Barbara Bush — daughter of George W., twin of the NBC morning-show host — cut a $2,500 check this quarter to Lone Star Rising PAC, which is the money behind James Talarico’s Senate campaign. FEC records, reviewed by Fox News Digital. Her filing lists an address in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn. Of course it does.
Let’s put the sum in perspective, because $2,500 isn’t the story. Don Henley gave that PAC $150,000. Barbara Bush gave roughly the cost of a decent sofa. This isn’t a fortune moving a race. It’s a signal, which is exactly why it got filed somewhere that reports every dollar in and out instead of a 501(c)(4) where it would have vanished into the fog.
She wanted it seen. And why wouldn’t she? Her day job is vice president of social impact and inclusion at the NBA, where the Bush Center says her work harnesses the convening power of basketball on behalf of social justice, health equity, and sustainability. She also campaigned for Kamala Harris and her corrupt, goofball running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, in 2024, so there’s that.
Barbara Bush, daurghter of G.W., just donated $2,500 to Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico.
It's safe to say that the Bush family isn't 'Republican' at this point – if they ever really were. pic.twitter.com/dogvjRpBoD
— USA Features Media (@USAFeatures) October 20, 2026
Somewhere in heaven, Barbara Pierce Bush is asking what in God’s name happened to her family. Here’s the part that isn’t funny.
Three weeks ago her father flew into Dallas to headline a soon-to-be-ex-‘GOP’ Sen. John Cornyn fundraiser for six Republican Senate candidates — in Maine, Ohio, Alaska, Iowa, Michigan, and New Hampshire. Six. In a ballroom in Texas. And the one Republican nominee in Texas, running in the race that may decide the United States Senate, Ken Paxton – whom Trump is backing – was conspicuously not on the invitation.
So the former president will raise money for Republicans anywhere on the continent except the state where his family built its political dynasty, and his daughter will write checks to the Democrat running against the Republican.
This is what RINO means. Not insufficient purity on some obscure vote. It means a family that spent four decades asking Texas Republicans for their votes, their volunteer hours, and their donations — and now, the first time the nominee isn’t a member of ‘the club,’ takes their ball and goes to Brooklyn.
Estranged soon-to-be-ex-wife Angela Paxton has better cause to sit out this race than anyone in Texas. She filed for divorce but she also cut an ad telling Texans to vote the Republican ticket anyway, because holding the seat matters more than her grievance. A woman with an actual personal wound chose the team. The Bushes, meanwhile, lost a primary and found a Democrat.
Talarico, for his part, campaigns against corporations and billionaires deciding elections while cashing six-figure PAC checks, explaining he won’t unilaterally disarm. Fine, nobody expected principle. But he can now say a Bush is funding him, which is precisely the permission structure he needed with suburban Republicans.
That’s the actual value of the $2,500. Not the money. The name.
Twenty-one years of Bushes on Texas ballots, and this is the inheritance: a family that only shows up for Republicans it personally approves of. Well, Texans never needed their permission to vote for their true conservative principles. They won’t need it on November 3 either.
