Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said Wednesday that his effort to designate U.S. Route 287 as “Trump Interstate” was on the back burner one week after his loss to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who was endorsed by President Donald Trump.That initiative, Cornyn told Hearst Newspapers, “may not make it into my priorities the next seven months.”Cornyn introduced the measure to rename the highway — which runs from Port Arthur, Texas, to Choteau, Montana — in honor of the 47th president in May. Eight days later, Trump snubbed the four-term senator and instead endorsed his primary rival, Paxton. Paxton trounced Cornyn by a nearly 27-point margin in their May 26 primary runoff.
“Texas is Trump Country, and this bill cements that legacy by designating nearly 1,800 miles of open road from Texas’ Gulf Coast to the edge of the U.S.-Canadian border as I-47 to forever be remembered as Trump Interstate,” Cornyn said when he introduced the legislation.
Despite the highway renaming bill and flipping his stance on the Senate filibuster to support Trump’s push to repeal the rule, Cornyn failed to win Trump’s endorsement. The president wrote that Cornyn is a “good man” whom he has “worked well with” in a lengthy post on Truth Social announcing his support for Paxton. Yet Trump also complained that the senator was “not supportive of me when times were tough.”
