The facts
Bo French, a Texas Republican seeking to lead a state agency, has a history of making controversial social media posts, including calls for the public execution of Democratic leaders, according to a CNN KFile investigation. French, who is running for Texas's railroad commission, has faced criticism from within his own party after making a racist post on social media, leading some prominent Republicans, like Senator John Cornyn, to state they would not support him. A review of old posts from social media accounts attributed to French revealed repeated calls for public executions of opponents. In 2020, French reportedly used a now-suspended X account to call for the execution of former President Barack Obama and other Obama administration officials he believed disseminated false information about Russia's involvement in the 2016 election. In February 2025, French allegedly used his X account under a former handle to call for public executions of figures including Senator Adam Schiff. The Guardian has sought comment from French's campaign. French has also previously posted statements asserting that Islam should be banned, calling childless women selfish, and questioning whether Jews or Muslims posed a bigger threat. In May 2020, French reportedly wrote on social media, in response to Trump's 'Drain the Swamp' post, that the death penalty for Obama-era conspirators would be necessary. In another post, French called for the public execution of Schiff, who led the House committee investigating Russian interference.
Our take
Bo French spent years treating his X accounts like a private death row docket that listed Obama and his team for public execution over Russia claims he hated. The same pattern repeated with Schiff getting the public hanging treatment for leading the House probe. Those demands sit beside his call to ban Islam outright and his dismissal of childless women as selfish while he scored Jews against Muslims for some imaginary threat contest. A single racist post finally triggered the real consequence when Cornyn and other Republicans announced they would not support him for the railroad commission. February 2025 brought another round under an old handle that again pushed public executions including Schiff on the list. Earlier posts answered a Trump drain the swamp line by insisting the death penalty was required for Obama era figures accused of lying about Russia. Every entry on that scroll treated disagreement as capital treason that deserved an audience and a blade. The concrete joke is that French kept fantasizing about live executions of opponents yet the only public execution happening now is his own campaign getting strung up by the very party he wanted to lead. His suspended account and surviving posts keep feeding the investigation that turned his fantasy death row into a career obituary. The railroad commission job involves regulating trains and pipelines not staging spectacles yet French's record shows he prefers the fucking spectacle every time. Cornyn's refusal is not abstract disapproval it is the party pulling the lever on the trap door under French's ambitions. The pattern of posts reveals a man who used social media as his personal killing floor while angling for actual regulatory power and now the power is evaporating because the posts refuse to stay buried. No explanation from the campaign changes the fact that the investigation simply read the receipts French himself wrote. The result is a candidate whose biggest public execution was self inflicted and the only tracks left are the ones his party laid straight to the exit.
