Legacy media and its Republican establishment allies have seized on a Wall Street Journal exclusive about Texas Attorney General and Republican U.
S. Senate nominee Ken Paxton spending New Years Eve 2024 in Dubai with his extramarital girlfriend, Tracy Duhon.
According to RedState, the Murdoch-owned outlet framed the story around Paxtons presence at a holiday gathering that also included two American physicians now described as fugitives from U.S. justice, and social media activists on the left immediately tried to inflate the report into a campaign-ending scandal. This cant be good: Murdoch owned WSJ has the receipts! Ken Paxton partied with US fugitives on New Years Eve in Dubai. And Lordy, there are tapes! I gifted this so you can read it, one prominent progressive, Amy Siskind, declared on X, treating a brief clip as if it were the modern equivalent of the Watergate tapes. Yet, as even a cursory reading of the piece shows, the receipts amount largely to a 30?second video and a rehash of allegations and controversies that have trailed Paxton for more than two decades, all of which Texas voters already know and have repeatedly weighed against his record of aggressive conservative governance.
Siskinds breathless rhetoric is, at best, an exercise in deliberate exaggeration. There is indeed a single 30?second video, and if by receipts she means the Journals decision to recycle what other Texas outlets have reported over the 23 years of Paxton's political career, then, yeah.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Paxton rang in the New Year in Dubai alongside two American Muslim physicians, Dr. Anosh Ahmed and Dr. Sameer Suhail. According to a 2025 Chicago Sun-Times exclusive, these men were living in Dubai to avoid returning to the United States to face federal healthcare fraud charges.
The Sun-Times described Ahmed and Suhail as physicians and entrepreneurs who cultivated a taste for conspicuous luxury. Dr. Anosh Ahmed and Dr. Sameer Suhail, entrepreneurs as well as medical doctors, had matching cars, a matching taste for luxury watches and matching condos at Trump Tower.
The pair shared similar immigrant success stories before their legal troubles began. They also come from similar backgrounds, immigrating to the United States as children Ahmed from Pakistan, Suhail from Jordan and got their medical degrees from overseas schools and built images as businessmen flush with cash.
Federal prosecutors now say the two men used that image to mask a sweeping scheme that looted a struggling Chicago hospital. For more than a year, theyve also been fugitives living expensive lifestyles in Dubai while dodging accountability for the damage prosecutors say they caused the West Sides Loretto Hospital, a safety-net facility serving the poorest Chicagoans.
The allegations are serious and extensive, involving both embezzlement and self-dealing. Prosecutors say Ahmed and Suhail worked together to embezzle $15 million from Loretto, a taxpayer-funded hospital, and steered $19 million of hospital contracts to Suhail through corrupt means, including bribery.
Ahmeds legal exposure does not end there, as federal authorities have also tied him to pandemic-era fraud. Ahmed also is charged in a separate COVID-19 testing scheme prosecutors say defrauded the government of about $300 million.
The Journal further notes that Ahmed has been a significant donor to Paxtons past political efforts, a fact that Texas media have previously reported. In the papers words, Ahmed had given roughly $190,000 to Paxton's previous campaigns, including $25,000 contributions to Paxtons attorney general campaign fund, but there is no indication in the Journals own reporting that Ahmed has contributed to Paxtons current U.S. Senate bid.
If such a link existed, it is all but certain the Journal would have splashed it across the top of the story in bold type. Instead, the centerpiece of the exclusive is the short, uneventful video that Siskind and others hyped as though it were explosive, even though it does not even show Dr. Sameer Suhail.
The clip, shared by the Journals reporters, depicts Paxton and Duhon on a balcony watching fireworks over Dubais skyline. In Dubai, Paxton and his girlfriend watched fireworks at a party with two fugitives who had failed to return to the U.S. to face federal healthcare fraud charges. One of them, Anosh Ahmed, had donated $190,000 to Paxton.
The timing of the trip also undercuts any narrative that this was some clandestine Senate-campaign operation. The gathering took place months before Paxton announced his U.S. Senate candidacy on April 8, 2025, and after Paxton had already publicly admitted during his 2023 impeachment trial that he had engaged in an extramarital affair, making his decision to travel with his mistress tawdry but hardly revelatory.
From an investigative standpoint, the core allegation is that Paxton was in the same room as two alleged white-collar criminals, a fact that, while unflattering, does not amount to evidence of wrongdoing by Paxton himself. Beyond three paragraphs of new detail, the Journals more than 1,500?word article largely re-litigates Paxtons long-known political history and past legal battles, raising the question of why it took three reporters to assemble what is essentially a repackaged opposition-research file.
The Journals own narrative concedes that Paxtons critics have repeatedly failed to translate scandal headlines into political defeat. Meanwhile, damaging revelations about Paxton continue to emerge. A new scene that could join the list: a previously unreported New Years Eve 2024 celebration where Paxton partied in Dubai with two fugitives from U.S. justice and a woman who wasnt his wife.
The paper describes the Dubai scene in cinematic terms, but the substance remains thin. As fireworks exploded over the Burj Khalifa skyscraper to welcome 2025, Paxton and his girlfriend Tracy Duhon watched from a luxury high-rise balcony full of people, according to a video of the gathering viewed by The Wall Street Journal, details of which were contained in court filings and confirmed by people familiar with the matter.
The Journal then underscores the presence of the indicted physicians and reiterates Ahmeds donor history. Among those at the event with Texas top law-enforcement official were two Americans who had been indicted months before on federal healthcare-fraud charges but failed to return to the U.S., Anosh Ahmed and Sameer Suhail, according to the court records and people familiar with the matter. Ahmed, a healthcare executive, had donated $190,000 to Paxton, campaign-finance records show, including $25,000 days after he was indicted.
After this, the article retreats into familiar territory, cataloging every controversy that has dogged Paxton since his first successful run for office in 2002. Even then, the authors are forced to acknowledge that, like other high-profile populist conservatives, Paxton has proven remarkably resilient, earning the moniker Teflon Ken as Texans repeatedly prioritize his record of fighting the Biden administration, defending state sovereignty, and championing conservative causes over his personal failings.
The Journals own reporting admits that none of this has yet derailed his career. None of Paxtons political baggage has sunk him so far. Prosecutors who have taken aim at him said they have learned that people who doubt Paxton do so at their peril.
One of those prosecutors, Kent Schaffer, voices the frustration of the legal and political class that has spent years trying to bring Paxton down. Its just amazing to me that hes never been held accountable, said Kent Schaffer, a special prosecutor who filed charges against Paxton in 2015.
The timing of the Journals bombshell is also notable, coming just days after Democrat Senate nominee James Talarico resurfaced from a 13?day disappearance that his campaign belatedly attributed to a severe bout of the flu. Talaricos unexplained absence, and the mainstream medias initial indifference to it, only became an issue after right-of-center outlets and commentators began asking why a candidate in one of the nations most closely watched Senate races had simply vanished without so much as a statement or a brief video from his sickbed.
Once conservative influencers began suggesting that Talarico might have been hospitalized in Ohio for mental health reasons, the Democrats campaign scrambled to respond. On Monday, they provided what they claimed were time-stamped security-camera images showing Talarico at his Austin home during the period in question, but they did so only on the condition that the footage not be made public.
The New York Times reviewed time-stamped images from a security camera at Mr. Talaricos home, which were provided by his campaign on the condition they not be published for security reasons. The images showed Mr. Talarico around the exterior of the home and at its entrances between Oct. 1 and Oct. 8.
The Times framed the episode as a cautionary tale about modern politics rather than a straightforward transparency problem for a Democratic candidate. The episode represented a wild stretch in the Texas Senate race one of this years highest-profile, ugliest and most expensive contests and one that could help decide control of the upper chamber.
In the Times telling, the real story is not a Senate hopeful disappearing for nearly two weeks without explanation, but the online reaction to that vacuum of information. The furor over Mr. Talaricos absence was extraordinary on several levels. It showed how mistrust of politicians and the mainstream news media, combined with online algorithms that incentivize outrageous theories, has created a Wild West of misinformation. It offered a lesson for Democrats: In such an era, it is politically risky for a candidate, even one too ill to campaign, to disappear for nine days.
What the Times does not seriously grapple with is why Talaricos campaign chose opacity over basic communication in the first place. A simple phone video from his home, or a brief Zoom appearance, would have reassured voters, rallied his base, and likely generated sympathy, yet instead his team opted for silence, handing Republicans an easy line of attack that they are still exploiting.
Predictably, the Times scolds Republicans for spreading falsehoods and suggests that the entire controversy is evidence of GOP anxiety over Paxtons strength as a candidate. It claims that Texas Republicans are so worried about Paxtons prospects that they unleashed an online army to manufacture doubts about Talarico, even though Paxtons campaign has not invested in TikTok influencers, while Talaricos campaign openly has.
And it showed how worried Texas Republicans are about Mr. Paxtons prospects as Mr. Talarico continues to poll ahead of him, despite hundreds of millions of dollars in G.O.P. advertising. No Democrat has won a statewide election in Texas in more than three decades.
Against that backdrop, the Journals Dubai story and the release of audio from private Paxton donor calls appear less like organic investigative journalism and more like coordinated narrative-building designed to create a steady drip, drip, drip of negative coverage. Talaricos campaign and its media allies are clearly hoping that this accumulation of stories will do what years of legal and political attacks have not: finally make Paxton unelectable in a state that has not sent a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1988.
Even some Republicans are portrayed as quietly rooting against Paxton, including members of the partys old guard who have long resented his insurgent, grassroots-backed rise. Person who is close to Ken Paxton says John Cornyn doesn't care if Paxton loses to Talarico. John Cornyn clearly doesnt care. That is how bitter he is and how badly he wants Ken to lose. He wants Ken to lose as badly as Jasmine Crockett wants James Talarico to lose.
Yet with just 21 days remaining before the midterms, the unanswered questions surrounding Talaricos 13?day disappearance continue to hang over the race. Even Democratic strategists and commentators, who have every incentive to downplay the issue, are publicly expressing concern that the candidates story may not withstand scrutiny.
In a campaign, 21 days is an eternity, and still plenty of time for another shoe to drop. One such voice is Dan Turrentine, a Democrat strategist and co-host of The DC Huddle, who has openly admitted his unease about the episode.
??NEW: Ex-Dem Strategist Dan Turrentine *ADMITS* he's still NERVOUS about James Talarico's flu story?? Turrentine asserted if Talarico is being dishonest, he will lose to Ken Paxton and potentially cost Democrats the Senate altogether.
Turrentines concern centers on the lack of definitive, publicly verifiable proof of Talaricos whereabouts during his absence. He noted he's particularly concerned because Talarico has failed to provide definitive proof of his whereabouts during his disappearance.
From Turrentines perspective, the solution is straightforward, which makes the campaigns reluctance all the more puzzling. Turrentine argued Talarico could simply publish receipts and put the speculation to rest.
Its strange that he hasn't done so and it makes sense Democrats would be apprehensive. The unease is not confined to one strategist; it extends to veterans of the Clinton era who have seen nearly every kind of campaign crisis.
Former Clinton Advisor Mark Penn also questioned Talarico's flu story. Penn, who has worked on countless high-stakes races, underscored just how unusual Talaricos vanishing act appears to seasoned operatives.
He said he never witnessed anything like Talarico's absence in the decades he worked on campaigns and warned it would hurt his Senate bid. With Paxton and Talarico locked in a tight race and Texas long Republican streak on the line, Democrats hopes of finally turning the state blue may be slipping away.
Talarico and Paxton are locked in a tight race with just weeks until the election. As one summary put it bluntly, Texas hasn't elected a Democrat Senator since 1988. Democrats' dreams of a blue Texas may be evaporating.
For pollster Mark Penn, the core problem is that voters will demand a more credible explanation than a vague flu narrative if they are to entrust Talarico with a Senate seat. To wrap this up with a bow, as Cohen mentioned above, Clinton-era pollster Mark Penn is very clear that people are going to want a better explanation than the flu excuse if Talarico expects to get their vote and flip Texas blue.
Never seen anything quite like this, Penn said. His assessment of the situation was blunt enough to resonate across party lines.
WATCH: Mark Penn on Talarico: This is super odd I don't understand anyone who can't at least agree with that. ?????? https://t.co/vTIl1c6jgi When even Democratic strategists and Clinton-world veterans are openly questioning a Democrat nominees story, it underscores why attempts to manufacture scandal around Paxtons New Years Eve trip may not be enough to distract Texans from the more pressing question of which candidate is being straight with them.
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