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They are always coming after Dan Crenshaw.
You've seen he has had viral dustups with Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene over the years. And now popular conservative podcast host Shawn Ryan has singled out the Houston Republican, suggesting he is getting rich off insider stock trades.
Crenshaw said it's the downside of being one of the more recognizable members of Congress. He said he gets targeted because people jabbing at him want attention.
"It's clickbait," he said. "If you say that about another member that's not as well known, it's not going to get the engagement. And these people only care about one thing, which is engagement."
Whatever the impetus, the back and forth with Ryan has turned into a month-long social media rift that has both men turning to Instagram to counter the other in lengthy rebuttals. Both men are Navy SEAL veterans.
"He trades stocks while having access to classified and non-public information. The public has a right to ask how he's getting rich while in office," Ryan said in a social media post after he said Crenshaw at one point threatened to hurt him and ordered him to stop talking about him.
None of that is true, insists Crenshaw. A look at Crenshaw's financial disclosures shows his net worth grew in 2019 and 2020. At the time, he had just published a book and was getting a lot of national attention, partly due to "Saturday Night Live" comedian Pete Davidson making fun of Crenshaw's eye patch.
Crenshaw was blinded in his right eye by an improvised explosive device that nearly killed him during a combat mission in Afghanistan.
Since the launch of his book, though, Crenshaw's net worth has actually declined and he hasn't traded any stocks in nearly three years.
Check out more of the drama between the two Navy SEALs in my latest story, and check out our first-ever video version of the Texas Take Podcast on YouTube, where I sat down with Crenshaw to talk about the military action in Venezuela and this back-and-forth with Ryan.
 | Jeremy Wallace, Texas politics reporter |
Who's Up, Who's Down
A daily stock market-style report on key players in Texas politics.
Up: Affordable Care Act Recipients.
A group of Republicans in the U.S. House joined with Democrats on Thursday to advance legislation extending a tax credit for working-class ACA recipients for three years, overcoming unanimous opposition from Texas Republicans. Twelve Republicans joined with Democrats to go around House Speaker Mike Johnson on the issue. While that is happening in the Senate, Republicans and Democrats are in negotiations on a two-year extension of the tax credit, which expired at the end of last year. In short, the fight isn't over.
Down: Houston.
One of the biggest names in Houston politics over the last 50 years is gone. On Wednesday, former Harris County Judge and former state Sen. Jon Lindsay passed away at the age of 90. Lindsay served as Harris County Judge from 1975 to 1995, a period of rapid growth that transformed the county from a largely rural jurisdiction into one of the nation's largest metropolitan regions. The longest-serving county judge in Harris County history, Lindsay was also the first Republican elected to the office at a time the Commissioners Court was dominated by Democrats.
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Hundreds of private schools have been approved to participate in Texas' new voucher program, many of them Christian institutions located in the state's largest cities, according to a new map released by the comptroller's office. As of Thursday, the map showed around 450 private schools serving K-5, middle school or high school students. That represents roughly one-third of the 1,350 accredited Texas private schools eligible to participate.
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While Florida is pressing ahead with redistricting, Kentucky officials say they don't expect to follow Texas and redraw their U.S. House seats. State Sen President Robert Stivers, a Republican, said he's against the idea and warned it could improve Democratic chances of picking up other seats, according to Lexington Herald Leader reporter Austin Horn.
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