WASHINGTON — Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) will be lampooned in an attack ad from opponent Attorney General Ken Paxton’s campaign for going on “spring break” and leaving the Department of Homeland Security unfunded, The Post has learned.
The artificial intelligence-generated digital ad will be released Tuesday as Cornyn and Paxton prepare for their May 26 runoff race in the Texas Senate Republican primary.
“President Trump is fighting to protect our nation and stop illegals from voting, but his agenda is on hold because John Cornyn is on spring break,” a narrator says in the five-figure ad blitz.
The AI video advertisement depicts the Republican senator lounging on the beach in a sunhat and later barreling down a water slide at an amusement park — before heading to a luau.
“The SAVE America Act is stalled, and our nation is at risk while he’s vacationing,” the narrator also says. “Cornyn skipped town instead of fully funding DHS or working on reconciliation. And Cornyn still won’t abolish the filibuster to support Trump.”
“Let’s give John Cornyn a permanent vacation,” it adds.
Trump has yet to endorse either candidate in the primary.
The four-term senator in a Post op-ed on March 11 said he backed “whatever changes to Senate rules that may prove necessary for us to get the SAVE America Act and homeland security funding past the Democrats’ obstruction, through the Senate, and on the president’s desk for his signature.”
But neither the voter ID bill nor the DHS funding measure have made it out of Congress — despite versions passing either in the Senate or in the House.
A rep for his congressional office said, “Sen. Cornyn is spending the state work period crisscrossing Texas and will hold events in five cities this week alone.”
The GOP holds a 53-47 majority in the Senate, but most legislation requires at least 60 votes for a bill to pass — unless the filibuster is abolished.
“Senator Cornyn has repeatedly said we should look at all available options to pass the SAVE America Act and fund DHS,” said senior campaign adviser Matt Mackowiack.
“The only thing stopping these bills from passing are radical Democrats who want to make our country less safe by refusing to fund national security and also want to allow illegal immigrants to participate in our elections.”
The Cornyn campaign has released its own attack ads focusing on Paxton’s record as the Lone Star State AG, where he was impeached by the state House but acquitted by the state Senate on 16 charges related to corruption.
A compromise was reached just before the two-week spring recess to fund all DHS agencies except those executing immigration enforcement, which will be funded under a separate reconciliation bill.
Trump then moved to fund Immigrations and Customs Enforcement as well as portions of Customs and Border Protection via executive order.
Cornyn had voted multiple times to fund all DHS agencies, but Senate Democrats blocked those efforts.
As the Senate entered its spring recess, Cornyn posted on X: “Democrats have decided that playing politics is more important than keeping our nation safe by their outright refusal to fully-fund DHS and ensure our elections are secure by passing the SAVE Act.”
“If bringing the Senate back into session is the only way to get the full DHS budget approved and the SAVE Act passed, this is exactly what we should do,” he added.
Paxton currently holds a more than five-percentage point lead, 45.5% to 40%, over Cornyn in the runoff election, according to the RealClearPolitics polling aggregator, though the GOP senator beat the Texas attorney general in the primary race last month by a little more than 1 percentage point.
Cornyn has claimed that Paxton’s primary campaign if successful will doom Republicans down ballot in the midterms and potentially risk a third impeachment of Trump in the House.