Trump says oil-rich Venezuela could soon become America's 51st state during Ken Paxton rally in Texas
Trump says oil-rich Venezuela could soon become America's 51st state during Ken Paxton rally in Texas
Lekan Oyekanmi,Jesse Bedayn and Steven SloanWed, October 28, 2026 at 8:20 AM UTC
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President Donald Trump told supporters in Texas that Venezuela would become a “prosperous country” as he touted a tanker he claimed could hold one million barrels of oil.
Just nine months after his administration’s deposing of the South American nation’s socialist former president Nicolas Maduro, Trump added, “Maybe someday soon it’ll become a prosperous 51st state.”
The president was in the Lone Star state to support Republican Ken Paxton’s Senate campaign.
(Reuters)
The race between Paxton and Democrat Talarico has become one of the country's most expensive contests, with more than $563 million spent on advertising between the primary and general elections, according to ad-tracking firm AdImpact.
A single donor sits behind much of that spending: Elon Musk, the world's richest man, appears to have sunk at least $158 million into defeating Talarico.
Musk gave that amount to the Senate Leadership Fund, which then gave the same amount to the Texas PAC, the largest contributor to Paxton's campaign.
He has headquartered Tesla and SpaceX, as well as himself, in Texas, and is so set on ensuring Republicans hold control of his adopted state that he has committed that fortune to the effort.
Paxton reacts during a midterm election rally beside Trump, in Lubbock, Texas (Reuters)
Musk has joined Trump's effort to stop Talarico's advance, and Trump argued that Paxton was a “good man”
“Talarico is lunatic left,” Musk wrote on his social media platform, X, to his 241 million followers, part of a drumbeat of attacks he's posted against the candidate in the race's final days.
While Musk's investment is a challenge for Talarico, it also falls right into the Democratic campaign's central message.
At every stop, Talarico has argued that, for too long, the wealthy and their donations have corrupted politics, and that this corruption has fueled the affordability crisis.
Talarico has begun naming Musk in his stump speeches.
Paxton's Democrat rival James Talarico has been quick to point out the role that Elon Musk is playing in the Texas campaign (Reuters)
Paxton tends not to discuss him.
“He is trying to buy Texas,” Talarico said of Musk. “Texas is not for sale.”
Talarico, a seminarian and a former teacher, took the stage in Lubbock an hour after Trump wrapped up his own speech across town.
He reached for metaphors from both the Bible and a famous Texas pastime, Friday night football, to cast himself as an underdog against powerful forces including Trump and Musk, who is bankrolling attack ads against Talarico on Paxton's behalf.
“We’re going to shock the nation and shock the world when we beat the billionaires and take back Texas,” Talarico said.
Moments earlier, Trump had leaned into cultural issues to portray Talarico as too liberal for Texas.
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Musk, who said earlier this year that he planned to distance himself from politics, has poured hundreds of millions into supporting MAGA candidates nationwide (Getty)
“He doesn’t represent your values, and we can’t take a chance,” Trump said.
The visit was Trump's third time in Texas in a month, a last-minute push to back Paxton and block Democrats from notching their first statewide election victory in more than three decades.
Trump won Lubbock County by 40 points in 2024 and won most other West Texas counties by far more.
Republicans hope the president's visit will motivate his staunch supporters to vote.
The president spoke earlier in Corpus Christi, on the Gulf Coast.
Texas tests Trump’s sway over the GOP
As Trump's war in Iran spikes gas prices and adds pressure on Republican candidates across the U.S., he sought to highlight an earlier military operation in Venezuela.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio briefly appeared onstage with Trump, who used the trip in part to highlight the arrangement made with Venezuela to process more of its crude oil in Texas refineries.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio was on the campaign trail with Trump on Tuesday (Getty)
Rubio, who also serves as Trump's national security adviser, was hitting the road with Trump for the first time as the president barnstorms the country.
A State Department official said Rubio was traveling with Trump in his capacity as national security adviser and not secretary of state.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the travel plans, said Rubio “needs time with the president on all kinds of issues” and “being on the plane with him gives him a chance to talk to him about these items.”
Rubio previously ran for president in 2016 and is considered a top prospect in 2028.
He has not said whether he will run, and his political activities have been limited since becoming secretary of state.
He appeared onstage with Trump briefly in Corpus Christi, and only after Trump repeatedly called on him to come forward.
“It’s an honor to work for the greatest country in the world, for the greatest president in the history of the United States of America,” he said before exiting.
He was similarly brief in Lubbock, where he kept his remarks to a single sentence.
Trump talks to reporters after stepping off Air Force One on October 28 (Getty)
Trump is entering the final week of his last midterms in a frenzied push to shore up Republican strongholds against unusually competitive Democratic candidates.
Beyond Texas, he swung through Mississippi, Michigan, Georgia, Florida and Iowa over the past week, and his next stops are Ohio, South Carolina, Florida, Kansas and Iowa again.
He won all of these states in 2024.
Source: “AOL Breaking”
