On September 24, 2026, Ken Paxton sat down for lunch on Capitol Hill with about a dozen people, most of them Washington lobbyists. The invitation said donations were "welcomed but not required." Someone in the room was recording.
On October 8, The Texas Tribune published a new clip from that lunch. Asked how to bring down the federal deficit, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Texas said:
"Making some reasonable cuts to mandatory spending — you're gonna have to do it. Or there is no solution. That's just the reality. We have to suck it up."
He also said: "There's no doubt we have to cut some of the mandatory spending."
What "mandatory spending" means
"Mandatory spending" sounds like budget talk. It isn't abstract. According to the Congressional Budget Office, about three-quarters of it goes to three programs: Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Much of the rest is help for lower-income families — food assistance, unemployment insurance — plus retirement and disability benefits for federal workers and veterans.
So when Paxton tells a room of lobbyists that "we" have to suck it up, the people being asked to suck it up are retirees, people on Medicare, families on Medicaid, and veterans. Not the people at the lunch.
Paxton didn't say which programs he would cut, or by how much. The Tribune asked his campaign. The campaign didn't answer. The paper also notes he has "rarely discussed his position" on these programs on the campaign trail. Two other people who were at the lunch said they didn't remember him naming specific cuts at any point.
The other half of his plan: tax cuts
Paxton laid out a two-part plan to the room. Cut mandatory spending on one side. "And then on the other side, we've got to create tax policy that incentivizes more spend, more production in our economy."
That's when a lobbyist in the room, Jeanne Haggerty, said she wanted a tax cut for herself. The room laughed. "I would really like to pay my fair share of taxes, which is less than I'm paying right now," she said.
Paxton's answer: "I'm with you on that."
That's the exchange as the Tribune reported it. Cuts to the programs working people paid into for decades. A lower tax bill for the Washington lobbyist across the table. Two other people in the room confirmed the laughter.
He cheered the last round of cuts
This is not a man who discovered the deficit last month. In July 2025, Congress passed Trump's budget bill, which the Tribune notes cut federal Medicaid spending by nearly $1 trillion over 10 years. The Congressional Budget Office estimated it would leave 10 million more people without health insurance by 2034 — and add at least $3.4 trillion to the deficit.
Paxton celebrated it on X as "HISTORIC legislation that's going to unleash economic growth and help deport the millions of illegals aliens who have been destroying our country." He wrote: "This is an incredible moment for our nation's future. AMERICA FIRST!"
So a law that added trillions to the deficit was "HISTORIC." Now that the deficit is too big, the fix is to "suck it up" on the programs seniors rely on.
Social Security's clock is already running
This matters right now. Social Security's and Medicare's reserve funds are projected to run out in under a decade. Whoever wins this Senate seat will vote on what happens when they do.
Paxton isn't the only Republican who has floated this. In June, House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Louisiana radio that Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security "have to be adjusted and fixed," and that Republicans had "a plan to do that next year" — we covered that, and how Rob Wittman faked a phone call rather than answer a question about it. Johnson later posted that Republicans are "not talking about reducing a single benefit."
Paxton, behind closed doors, said the opposite: cuts are coming, "or there is no solution."
The same lunch keeps leaking
This is the fourth clip from the same September 24 lunch, according to the Tribune. The others:
- The New York Times published audio of Paxton saying Trump's midterm convention hurt his campaign.
- Politico published Paxton saying "I've never been in a race where I felt less control over the campaign … it's all coming — you know — from DC." We wrote about that one.
- Axios published Paxton blaming the war in Iran for his troubles. Asked what was "dragging" his campaign, he said, "It's the war, it's gas prices, it's diesel," and called affordability "by far our biggest problem." When someone pointed out he "can't stop the war," Paxton said, "Right."
Put the clips side by side. Texans are paying more for gas and diesel because of a war. Paxton knows it — he said so. His answer to the deficit is to cut the programs that keep older Texans afloat, and to agree with a lobbyist that she pays too much in taxes.
He's not alone in saying the quiet part. Vivek Ramaswamy, running for governor of Ohio, said on camera of Social Security and Medicaid payments, "I don't like the existence of those policies." The difference is that Paxton wants a vote in the U.S. Senate, where those programs are decided.
What the recording shows
At a private Capitol Hill lunch with Washington lobbyists, Ken Paxton said cuts to mandatory spending — about three-quarters of which is Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — are unavoidable and that "we have to suck it up." In the same conversation he agreed with a lobbyist who wanted her own taxes cut. His campaign didn't answer when asked which benefits he would cut. That was more than a year after he cheered a budget bill that cut Medicaid by nearly $1 trillion and added at least $3.4 trillion to the deficit.
