Please Don’t Film the Breakfast Buffet at Ken Paxton’s “Come and Take It” Bus Tour

Ken Paxton’s message to voters in the home stretch of his closely-contested US Senate race with Democrat James Talarico is a mystery to me. I don’t mean that I don’t understand it—I mean I don’t know what it is, because before I could listen to his remarks at the launch of the “Come and Take It” bus tour in Rockwall, Texas, on Saturday morning, I was kicked out of the event and escorted to my car by a police officer.

The scandal-plagued Texas attorney general is hitting the road in the run-up to Election Day, as he works to avoid becoming the first member of his party to lose a statewide election here in 32 years. It has not been easy going. In addition to a 747’s worth of baggage—including an indictment he eventually resolved by agreeing to take a remedial legal education course; impeachment by members of his own party; a biblical divorce; and, most recently, a cell-phone video showing him spending New Year’s Eve in Dubai with two fugitives and a woman who’s not his wife—Paxton’s skill set as a politician seems uniquely unsuited to the current electoral environment. He has spent the last 12 years as a blunt object for whom the answer to every problem is a lawsuit or an investigation. How would the king of conservative lawfare adapt to an election defined by tariffs and the Iran war? What would it look like for Warren Kenneth Paxton Jr., of all people, to pivot to affordability?

These were the questions that had brought me to an airplane hangar in the small city of Rockwall, about 20 minutes east of Dallas. My problems began, I think, when I started filming the breakfast buffet. I’m supposed to be putting together a little video diary of my reporting trip to Texas, and have been dutifully gathering bits of B-roll from the events I attend. Campaign signs, T-shirts, various foodstuffs. It probably wasn’t necessary to film a coffee pot for 15 seconds. But I’m still learning.

After gathering some valuable tape of a Donald Trump cardboard cutout and a cluttered utility shelf, I settled in to wait for Paxton. That’s when I was approached by a man working security for the campaign, who pulled me aside to tell me he’d noticed I’d been filming “everything.” I identified myself as a reporter and handed him my business card. I had not gone through the process of applying for press credentials, but I did have a ticket for the event, which anyone could obtain on Eventbrite. So far, normal enough. 

But instead of asking me to simply sign in, or to observe a few specific ground rules (at Talarico’s rally in San Marcos on Thursday, for instance, cameras were banned within a certain zone because his campaign was filming an ad), he warned me about what would happen if I had an “outburst” during the event. I explained that I was a professional journalist and that’s not a thing we do, but he was insistent: no “outbursts.” If I had an “outburst,” I would be escorted out, and then handed over to the police, “And then we have a whole separate problem.” He seemed quite worried I would disrupt the event—something I have never done, and in fact cannot recall any other journalist doing at any other event, with the sole exception of the guy who threw his shoes at George W. Bush; I guess he also had a beard.

Eventually, someone else from the campaign, in a blue vest, came over. I identified myself again, reiterated that I was not here for “outbursts,” and said that, while I had not applied for one in advance, I would love to get a press badge. The blue-vest guy told me to hang tight while he got me one, but a little while later, the first man came back, summoned a police officer, and nudged me out the door with a hand on my back.

“We’ve looked up your credentials,” he said. “We’re asking you to leave.”

I reached out to the Paxton campaign to clarify what happened. An anonymous spokesperson responded that I had “failed to follow the publicly advised standard operating procedure for media who are covering events hosted by the campaign… circumvented the proper process to register for a press credential, entered the event, and then refused to register when asked.”

I’ll admit to not filling out a form ahead of time. I’m so used to having my requests for press credentials rejected at Republican events (I have not been approved for a Trump campaign rally since 2016) that I sometimes just RSVP for events that are open to the public like, well, a member of the public. It mostly means that I can’t lug a bunch of equipment, skip the line, or use the Wi-Fi; I’ve never had an issue hanging out in the crowd like everyone else. (In fact I prefer to hang out with everyone else and experience the event as they do; in 2024, we even did an interview on Reveal with the woman I sat in front of at a JD Vance rally.) But the last part of that statement is flatly false—I asked if I could register. They decided that not only could I not, but that I could not attend an event as a ticket-holding member of the public either.

If I couldn’t hear Paxton inside, I still got a glimpse of what he was up against on my way to the event. At the intersection leading up to the entrance, a middle-aged man stood in front of a half dozen or so Republican yard signs, holding a custom-printed one of his own. It said “Ken Paxton” in big letters, but below it were the words “protects pedophiles”—a reference to a case in which Paxton’s office initially struck a deal with a man accused of sexually abusing a child that allowed him to serve just one day in jail and not register as a sex offender in Texas. Paxton’s campaign has said the AG’s office made the deal because the victim did not want to testify and accused Talarico of “re-traumatizing” the victim. (The man eventually pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of indecent assault and displaying harmful materials to a minor and eventually served 29 days.) Sign guy clapped every time a car went by in the direction of the rally; he seemed to be enjoying himself.

For a significant number of law-abiding and perhaps more virtuous Republicans, there is an inherent indignity to voting for Paxton that people who are definitely not voting for Paxton seem to relish. About a hundred yards further, on the crest of the hill, I pulled over to talk to Brian Rodgers about his truck. Rodgers, who works in commercial real estate in Austin, recently formed a PAC called Texans for Conservative Values, donated $80,000 of his own money, and was using it to blast anti-Paxton messages from digital billboards on the side of a box truck. The images cycled through a list of real quotes about Paxton from high-profile Republicans in the state. Among them: 

“If Paxton will break an oath to his wife and God, why would he tell…you the truth?”

– former Texas Speaker Dade Phelan.

“I cannot trust Ken Paxton. I’ll never trust Ken Paxton. I’ll never vote for him. I’ll never support him.” – state Rep. Glenn Rogers.

“I believe without question, he’s a sophisticated criminal.”

– state Rep. Jeff Leach.

Rodgers told me he was planning on following Paxton on his bus tour. Although he was a Democrat, he considered himself more of a conservative than the attorney general when it came to things like fiscal responsibility and individual liberty.

“He will just do what the billionaires and the big money are asking him to do, which in Texas is data centers,” Rodgers said. “Nobody’s watching out for people who are trying to make a living. Paxton’s in it for just himself. He’s ‘the most corrupt politician in Texas’—and that’s a quote from Republicans.” 

I didn’t have to look far to find the source. It was right there on the side of the truck.