Republican U.S. Senate nominee Ken Paxton suggested he would support cuts to federal benefits programs during a private fundraiser with Washington lobbyists last month, according to an audio recording obtained by The Texas Tribune — the fourth leaked clip from the Sept. 24 event.

Asked about reducing the federal deficit, Paxton said: "Making some reasonable cuts to mandatory spending — you're gonna have to do it. Or there is no solution. That's just the reality. We have to suck it up."

Around three-quarters of mandatory federal spending went toward Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid in the most recent fiscal year, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Mandatory programs are funded under permanent law rather than through the annual appropriations process, so any reductions require acts of Congress. Much of the rest covered aid to lower-income families, such as food benefits and unemployment insurance, along with a mix of retirement and disability benefits for federal workers and veterans.

"From Republican presidents to Democrats, we've been spending like crazy and no one seems to care," Paxton added. "It's gonna bankrupt us. It's just a matter of time."

He did not specify which programs he would seek to slash, or by how much, in the clip obtained by the Tribune, and his campaign did not provide comment or answer questions about which benefits programs he would target.

The recording was made by an attendee who opposes Paxton in his Senate run against Democrat James Talarico. Two other people in attendance confirmed details of the conversation and said they did not recall Paxton detailing the cuts he would support at any other point during the event.

Portions of Paxton's remarks have been leaked in succession to The New York Times, Politico and Axios since last week, coming in the final days before early voting. The person who recorded the latest clip declined to share the full conversation, and it was unclear how many more leaks there may be.

Paxton's comments at the meeting offer a glimpse into how he would approach the deficit and the looming benefits cliff facing Congress and the White House, with Social Security and Medicare's reserve funds projected to run out in under a decade — a point at which dedicated tax revenue would cover only a portion of scheduled benefits absent congressional action. He has rarely discussed his position on entitlements on the campaign trail. The federal deficit topped $1.8 trillion in fiscal year 2025.

"There's no doubt we have to cut some of the mandatory spending," Paxton said in the recording. "The numbers don't add up. And then on the other side, we've got to create tax policy that incentivizes more spend, more production in our economy."

After Paxton laid out his two-pronged approach to reducing the deficit — tax cuts to grow the economy paired with "reasonable cuts to mandatory spending" — lobbyist Jeanne Haggerty chimed in that she wanted a personal tax cut, prompting laughter from the room.

"I would really like to pay my fair share of taxes, which is less than I'm paying right now," Haggerty said in the recording.

"I'm with you on that," Paxton responded.

Two attendees said they recalled the remarks by Haggerty and the room's laughter. Haggerty did not respond to a request for comment.

A tightening Senate race

Talarico has consistently led Paxton in public polling of the race. Democrats have not won statewide in Texas since 1994, and national Republicans have unleashed a massive outside spending blitz push Paxton over the finish line in what has become Texas' most competitive cycle in decades. Early voting begins Oct. 19.

Politicians from both parties have long tiptoed around entitlement reform, wary of prompting voter backlash over the perception that they are cutting benefits millions of older Americans depend on and spent years paying into. Republicans have been more open to cutting Medicaid: President Donald Trump's sweeping 2025 tax and spending law, which he dubbed the One Big Beautiful Bill, slashed federal Medicaid spending by nearly $1 trillion over the next 10 years.

On the campaign trail, Paxton has promoted a series of proposed tax deductions for healthcare, housing and family-related expenses. In audio from the same fundraiser published by Axios on Wednesday, he walked through those proposals in response to questions about cost-of-living concerns fueled by the war in Iran, which he characterized as "dragging" on his campaign.

Last summer, after Congress passed Trump's megabill, Paxton celebrated it on X as "HISTORIC legislation that's going to unleash economic growth and help deport the millions of illegals aliens who have been destroying our country."

"This is an incredible moment for our nation's future," he wrote. "AMERICA FIRST!"

The Congressional Budget Office estimated the law will leave 10 million more people without health insurance by 2034 while adding at least $3.4 trillion to the national deficit.

In June, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said Republicans had a plan to overhaul entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, saying they "have to be adjusted and fixed" to help address the debt. Democrats seized on the remarks, casting them as a promise that Republicans would slash Social Security and other benefits programs. Johnson later posted on social media that Republicans "are not talking about reducing a single benefit," and would instead focus on "eliminating hundreds of billions in FRAUD and inefficiencies that are draining the programs and threatening their sustainability."

Inside the fundraiser

The Sept. 24 meeting was hosted on Capitol Hill by Susan Hirschmann and Chris Brinson of Williams & Jensen, a Washington-based lobbying firm, and was attended by roughly a dozen people, most of them lobbyists. An invitation described the event as a lunch with Paxton for which "donations are welcomed but not required for attendance." Hirschmann and Brinson did not respond to requests for comment.

The first leaked recording, published last week by The New York Times, captured Paxton telling attendees that Trump's midterm convention had hurt his campaign. In another clip published by Politico on Monday, Paxton — who positioned himself as a Washington outsider throughout his primary campaign — lamented Washington's influence over his race, saying, "I've never been in a race where I felt less control over the campaign … it's all coming — you know — from DC."

Nick Maddux, a senior adviser on Paxton's campaign, called the Times' story "manipulated nonsense" and told Politico that the attorney general was referring to super PACs, which campaigns are prohibited from coordinating with under federal law.

Since the start of September, super PACs aligned with Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Trump have spent more than $150 million on ads supporting Paxton, who has spent $20 million from his own campaign coffers over that span, according to media tracking firm AdImpact. Talarico, meanwhile, had spent $40 million on airtime.

Disclosure: The New York Times has been a major financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in its journalism.

This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.