|
Dade Phelan No Fan of Trump or MAGA
after False Post on Stances as Speaker
Capitol Inside
November 14, 2025
Governor Greg Abbott and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick are refusing to take a stand for the truth by defending fellow Texas Republican and former state House Speaker Dade Phelan from blatant lies that President Donald Trump posted about him on social media this week.
Trump claimed in a Truth Social post on Tuesday that Phelan killed all of the legislation that pertained to election security and private school vouchers when he was leading the Texas Legislature's lower chamber during a four-year span that got under way in early 2021.
"Fortunately for the Great State of Texas, their Former Speaker, who is no longer Speaker, Dade Phelan, is quitting Politics," Trump said. "He was the one responsible for killing every Bill having to do with Voter Integrity and School Choice. Good luck in your next life, Dade!"
Abbott and Patrick know that the president was 100 percent wrong about Phelan on both counts. But the top two Texas leaders both receiving gushing endorsements from Trump for re-election campaigns on the same day that he served up the false claims on the former speaker. Calling out a president who's all been fawning with admiration for you would take some serious guts.
With the president misinformed and lips sealed at the pinnacle of the GOP power chain in the Lone Star State, we will try here to set the record straight on this critical matter of universal importance.
Phelan actually made it possible for the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature to pass a landmark election security measure in a special session during his first term as speaker in 2021. The historic legislation that was known at the time as Senate Bill 1 was approved on third reading in the House on an 80-41 tally without a single vote of opposition from the members of the ruling party.
The House adopted the conference committee report on the election protection proposal with the same exact box score and unanimous support from representatives for the GOP. Phelan, in line with longstanding tradition in the Texas Capitol's west wing, did not vote either way on the issue. This wasn't an issue in his second term in the dais when there was no clamor for another round of restrictions on Texans' voting in regular session or subsequent special sessions in 2023.
Trump apparently wasn't aware of Phelan's role in the milestone election security measure when he attacked him for refusing to capitulate to Patrick and Senate Republicans on a special session proposal that would have authorized audits of the 2020 election in Texas. This appeared to be more of a publicity stunt than a serious piece of legislation based on the fact that Trump carried the state with 52 percent of the vote that year.
Phelan did not try to stop the House Republicans from milking Trump's fabricated claims on a stolen election in the pushing of the far-reaching election plan that passed on Phelan's watch in 2021 without a single Democratic vote. But Trump seemed to be unaware of the full story on Phelan when he started attacking him later that year on his defiance on the 2020 election audit proposal that had the potential to be a source of major embarrassment for the GOP here.
Phelan appeared to stay on the sidelines on school choice in 2023. But he didn't kill the vouchers bill that year. A dozen Republicans teamed with Democrats to put the school choice measure to bury in a special session that year. Patrick sought to make it appear that Phelan was an enemy of vouchers by virtue of the fact that he did not vote on the issue for the same reason he punched the white light on 99 percent if not more of the bills that emerged from the lower chamber in four years with the gavel.
Trump's attack on Phelan this week appeared to be more a case of belated sour grapes based mostly if not exclusive on the fact that he tried and failed to knock off the Beaumont lawmaker in a GOP primary election runoff in a tag team display with the lieutenant governor and Attorney General Ken Paxton.
It's probably safe to say that no American president has been as much or more preoccupied with a state representative as Trump has been with Phelan. But the prevailing sentiment inside the Austin beltway has been that Trump did not give a flip about the Texas speaker and that he was simply parroting talking points from Patrick - who served as his state campaign chairman here during all three White House races.
Phelan had some fun with the presidential obsession critiques on Thursday at a conference that the Texas Tribune is sponsoring in Austin this week.
“It’s not a secret I am not a MAGA Republican," Phelan admitted in a panel discussion at Tribfest. "I never have been a MAGA Republican. I’m not a Donald Trump guy. Again, it’s the reason I decided not to be speaker again. I could not carry his agenda through the Texas House.”
Phelan warned that Republicans could be on the road to disaster as a product of inflation - the most potent issue that Trump used against Democrat Kamala Harris in a comeback campaign in 2024. Phelan said consumer prices were not in decline "regardless of what Mr. Trump says" - and the situation could be exacerbated by rising health care costs when federal affordable care tax credits expire.
“We’ve got to get a handle on this or we’re going to have a very messy, very messy November of next year,” Phelan said at the event.
more to come ...
| 
