxton’s personality in the state way better than they would have done with Cornyn as the nominee.Sargent: It sure looks that way. Let’s talk about the Democratic candidate, James Talarico. He’s running on an open profession of his Christian faith combined with a promise to get beyond the acrimony of the Trump years with kindness and, I guess, goodwill toward the opposition—really understanding toward the opposition, empathy. The polls are showing a dead heat between Talarico and Paxton. Sawyer, can you bring us up to date on how Talarico’s campaign has been doing? Where is he succeeding? Where is he failing? What does he have to do now?Hackett: I think Talarico has done a pretty fantastic job of keeping focused on the issues that Texans care about, focusing on Trump’s record at a time when Democrats desperately need Trump’s negatives to be as high as possible heading into a midterm cycle. He’s not necessarily put his thumb on the scale for either one of these Republican nominees. He said that whoever the nominee is, we’re going to run the same campaign, we’re going to run the same message. But at the same time, I think Talarico is jumping for joy today with Trump’s endorsement of Paxton, because this is a man who is going to fire up a lot of the constituencies that Talarico needs to win while also turning away a lot of voters that I think Republicans desperately need to win.And Christian voters are one of those constituencies. Many will still hold their nose and vote for Paxton, but I think Talarico is going to be able to peel a significant number of them off. You also have Paxton as this kind of reviled character within independent and Democratic circles in the state. He’s going to be somebody who’s going to help Democrats raise a ton of money. He’s going to be much easier to contrast with in a November election and the get-out-the-vote phase. He’s the embodiment of Trumpism, Trump politics, which is extremely unpopular across the country. He’s going to turbocharge turnout among Latino voters and Black voters in the state. And he’s going to alienate suburban voters, especially suburban women, who Texas Democrats need if they’re going to assemble a winning coalition.Sargent: Someone like Paxton is representative of all these traits in Trumpism that everybody hates now—the corruption, the rage, the hatred, the worship of Trump at all costs. It seems like Talarico is almost perfectly positioned to use Paxton as a foil, precisely because Talarico is running this campaign that is really almost designed to counter-program Trumpism on a very profound level. Is that right, do you think?Hackett: I think that’s right. And I think the same qualities that would make Trump want to endorse Paxton are the qualities that are going to turn voters away from Paxton in November. It’s that corruption, that cronyism. It’s that relentless focus on Trump himself—how can I serve Trump rather than serving the people of Texas? That has been the message I think Talarico has led with. It’s been an overwhelmingly populist message focusing on corruption, focusing on bringing it back to a message on working people and what working people need to succeed today. That message was already crystal clear in the Trump era. I think with Paxton as the nominee, you’re able to just drive that wedge even further into independent voters and even some moderate Republican voters that Talarico, just in his personality, the way he carries himself, and his background, is able to appeal to much easier than some traditional Democrats would.Sargent: It’s a fascinating matchup. We had Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski publicly admit that Trump’s endorsement will make it harder for Republicans to hold Texas. She told reporters: “I think this puts that seat in jeopardy.” Punchbowl reporter Andrew Desiderio, again, characterized Murkowski as saying Texas is all but lost. Sawyer, that’s a bombshell, isn’t it? Republicans saying outright that Texas might or is even likely to fall.Hackett: Yeah, I mean, I think you’re probably hearing the same thing coming out of the DNC and Democratic circles today. Democrats have been looking ahead at this kind of Senate map and whether we have the ability to keep a hold on the Senate past 2026, past 2028. The map has not been looking good for us. I think with somebody like Paxton as the nominee, we have kind of the perfect storm in a place like Texas. You have a very unpopular, very corrupt, very easy-to-contrast nominee on the Republican side. You have a Democratic nominee who does have appeal to independents, to even some conservative or Christian Republican voters in the state. You have an extremely unpopular president whose favorability is only dwindling even more every single day. And you have the coalition that Trump needed to win in 2024—which was an increasing number of Latino voters and Black voters, particularly Black and Latino young men. You had young voters turning towards Trump. You had suburban voters turning towards Trump. All of those coalitions have completely reversed themselves. So of course, Texas is in play this cycle.I think, of course, it’s an expensive state. That’s the one thing that I don’t think a lot of voters necessarily understand about Texas. It takes a lot of money to run a successful campaign in Texas. That being said, with Paxton as the nominee and Talarico able to contrast with him, he’s going to be able to raise the amount of money needed to compete in the state. And Paxton and Cornyn flushed millions of dollars down the drain in this primary that Trump waited to endorse for weeks and weeks and weeks, and left Republicans in dire straits financially heading into a get-out-the-vote phase of this election.Sargent: Right. Trump really screwed the Republican Party royally by doing this, because these outside groups that are allied with Senate Majority Leader John Thune have reportedly spent tens of millions of dollars propping up Cornyn against the Paxton challenge. And now that money’s up in flames. Still though, I have to say, I keep hearing from Democrats that they’re generally pretty worried about the spending disparity. There’s been a lot in the press about that as well. We’re going to see an immense amount of right-wing money in Texas now to try to save this seat against Talarico and Democrats, right? Will Democrats have the resources to compete? Will they be outspent? Does that matter?Hackett: I think Texas Democrats, and particularly the Talarico campaign, will be able to raise enough money to run a very, very competitive race. I think you’ll probably see Talarico raise close to the amount that Beto O’Rourke was able to raise in 2018. That was a very expensive race. I think he raised more money than any Senate candidate that cycle and maybe even the next cycle after that. I think Talarico can raise that kind of money, especially with Paxton as the nominee, especially with Democrats looking at the Senate map and needing a battleground state like Texas to flip blue if we’re going to take back the Senate. Trump just handed Democrats their messaging on a silver platter to invest in a state like Texas. It is going to take major elections like this with lots of spending, lots of organizing across every corner of this state to win. And I think Talarico was already doing pretty well in the fundraising game. The DNC is not doing very well in the fundraising game. If that trend continues, I still think Talarico could be extremely competitive. But I do think he’s going to need some backing from some of the national organizations. And maybe that’s not the national party—maybe it’s some of the organizing organizations. But I think they will have his back as we look ahead to November.Sargent: I mean, look, Democratic donors out there—I know you feel a little burned by 2024 still. You put a lot of money into Kamala Harris and lost what appeared to be a winnable race. But the Senate’s really gettable now. I mean, you’ve got these Republican senators who are furious. The New York Times reports that they’re l”ivid.” For instance, Senator John Hoeven of North Dakota said, quote-unquote, “Oh boy,” after hearing about Trump’s endorsement. And then Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi is being described by numerous reporters as stone-faced. They know that this is potential calamity, basically, isn’t it?Hackett: Yeah, I mean, Trump is on a power trip right now. He took out those Indiana Republicans who wouldn’t redistrict for him. Then he went and took out Bill Cassidy in Louisiana. Now today he’s trying to take out Thomas Massie in Kentucky. And now he’s endorsing Ken Paxton over John Cornyn, who was once the Republican Senate whip and barely lost to John Thune for Senate majority leader. This is a senator who is very well respected within the Republican conference. And Trump is already having a difficult time managing control over this very tightly divided Congress. Trump just helped oust Cassidy, who is the head of the HELP Committee in the Senate. And now he’s turning and ousting one of the most senior Republicans in the entire conference in John Cornyn. That is only going to piss off a lot of these Republican senators who he desperately needs to do things like ignore the parliamentarian’s ruling or nuke the filibuster to get certain things that he wants to get done. He’s clearly on a power trip, but he’s leaning in these very unpopular directions that I think Republicans are starting to see the writing on the wall when it comes to the midterms. And they know that they’re headed for a wipeout in November if Trump continues in this trend.Sargent: So Sawyer, it seems like the big story here is what you’re getting at when you say that Trump is on this power trip. On some fundamental level, what we’re seeing here is that Trump simply cannot imagine that he and/or Trumpism and MAGA have become toxic. He is surrounded by sycophants at all times. He only looks at polls that show him winning. He has his own pollsters telling him he’s winning, winning, winning. He constantly tweets out polls that are just, I think, basically made up, or so buffoonishly cherry-picked that they’re meaningless. Point being that Donald Trump is in this information bubble right now where he can’t perceive what’s happening out in the country with his unpopularity, his toxicity. For instance, The New York Times poll this week has Trump disapproved of by 70 percent of independents, 54 percent strongly. I have not seen numbers like that before. And independents are favoring Democrats in the generic House ballot matchup by 18 points—also staggering. Those are the types of numbers that you need to put something like Texas in play, right?Hackett: I think so. I mean, coupled with the kind of coalition turning on Trump that he had in 2024—Latinos, Black voters, young voters—I think coupled with that independent shift away from Trump towards Democrats is exactly what I’m talking about when I say a perfect storm is happening in Texas. And really that’s all being driven by the economy. And in Texas, the numbers on the economy are interesting. I think the Texas economy has been a little bit insulated from some of the impacts of the Iran war, for example. The impacts on oil, for example, take a little bit longer to get to Texas than they do to other places. And so you’re only going to see those numbers get worse as this Iran war and global supply crisis continues. And that’s what we’re expecting.And so I think in a state like Texas, where you have some of the highest share of independent voters in the country who are turning against Trump and are having an aversion to candidates like Paxton, a candidate like Talarico is poised to pick them up in droves—and especially in places like the suburbs outside of those major cities. Especially suburban women who have seen abortion access taken away and now mifepristone access threatened by somebody like Paxton. Paxton led that effort. The ads write themselves in Texas. And I think independent voters are going to see tens of millions of dollars of ads flooding their TVs between now and November. Of course, there’s going to be a lot of misinformation and disinformation coming from the Paxton side of that equation. But I think Talarico really has a chance to run up the numbers, both with his own coalition but also with independent voters.Sargent: In a way, the choice of Paxton by Trump kind of perfectly typifies the degree to which he’s in a bubble about his own toxicity. It’s a total calamity he’s threatening Republicans with by picking Paxton, but he’s unable to imagine that Paxton, who’s as MAGA as they get, would be toxic. Just to close this out though, let’s not be under any illusions. Texas is Texas, which is Texas. As you know as well as anyone, it’s extremely hard for Democrats again and again and again. We think it’s within reach and it’s not. It falls apart at the last minute. Why is it so hard for Talarico to get there? What is the nightmare scenario for Talarico?Hackett: The difficulty in assembling a winning coalition in Texas is just the sheer size of the state. You have to compete in those traditional Democratic strongholds of the cities and those Latino communities along the Rio Grande Valley. You have to be able to pick up voters in the suburbs and you have to be able to compete in rural areas. In a state like Texas, it is a fairly conservative state. It’s a state where Republican voters are still very animated to support the Republican president, and a Republican president in Trump is somebody who does electrify the MAGA base—and the MAGA base is pretty huge in Texas.That being said, the sheer number of independent voters and the different layers of the coalition that Democrats have to assemble to win is very difficult. And so you do need a ton of money, not only to reach into every corner of the state, but also to be doing that deep outreach into constituencies like Latino voters who are harder to reach and harder to persuade and harder to turn out in a general election.It’s an uphill challenge for Talarico. I think if he has the money and if he has the kind of national environment with a very deeply unpopular Trump, it’s something that he can win. And I think by Trump picking Paxton, he is elevating corruption at a time when corruption is at the center of our conversation nationally. We’re always talking about the ballroom, talking about these payments from the IRS, talking about all this stock trading that he’s doing. Trump is elevating someone like Paxton who is just known for being a corrupt politician at a time when that’s going to be not only at the center of the national conversation, but at the center of Talarico’s message as a candidate. And so he has the opportunity to reframe this race, to nationalize the race, but keep it focused on Texas issues, on Texas politicians, Texas leadership. If he can do that and he gets the money to do the deep organizing across the state, he can win. But it is an uphill challenge regardless.Sargent: And I will add, independents absolutely hate corruption. So if there were a way to get those independent voters in the numbers you need, this is the matchup that could do it. It is possible that Trump really screwed himself very royally here. Sawyer Hackett, awesome to talk to you. Thank you so much. That was super illuminating.Hackett: Yeah. Great to be with you, Greg.