O’DONNELL: Let’s listen to what Ken Paxton had to say about you tonight. And I have to tell you, I don’t know if you’ve heard this already, but he spent a good deal of his victory speech tonight talking just about you. Here’s what he had to say about you.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEN PAXTON (R-TX), STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL, U.S. SENATE CANDIDATE: My opponent is the most extreme radical the Democrats have ever nominated. He’s even running a vegan campaign, whatever that is.

(LAUGHTER)

He goes by a few names that you may all have heard of. Some people know him as Tofu Talarico.

(LAUGHTER)

Some people call him Six Gender Jimmy.

(LAUGHTER)

I’ve even heard some people call him James Tala-freako.

(LAUGHTER)

And others refer to him simply as Low T Talarico.

CROWD: Wooo!

PAXTON: But no matter what you call him, let me tell you this, James Talarico is a threat to everything we hold dear in this state and in this country. He’s a threat to our security and our safety. He wants open borders and even said a — said a welcome mat should be at our southern border.

He’s a threat to our children. He wants boys in girls’ sports, gender mutilation surgery performed on kids. And when asked what he loved outside of his family and friends, you heard what Brandon Gill said, his first answer was trans — trans kids. That’s weird and that’s a radical guy.

He’s a threat to our prosperity and Texas economy. He said you can’t be a Christian if you support the oil and gas industries. Want to raise your taxes — he wants to raise your taxes. And he won’t do a single thing to lower costs for you and your family.

And finally, he’s a threat to our very way of life and our values. I mean, he’s a vegan who thinks God is non-binary and that there’s actually six biological sexes. It’s hard to imagine someone more radical than that.

No matter what he says or how much he raises, the reality is that James Talarico is going to be nothing more than a Texas-based puppet for Chuck Schumer and the national Democrats.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O’DONNELL: That is it. That is, as of tonight, the Paxton campaign against you. What is your equal time response to that?

TALARICO: Well, Ken Paxton is morally unfit for office. He’ll lie to you with a straight face. He’s failed the character test. He’s the most corrupt attorney general of our lifetime. And he puts the interests of himself over the laws of Texas. Those aren’t my words. Those are the words of Ken Paxton’s fellow Republicans.

This November, working Texans, Democrats, independents, and Republicans alike are going to come together to defeat the most corrupt politician in America and the broken political system that he represents.

O’DONNELL: So he’s going after you in very personal terms. He’s calling you — he’s got names for you that we just heard. I don’t want to repeat some of those. But obviously he’s going to spend a great deal of his time talking about you and transgender issues and children. What do you want Texas voters to understand about that?

TALARICO: Well, this is how puppet politicians like Ken Paxton stay in power. You know, he’s — he’s spent his entire career selling us out for his donors. And that, I think, is going to be apparent to Texans over the course of this race. And so the only way he’s going to hold on to power is through distraction and division. This is the oldest strategy in the world, divide and conquer. They divide us by party, by race, by gender, by religion, by all this culture war stuff so we don’t notice that they’re picking our pockets, that they are closing our public schools all over Texas. They are gutting our health care, raising our premiums for Texans all over the state. And they are raising taxes on all of us while they cut taxes for themselves.

And so I think Texans see through this game. They realize that we’re being pitted against each other with these old, tired culture war fights so that corrupt politicians like Ken Paxton can hold on to power and continue to enrich themselves and their billionaire megadonors.

O’DONNELL: What about Texas voters who will — who want to know from you on this particular issue, is Ken Paxton telling the truth about you in relation to these issues, especially involving what he was just talking about there, transgender issues involving children?

TALARICO: No. Ken Paxton is clipping comments, taking them out of context to try to paint a picture, trying to paint me as someone I’m not. You know, Ken Paxton has a — a criminal record. I have a legislative record, over four terms in the Texas House of Representatives, where I have brought Democrats and Republicans together to pass more than 60 bipartisan bills, to cut property taxes, to raise teacher pay, to lower the cost of housing, prescription drugs, and child care across Texas.

And I’m going to put that record up against Ken Paxton’s criminal record any day of the week, twice on Sunday. I’ve called out the extremes in both parties on the right and the left. You know, I’ve called out Ken Paxton for his blatant illegal corruption. But I also called out President Biden when he failed to secure our southern border. So I’m not interested in going to Washington, D.C., to serve one political party. I’m going to Washington, D.C., to serve the people of Texas. That’s the exact opposite of what Ken Paxton does. He serves himself and his billionaire megadonors at the expense of the people of this state.