John Cornyn has shared a fable of frog and scorpion after Texas primary loss, and it might ring true for many of his GOP colleagues

Senator John Cornyn shared the fable of the frog and the scorpion on X, offering a cryptic take on the current political landscape following a difficult primary loss in Texas, The Hill reported. The senator posted the story shortly after President Trump endorsed state Attorney General Ken Paxton, a move that effectively torpedoed Cornyn’s reelection campaign. Paxton went on to secure a victory in the Texas Senate GOP primary, leaving many to wonder exactly what Cornyn meant by his choice of reading material.

Cornyn’s post featured the classic tale of a scorpion that needs to cross a river but lacks the ability to swim. In the story, the scorpion asks a nearby frog for a ride, though the frog is naturally hesitant about the arrangement. The frog expresses a valid fear that the scorpion might sting it, which would lead to both of their deaths in the water. The scorpion counters this by pointing out the obvious logic that it would drown as well if it decided to kill the frog mid-transit, which eventually convinces the frog to help.

Cornyn wrote, “An old but apt fable,” before detailing the climax of the story for his followers. “Midway across the river, the scorpion stings the frog anyway, dooming them both. The dying frog asks the scorpion why it stung despite knowing the consequence, to which the scorpion replies: ‘I am sorry, but I couldn’t help myself. It’s my character.’” The senator provided no further context or commentary to explain his thoughts.

Cornyn’s past relationship with Trump definitely gives the post a whole new perspective

The timing of this post is particularly notable because it follows a period of intense friction between the two men. On Sunday, President Trump took to Truth Social to criticize the senator, calling him “VERY disloyal to me” because he “didn’t fight hard enough for the desperately needed SAVE AMERICA ACT.”

This is a pretty harsh assessment, especially when you consider that Cornyn has been a long-time supporter of the President. Throughout his career, Cornyn has touted a voting record that aligns with the President 99.3 percent of the time. He has even pointed out that he held a stronger pro-Trump voting record than 95 out of 100 senators during the first term of the current administration.

Cornyn also played a significant role as the Senate Republican whip during the first two years of the President’s first term. He was instrumental in helping to pass the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which remains one of the most prominent legislative achievements of the President’s career.

Furthermore, Cornyn was an early supporter in the current election cycle, providing his earliest-ever endorsement in a contested GOP presidential primary to the President. Despite these efforts, the President chose to back Paxton instead of Cornyn, even though Senate Majority Leader John Thune and other members of the Senate Republican leadership had spent months lobbying the President to support Cornyn’s candidacy.

The friction over the SAVE America Act is another layer to this story. In March, Cornyn publicly announced a change in his position regarding the Senate filibuster. He explicitly stated that he would support changes to Senate rules if they proved necessary to get the SAVE America Act and homeland security funding passed.

This was a significant departure from the pledge he had made during the 2024 Senate GOP leadership race, where he had promised to preserve the 60-vote threshold for legislation. It seems like a move that was intended to show loyalty, but it clearly did not prevent the President from turning against him in the primary.

There is also a broader strategic concern at play here. Senate Republican strategists had been crunching the numbers before the primary, and their estimates suggested that it would cost the party more than $200 million to help Paxton defeat the Democratic candidate, James Talarico, in the general election. Senate Republican leaders had viewed Cornyn as the much stronger candidate for the general election, making the President’s endorsement of Paxton a point of contention within the party.