A Texas GOP candidate for a powerful statewide office who faced backlash this month for posting racist remarks on social media had earlier called for “public executions for traitors” in since-removed X posts, according to CNN.
Bo French, the Republican nominee for Texas railroad commissioner, made at least five since-removed X posts referencing public executions, gallows or hanging in February 2025, and more in older social media posts, CNN found.
French made the February 2025 posts using a previous username for his current X account, according to CNN, which reported that it is unclear if the posts were removed because French deleted them or because they violated X’s rules against hate speech.
In one of those posts, responding to someone else’s post about excess government spending, French wrote, “I want more than perp walks. I want public executions.” In another, he appeared to call for the death of Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., writing, “I want to see public executions for traitors.” (The posts are available to view through the Wayback Machine.)
Older posts appeared on a now-suspended X account that French used for failed Texas statehouse runs in 2016 and 2018, CNN found. In a May 2020 post, he called for “the death penalty for the Obama conspirators,” adding the hashtag, “#HangEmHigh.” Calling for the execution of former President Barack Obama in another post the same month, French employed that hashtag again, adding, “The penalty for treason used to be death. Even for a former president.”
French did not immediately respond to MS NOW’s request for comment on Monday. He also did not respond to CNN’s inquiries.
The Railroad Commission regulates the state’s oil and gas industry, and commissioners are elected to six-year terms. Having prevailed against current commissioner James Wright by just under 15,000 votes in the May Republican primary, French will face off against Democratic state Rep. Jon Rosenthal in the November election. Rosenthal condemned French’s comments unearthed by CNN in an X post Monday, writing, “What you see here isn’t a single lapse in judgment or a context-free slip of the tongue, it is a clear, unabashed pattern of hate, bigotry, and extremism.”
This is not the first time French has come under fire for inflammatory and racist social media posts. Earlier this month, several prominent Republicans, including Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, condemned French for a series of X posts he made using a photo of mostly nonwhite students at the University of Texas in which he captioned, “The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined,” and, “It’s like they hate white Americans and prioritize everyone else.”
At the Conservative Political Action Conference earlier this year, French made Islamophobic comments and called for the deportation of 100 million people, the Texas Tribune reported.
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