In the Texas Senate race, comments Republican Ken Paxton made in 2022 about the mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, are circulating on social media, thanks to posts by his opponent, Democrat James Talarico, and the Democratic Party. But their posts use just a snippet of Paxton’s remarks, depriving voters of the full context.
Talarico’s campaign posted on X on Aug. 2: “Ken Paxton said the Uvalde shooting was part of a ‘plan’ by ‘God.’ 21 elementary school children and teachers were murdered in the shooting.” The campaign similarly cited those words in a post in early September. On Sept. 24, the Democratic National Committee and Texas Democrats posted on Instagram what it called “leaked audio,” offering a 6-second clip of remarks Paxton publicly made on a radio program in 2022, and which had already circulated back then. Others are sharing similar posts on social media.
The Democrats’ post highlights Paxton saying: “Look, there’s always a plan. I believe God always has a plan. Life is short, no matter what it is.” Paxton did say that, but there was more to his remarks. He faced criticism even for his fuller comments at the time, so voters likely would have different reactions to the interview. But voters can’t properly evaluate what Paxton said without seeing or hearing his full remarks.
Paxton, who has been the Texas attorney general since 2015, was interviewed by radio host and pastor Trey Graham in the days after the May 24, 2022, mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde. An 18-year-old gunman killed 19 children, whose ages ranged from 9 to 11 years old, and two teachers.
In the interview, which aired May 29, Paxton said the shooting and shooter were “evil.” He was invited by Graham “to speak a word of comfort … to the families and those who have lost tragically children in this situation. As a follower of Jesus, as an elected official, what might you be able to say that might give a little comfort?” (Starting at the 9-minute mark.)
Here’s Paxton’s full response:
Paxton, May 29, 2022, interview: Look, I think it’s difficult to give comfort. If I lost one of my children, I’d be pretty devastated, especially in a way that is so senseless and you know seemingly has no purpose. I think I would, I would just have to, if I had the opportunity to talk to people, I’d have to say, look, there’s always a plan. I believe God always has a plan. Life is short, no matter what it is, and certainly we’re not going to make sense of, you know, a young child being shot and killed way before their life expectancy. And so, even though we can’t make sense of it, I would just have to encourage them to hold on to their faith and to hold on to their belief that there really is purpose in what God does. And we may not know it now, but someday we will.
The online news site Salon wrote about Paxton’s comments on June 14, 2022. He faced criticism, including from the father of one of the students killed in the 2018 mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida. The Houston Chronicle editorial board wrote that Paxton had “demurred on offering words of comfort for Uvalde victims’ families, opting for cold resignation.”
The headline on a June 2022 Washington Post opinion piece called Paxton’s comments a “shameful … cop-out.” Columnist Karen Tumulty wrote: “It was all in God’s plan. That’s a suggestion we often hear from pious, well-meaning people when other words fail in the face of an unspeakable, inexplicable tragedy. The idea is that some day we will all understand that larger purpose of our suffering. It is meant to be a balm.”
She continued: “But those words sound more like a shrug when an elected leader — and in this case, one who is his state’s top law enforcement officer — offers that as an explanation for a horror that was preventable and exacerbated by human error.”
Paxton opposed tighter restrictions on guns in the wake of the tragedy. He told Graham in the radio interview: “There are murder laws, and this guy didn’t follow that murder law. And so, if you had a gun law that said he didn’t have a gun, I don’t think that that would have been very effective for him. … Don’t suggest that somehow having more gun laws would have stopped this guy from shooting because that’s not the answer.”
Paxton said that schools could “hire policemen at every school” and also “train other people” to respond before law enforcement can arrive. “And had there been somebody in the classroom with a gun, we could have, we could potentially save every life,” he said.
When we asked the Talarico campaign about its X posts, JT Ennis, the campaign press secretary, pointed us to 2022 articles critical of Paxton’s remarks, most of which we described above, and the 6-second snippet of Paxton’s comments, as posted by Shannon Watts, founder of a group advocating stricter gun laws to prevent gun violence. The campaign didn’t respond to our question about whether some voters would have a different view of Paxton’s remarks with additional context.
We also asked the Paxton campaign about the Democrats’ posts and whether Paxton had a response to the 2022 criticism of his comments. We haven’t received a reply.
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