Cornyn Sidetracked in Trump Plug Quest
with Casar Clash that Could Help Paxton
Capitol Inside
March 16, 2026
U.S. Senator John Cornyn's re-election campaign took a wild turn down an unexpected path on Monday when a Democratic congressional member ambushed a publicity stunt that the powerful Republican leader hatched to milk a standoff in Congress on federal funding with Whataburger as a backdrop.
U.S. Rep. Greg Casar of Austin confronted Cornyn outside the Austin-Bergstrom airport after the senator got out of a vehicle that he'd loaded with hamburgers that he planned to deliver during the lunch hour to TSA agents who haven't been paid for most of the past month amid a standoff in Congress on Department of Homeland Security funding and ICE reform.
Cornyn reacted angrily to the representative's aggressive approach - and the two traded barbs and tried to blame each other and their respective political parties for the impasse. The heated exchange was captured by a multitude of cell phone cameras - Casar and Cornyn continued taking shots and pointing fingers at each other into the night. Attorney General Ken Paxton, who's dueling Cornyn in a runoff in the Texas Senate race, may have been the biggest beneficiary of the shouting match at the airport.
And that sparked some speculation on whether Casar initiated the confrontation with the state's senior U.S. senator in an attempt to give the attorney general a boost as the candidate that Democrats hope their nominee James Talarico will face in the fall. The daylong sparring with the liberal Democrat threw Cornyn off course for an entire day in a furious quest for an endorsement from President Donald Trump, who appeared poised to give the incumbent his official blessings on the day after the primary election two weeks ago.
"Democratic socialist @GregCasar interrupts my event thanking TSA workers for working without pay and in true Alinsky fashion claims I’m engaging in political theater," Cornyn said in a post on X at 6:23 p.m. "Laughable and absurd."
But Casar fired back in an interview on CNN later Monday night. "Senator Cornyn came to the airport to give TSA workers burgers just a week after blocking their paychecks," Casar said. "That's not right."
Cornyn and Paxton advanced to overtime with 42 percent and 41 percent of the vote respectively in round one. Talarico beat U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett by 6 points in the Democratic primary election with more than 52 percent of the vote. Talarico received more than 1.2 million votes compared to 907,205 and 881,115 for Cornyn and Paxton respectively.
The GOP runoff has evolved in the past two weeks into dueling pitches for Trump's support as the ultimate game-changer in a GOP primary in the Lone Star State. Casar defeated a token challenger with 81 percent of the primary vote in a redrawn Congressional District 37 where he's appeared to be a significant favorite. Casar will face the winner of a GOP runoff that features Ge'Nell Gary and Lauren Pena, who had 35.3 percent and 35 percent of the primary vote respectively in CD 37. Kamala Harris carried the district with 77 percent of the vote.
But Casar has represented Congressional District 35, which he's leaving open and up for grabs in his wake with the shift to his current district. CD 35 is one of five Texas districts that Republicans in Austin targeted on a new U.S. House last summer. But GOP leaders and lawmakers appeared to badly overestimate their strength with Hispanic voters - and Democrats are guardedly confident of holding CD 35 and two or three other seats that the Republicans thought they'd be taking.
| 
