So I want to start with something that just happened
literally like two days ago. And it's one of
those stories that sounds like it's from a movie
script. The Colbert thing. Right. It's just it's
wild. It's completely wild. So picture this.
You've got a politician. He's scheduled to go
on a huge late night talk show. National audience.
The kind of exposure that campaigns. You know,
there's been millions trying to get. The big
leagues. The late show with Stephen Colbert.
Exactly. The big leagues. And then, less than
48 hours before he's supposed to be on set, the
whole thing gets shut down. The network lawyers
call the show and say, nope. He can't come on.
It's just it's so rare for that to happen so
publicly. Usually if a guest gets blunt and you
hear, you know, scheduling conflict, it's quiet.
This is not quiet. No, this was February 16th,
2026. The politician is James Tirico, Texas state
representative who's running for U .S. Senate.
And the reason for the cancellation, according
to Colbert himself, this is what's so chilling.
Yeah. The lawyer cited intensifying pressure
from the Trump administration. I mean, stop and
think about that phrase. Intensifying pressure.
It's so loaded. And it immediately creates this
incredible narrative. It's the Streisand effect
on like a national scale. Yeah. If you tell people
they can't see something, it's the only thing
they want to see. Oh, absolutely. And if you're
trying to design a marketing campaign for a relatively
unknown state rep, you couldn't have engineered
a better launch pad. CBS just handed him a golden
ticket. They really did. Because Colbert, to
his credit, didn't just let it go. He didn't
just quietly put on some actor to talk about
their new movie. He went rogue. He went totally
rogue. He went on air. He explained what happened.
And then he just posted the entire pre -taped
interview on YouTube anyway. Which turns it from
a routine interview into, like, forbidden knowledge.
The interview they didn't want you to see. And
the numbers are just staggering. As of this morning,
that quote -unquote banned interview has 4 .5
million views. Wow. It is the single most viewed
segment on The Late Show's channel in over a
year. So the attempt to silence him made him
louder than he ever could have been on his own.
It's a perfect backfire. It is. And it raises
the central question, the one that got us interested
in doing this deep dive. Who is James Tallarico?
Who is this 36 -year -old state rep from Round
Rock, Texas, that someone somewhere is apparently
so afraid of? Right. What makes this guy so dangerous
that a major network gets cold feet? And that
is exactly what we're going to unpack today.
Because this viral moment, it's just the tip
of the iceberg. James Tallarico is, and I don't
think this is an exaggeration, one of the most
fascinating political experiments happening in
America right now. He really is. But we should
be clear, experiments can fail spectacularly.
What he's trying to do, especially in a place
like Texas, is something that most political
consultants would probably tell you is, you know,
political pseudocide. So let's define the experiment.
He's a Democrat. Obviously, he's a former public
school teacher. And this is the part that makes
it all so unique. He's also a Presbyterian seminarian.
The triple threat, as some have called it, politician,
teacher and preacher. And he's weaving all three
of those identities together to try and do something
that Democrats have, for the most part, failed
at for 40 years. He's trying to reclaim the language
of faith from the Republican Party. Exactly.
He's making a hostile takeover bid for morality
and politics. He's running for the U .S. Senate.
And his core argument. over and over is a progressive
one argued through the lens of scripture. He's
basically trying to out Christian the Christian
right. He's not shying away from religious debate.
He's running straight into it. So today we are
going to go so much deeper than just the Colbert
incident. That's just the hook. We're going to
look at his origin story from a single parent
household in Round Rock to the halls of Harvard.
We'll examine his actual legislative record in
a deep red statehouse. And he has a record. That's
what's important. He's not just a speech giver.
He's passed significant bipartisan bills. And
then we'll get into the core of his political
identity. It's very specific, very public brand
of theology driven politics. The central question
of this whole deep dive really is, is he a genuine
blueprint for how Democrats can compete in red
states? Or is he just a unicorn, a one off phenomenon
from a weird Austin area district who is about
to learn a very hard lesson in a statewide race?
I can't wait to get into it. So let's start at
the beginning. Before the viral sermons, before
the walkouts, before the Senate run, let's talk
about his origin story. Sure. He's homegrown
Texas through and through, born in 1989 in Round
Rock, just north of Austin. And his background
isn't, you know, the Silver Spoons story. He
was born to a single mother, Tamara Causey, and
later adopted by his stepfather, Mark Tallarico.
It's a very grounded beginning. And you can kind
of see the threads of his future career and his
education, can't you? You really can. It's like
he was building his toolkit piece by piece. So
first he goes to the University of Texas at Austin
for his bachelor's degree. Hook him. Right. But
then he makes a jump that's, well, it's a little
unusual for a future Texas politician. He goes
to Harvard. To the Harvard Graduate School of
Education for a master's in education policy.
Now, in Texas politics, having Harvard on your
resume can be a double -edged sword. Oh, absolutely.
His opponents love to paint him as an East Coast
elite, you know, the Harvard academic. But the
key is what he actually studied. He wasn't studying
abstract political theory. He was studying the
nuts and bolts of how schools run, the policy,
the stuff that directly impacts kids in classrooms.
And crucially, he didn't just stay in that ivory
tower. A lot of people get a degree like that
and they go work for a think tank in D .C. He
did the opposite. He came right back to Texas
to get his hands dirty. Which brings us to Teach
for America. He joined in 2011. And he wasn't
placed in some leafy, wealthy suburb. He taught
sixth grade English on the west side of San Antonio.
We should probably give some context for what
that means. The west side of San Antonio is a
predominantly low income title high school environment.
It's a tough gig. You're not just a teacher.
You're a counselor. You're a social worker. You're
dealing with kids who are coming to school with
heavy burdens from home. It's the front lines
of the education system. And sixth graders. I
mean, that age group is a force of nature. They're
a specific kind of chaos, aren't they? They are
all energy and hormones and absolutely no filter.
Right. If you're boring, they will let you know.
If you're not being authentic, they will sniff
it out from a mile away. I honestly think his
teaching experience is the key to his entire
communication style. If you can hold the attention
of 36th graders and explain the concept of, say,
a subordinate clause, then you can probably handle
a filibuster in the Texas House. The legislature
is probably easier, frankly. At least there,
they pretend to be paying attention. But watch
him speak, even in that Colbert clip. He explains
complex policy like a great teacher explains
a new concept. He makes it clear. He makes it
accessible. He uses analogies. He never talks
down to his audience. It's a very powerful tool.
So after Teach for America, he works for a nonprofit
called Reasoning Mind. Yeah. Their whole mission
was about bringing educational technology to
low income classrooms, trying to bridge that
digital divide. So you see this pattern emerging.
Before he ever thinks about running for office,
he spent years on the ground inside the system,
seeing where the policies passed in Austin are
failing in the real world. That's the kind of
frustration that usually leads someone to run
for, I don't know, the local school board. Right.
Tallarico decided to skip a few steps. So it's
2018. He's only 28 years old. An incumbent Republican
in his home district steps down, creating an
open seat, and he decides to go for it. And this
was not a safe Democratic seat. This was Texas
House District 52. At the time, it was a genuine
swing district. Purple could go either way. And
he runs a campaign that becomes something of
a local legend, the shoe leather campaign. A
lot of candidates say they knock on doors. Tallarico
took it to a different level. He didn't just,
you know, drive to the nice subdivisions. He
decided to physically walk the entire length
of his district. In Texas. In the summer. I just,
I can't overstate how physically punishing that
is. But think about what it does for a candidate.
You are not just seeing your district through
a car window. You are feeling the cracked pavement
under your feet. You're meeting people on their
porches covered in sweat. It creates a different
kind of bond. It shows a level of hunger, of
commitment, that you can't fake in a 30 -second
TV ad. No, you can't. And it worked. He pulled
off the upset. He won the special election. And
at age 29, he became the youngest member of the
Texas legislature. So he arrives in Austin. He's
the new kid on the block in a Capitol building
that is, let's say it's dominated by older. Very
conservative, very entrenched Republicans. The
freshman hazing period, as they call it. The
expectation is you sit in the back, you keep
quiet, and you learn how things work. Right.
Maybe you get to pass a resolution naming a highway
after a local hero. If you're lucky. But that
is not what he did. And this is a great transition
into his actual legislative track record. Because
it's easy to assume that a young, vocal progressive
in a red state legislature is just going to be
a protest voice, making speeches but getting
nothing done. But that's not what the record
shows. And this is where the dynamic I find most
fascinating about him comes into play. It's this
constant tension between his high -minded, progressive
ideology and this incredibly sharp, almost ruthless
pragmatism. He finds these weird little overlaps
where he can build coalitions. Yeah, he finds
the spots where the far left and, say, the libertarian
right might actually agree on something, even
if they're coming out from completely different
places. Okay, let's start with the clearest example.
of this, the insulin cap. This is probably his
signature achievement. And it ties directly back
to that story of him walking across the district.
It's so visceral because it's so personal. So
let's go back to that 2018 campaign. He's walking
20, 25 miles a day. He starts feeling awful.
And he probably just assumes it's dehydration,
right? Heat exhaustion. Of course. He's young.
He's fit. He's a type A personality just trying
to push through the pain. But he was pushing
his body to the absolute brink. He eventually
collapsed. His family rushed him to the hospital,
and he wakes up in the ICU. And the doctors tell
him he's incredibly lucky to be alive. It wasn't
just heat stroke. It was diabetic ketoacidosis.
His pancreas had basically shut down. He was
diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. That's a life
-altering diagnosis. It's not something you recover
from. It's something you manage forever. It completely
changes your reality. One day you're a healthy
young person, the next day your life depends
on a constant supply of medication. And that
dependency, that's where the politics of this
story really kicks in. The moment he leaves the
hospital. Exactly. After five days in the ICU,
he goes to the pharmacy to pick up his first
30 -day supply of insulin. And we should remember,
insulin isn't some brand new cutting -edge gene
therapy. The patent was sold in 1923 for $1.
$1. The inventors explicitly said they wanted
it to be affordable for everyone. A century ago.
But when Tallarico, who has health insurance,
mind you, goes to the counter, the pharmacist
tells him the price. $684. For one month's supply.
That's a car payment. That's a mortgage payment
in some parts of the state. That's a family's
grocery budget. And he describes having this
moment of absolute clarity. He's thinking, OK,
I have a decent job. I have some savings. I can
put this on a credit card and figure it out.
But what if I couldn't? What if I was working
minimum wage? What if I lost my job? The choice
becomes insulin or rent. And with type one diabetes,
that's not really a choice. If you don't get
the insulin, you die. It is that stark. So he
takes that personal trauma, that pharmacy counter
shock, and he turns it into legislation. House
Bill 82. But here's the key question. How on
earth do you get a Republican -controlled legislature,
a body that philosophically hates price controls
and government intervention in the market, to
pass a bill that caps the price of a drug? That's
the political genius of it. He didn't frame it
as an economic issue. He didn't use the language
of socialized medicine. He framed it as a pro
-life issue. Exactly. He stood on the floor of
the Texas House. He told his story. He held up
his insulin pen. He made it personal. He essentially
dared his colleagues, many of whom whom run on
a very strong pro -life platform, to vote against
a measure that would keep their constituents
alive. He made it impossible to vote no without
looking like a hypocrite. And it worked. He built
this coalition of Democrats and Republicans and
passed a bill that capped the copay for insulin
at $25 a month for many Texans. From over $600
down to $25. That is the life -changing difference.
It is. Now, to be clear, it's not a perfect solution.
It applies to state -regulated health plans,
so it doesn't cover everyone. But it was a massive
step. It proves that you could take on big pharma
in a red state if you found the right argument.
He also waded into another really difficult area,
police reform. We have to talk about the Javier
Ambler case. Yeah, this was a huge, tragic story
that happened right in his backyard in Williamson
County. Javier Ambler was a 40 -year -old black
man, a postal worker. a father he was pulled
over for a really minor traffic infraction failing
to dim his headlights to oncoming traffic and
a 22 -minute chase ensued a chase that ended
with his death but the really shocking detail
here was that the williamson county deputies
involved were being filmed for a reality TV show.
Live PD. I remember this show. It was incredibly
controversial. It was. The whole premise was
embedding camera crews with police departments.
And critics argued for years that the presence
of those cameras created a perverse incentive.
It turned police work into entertainment. If
you want to get on TV, you can't just have a
quiet shift riding traffic pickets. Right. You
need action. You need drama. And in Javier Ambler's
case, he told the deputies repeatedly that he
had a heart condition, that he couldn't breathe.
They tased him multiple times and he died. His
last words were, I can't breathe. It's just horrific.
It is. And Talarico didn't just send out a thoughts
and prayers tweet. He went right at the powerful
local sheriff, Robert Chody, and publicly called
for his resignation. That's a bold move for a
state rep. Very bold. And then he followed it
up with legislation, House Bill 54, which became
known as Javier Ambler's Law. And what did the
law do specifically? It's very simple, very direct.
It bans any law enforcement agency in Texas from
contracting with a reality television show. It
severs the link between policing and for -profit
entertainment. And again, he got it passed. He
did because he found that common ground. Even
the most pro -police Republican could see that
having a TV producer and a cop's ear yelling,
get the shot, is probably not a great recipe
for public safety or good police work. It seems
his strategy is to find these issues that feel
like they should be common sense, even if the
policy solution is actually quite progressive.
He frames them as moral issues, not partisan
ones. But he doesn't win all of them. His big
education agenda, for instance, ran into a brick
wall named Governor Greg Abbott. Yes, the Great
Recess debate. Wow. It sounds so ridiculous when
you say it out loud. It does. I mean, who could
possibly be against recess? Well, Tallarico had
this package of bills he called the whole student
agenda. Yeah. He got parts of it passed, like
ensuring kids who are suspended still get their
coursework. Yeah. But one bill, HB 455, would
have simply required elementary schools to provide
a certain amount of time for unstructured play
for recess. And Governor Abbott vetoed it. He
vetoed it. The official reason was that it was
an example of state overreach. that local school
districts should decide their own schedules.
Local control. But the optics are terrible. The
governor who canceled recess. The optics are
awful. But for Tallarico, I think it was an important
lesson. It showed him that even the most benign,
common sense, nice bill could be sacrificed on
the altar of a governor's political ideology.
So that's the pragmatist. Yeah. The guy who gets
things done. But there's a whole other side to
his record. The times when he decided the only
winning move was to, well, literally leave the
building. The walkouts. This is where you see
the fighter, Talarico, the guy who's willing
to grind the entire legislative process to a
halt. We should probably do a quick Texas Civics
101 here for people who aren't familiar with
this. The quorum rule. Right. In the Texas House,
you can't hold a vote on a bill unless two thirds
of the members are physically present in the
chamber. It's a constitutional requirement. So
out of 150 members, you need 100 people in the
room for business to happen. If 51 of them decide
to go on a little trip. The whole system shuts
down. the speaker can bang the gavel all day
long, but no laws can be passed. So flashback
to 2021. The Republican majority is pushing a
set of very restrictive voting laws. Things like
banning 24 -hour voting, banning drive -thru
voting, empowering partisan poll watchers. And
the Democrats just don't have the votes on the
floor to stop it. They're in the minority. So
they use their only remaining weapon. They fled.
They chartered planes and flew to Washington,
D .C., just outside the jurisdiction of the Texas
Rangers, who could have arrested them and brought
them back. Tallarico was right there with them.
It was a huge national story. But here's where
the story gets a little more complicated and,
honestly, more interesting. After several weeks,
Tallarico was one of the first Democrats to return
to Texas. He was, and he caught so much hell
for it from his own side. Progressive activists,
fellow Democrats, they were livid. They saw it
as breaking ranks, as caving in. So why did he
do it? What was his rationale? This is that pragmatism
kicking in again. His argument was essentially
that the walkout had served its purpose. The
goal, in his view, was to run out the clock on
the special session and, more importantly, to
draw national attention to the issue to pressure
Congress to pass federal voting rights legislation.
Like the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. Exactly.
He argued. We did that. We made our point. Now
we need to go back and engage in harm reduction.
His belief was that it was better to be in the
room fighting to amend the bill and make it less
bad than to stay in D .C. indefinitely while
the Republicans eventually passed whatever they
wanted anyway. It's a very calculated, almost
cold political analysis. He's looking at the
long game while others are focused on the symbolic
stand. It definitely showed an independent streak.
He was willing to risk the wrath of his own base
because he thought the strategy needed to change.
But don't think for a second that it means he's
afraid of a fight. Because in 2025... He did
it all over again. The redistricting walkout.
Yes. The GOP tried to ram through a mid -decade
congressional redistricting map, which is a huge
no -no. You're only supposed to do it once a
decade after the census. This was a pure power
grab to lock in their majority. So he and 50
other Democrats walked out again. They did. And
this time, the Republican leadership escalated
things dramatically. The attorney general, Ken
Paxton, literally sued to have Tallarico and
the others expelled from the legislature. He
tried to have them fired from their jobs for
doing their jobs in a way. He tried to have their
seats declared vacant. It was a full blown constitutional
crisis. Tallarico was facing the end of his political
career. That's playing chicken with the entire
democratic process. It is. He eventually returned
before the Texas Supreme Court could rule. But
the fact that he was willing to go that far to
put his seat on the line shows you that when
he thinks a fundamental principle is at stake,
the pragmatist disappears and the fighter takes
over. So you've got this fascinating mix, the
guy who builds coalitions to cap insulin prices
and the guy who flees the state to shut down
the government. What is the three line? What
connects those two sides of him? It's his faith.
I am convinced that if you don't understand his
theology, you can't understand his political
calculus. It is the absolute core of the Telerico
brand. OK, let's dive into that. Section three,
the theology of James Telerico. And like you
said, he doesn't hide this. He's not just a politician
who happens to go to church on Sunday. No, he
is actively studying for a Master of Divinity
at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary.
He's deeply involved in his church, St. Andrew's
Presbyterian in Austin. He preaches guest sermons.
This is central to his identity. And he often
talks about the influence of his grandfather,
who was a Baptist preacher. Right. And he says
his grandfather taught him that religion is actually
very simple. Not easy, but simple. It boils down
to two things. Love God and love your neighbor.
It's the great commandment from the Gospels.
It is. But Telerico does something really clever
with it. He takes that simple phrase and he defines
politics through it. He says politics is simply
the public application of how we treat our neighbors.
That's a powerful reframe. It's a brilliant reframe
because once you accept that definition, then
every single policy debate becomes a theological
debate. A budget is no longer a spreadsheet.
It's a moral document. A health care bill isn't
about economics. It's about whether or not we
are loving our neighbor by healing them. And
this framework is what leads him directly into
his what he calls his war on Christian nationalism.
He is one of the most outspoken critics of Christian
nationalism in the country. He calls it a cancer
on our religion. He calls it idolatry. He says
it's the worship of power instead of the worship
of God. I'm looking at a quote from a sermon
he gave in 2023. It went viral, got over a million
views. He says that Christian nationalists have
turned Jesus into a and this is a direct quote,
gun toting, gay bashing, science denying, money
loving, fear mongering fascist. That is not pulling
any punches. No, that is throwing a theological
hand grenade. But here's why it's so politically
potent. If a secular liberal from New York says
that, the conservative Christian audience just
dismisses it. It's anti -Christian bias. It's
an attack from the outside. They just tune it
out. Mattelarico is saying it from a pulpit.
He's saying it from a pulpit as a seminarian
quoting scripture to back up his points. He is
fighting from inside the house. He's not attacking
Christianity. He's arguing that Christian nationalism
is a perversion of Christianity. The heresy.
Essentially, yes. He's accusing them of breaking
the very first commandment. You shall have no
other gods before me. He's saying they've made
an idol out of political power, out of the flag,
out of a political party. And that is a critique
that is very, very difficult for his opponents
to respond to. And we. saw this play out in real
time during the Ten Commandments battle in the
legislature. This was a huge culture war flashpoint.
The GOP introduced a bill that would have required
every single public school classroom in Texas
to display a poster of the Ten Commandments.
And Tallarico led the fight against it. But I
want to focus on how he fought it because it
was a masterclass. First, he killed the bill
with a procedural move, a point of order. Yeah,
this is where the Harvard policy nerd comes out
to play. The Texas legislative rulebook is incredibly
thick and incredibly specific. There are arcane
rules about everything from how a bill's caption
is written to the font size used in the financial
analysis. It's like a teacher grading a term
paper for formatting errors. It's exactly like
that. And Tallarico knows that rulebook inside
and out. So while the Republicans were on the
floor giving these grand speeches about morality,
he was quietly reading the bill's paperwork.
And he found a tiny technical error. So he didn't
beat them on the substance of the argument. He
beat them on a technicality. Initially, yes.
He raised a point of order. The parliamentarian
had to agree the bill was flawed and it died.
It infuriates his opponents because it's a very
public way of saying not only are you wrong,
you're also sloppy. But of course, they fixed
the error and brought the bill back. And that's
when the real debate happened. Right. And this
is the moment that really went viral. He stood
up to question the bill's Republican author.
And the standard Democratic argument here would
be about the separation of church and state.
The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
Exactly. And he made that argument. But then
he went a step further. He argued that the bill
wasn't just un -American. It was also un -Christian.
Now that's a bold claim. How do you argue that
posting the Ten Commandments is unchristian?
His logic was fascinating. He said that faith,
by its very nature, must be a free choice. It
cannot be coerced. He argued that when the government
mandates the display of a holy text, it cheapens
it. It turns something sacred into just another
government poster on the wall right next to the
fire drill instructions. He's saying you're actually
disrespecting the text by forcing it on people.
Precisely. He was making both a libertarian argument,
the government shouldn't be involved in religion,
and a deeply theological one, that forced faith.
Faith is not true faith. And that clip of him
calmly grilling the Republican sponsor is what
landed him on the Joe Rogan experience. In July
of 2025, a massive, massive platform. And it
showed he wasn't afraid to go into a space that
isn't traditionally friendly to Democrats and
make his case. OK, so all of this, the legislative
record, the viral moments, the theological framework,
it's all been a buildup to this current moment,
the 2026 Senate campaign. He announced his run
in September of 2025, and he is jumping into
a very competitive Democratic primary. His main
opponent is U .S. Representative Jasmine Crockett.
And that is a clash of titans. Crockett is a
star in the progressive movement. She's known
for these fiery viral clips from congressional
hearings. She's a brilliant debater and a fierce
fighter. She represents the, you know, the punch
back twice as hard wing of the party. So it's
a real contrast in styles. But Tallarico has
been gaining some serious momentum. He just got
the endorsement of the Houston Chronicle. Which
is a big deal. And their reasoning was very telling.
They didn't just say they liked his policies.
They specifically cited his perceived ability
to win over undecided and even soft Republican
voters. They mentioned an appearance he made
on that YouTube series Jubilee. Yes. The surrounded.
format. They put one person in the middle of
a circle of like 25 people who disagree with
them. In his case, it was one Texas Democrat
versus 25 undecided voters. That sounds like
my personal nightmare. It's an absolute pressure
cooker. But the Chronicle's editorial board pointed
out that Tallarico never got defensive. He didn't
raise his voice. He just listened calmly and
respectfully and then made his case. And you
could see people in the circle start to nod along.
It's that nice guy disruptor tactic again. It
is. The Chronicle basically made the argument
that while Jasmine Crockett is fantastic at firing
up the base, Tallarico might be the one who can
actually expand the tent. So let's get into the
specifics of what he's actually running on. What's
the platform? It is, broadly speaking, a pretty
standard progressive platform. But the way he
brands it is pure Texas. Let's start with health
care. He supports a universal health care system,
a Medicare for all style public auction. But
he doesn't call it that. He calls it Medicare
for y 'all. Medicare for y 'all. I mean, it's
just brilliant marketing. It really is. It takes
this concept that has been relentlessly attacked
as socialism. Yeah. And it wraps it in the warmest,
friendliest, most Texan word there is. Exactly.
Medicare for all sounds like a federal government
program. Medicare for y 'all sounds like something
your neighbor is inviting you to. It's communal.
It's folksy. It's disarming. He does the same
thing with immigration using this front porch
metaphor. This is one of his best rhetorical
devices. He says, we need to treat our southern
border like we treat our front porch. We should
have a giant welcome mat out front and we should
have a good lock on the door. It perfectly threads
the needle between compassion and security. It
does. It validates the concerns of people worried
about security and order, the lock, while affirming
the progressive value of welcoming immigrants
and asylum seekers, the welcome mat. It completely
sidesteps the false choice between open borders
and build the wall. He's also leaning heavily
into congressional reform. Very heavily. Term
limits for members of Congress, a ban on them
trading stocks, and a federal ban on partisan
gerrymandering. These are all hugely popular
ideas with voters across the political spectrum.
They poll incredibly well. They do, because they
tap into that deep -seated feeling that the system
in Washington is rigged and corrupt. But he's
not playing it safe on every issue. His stance
on Israel and Palestine is, well, it's pretty
far to the left for a statewide candidate in
Texas. This is probably his biggest political
risk. Texas has a very large and very influential
pro -Israel evangelical Christian population.
And Tallarico has been an outspoken critic of
the Israeli government's actions in Gaza. He
hasn't minced words. He's used terms like atrocities
and war crimes. He has. He supports a two -state
solution. But in the immediate term, he supports
banning the sale of offensive weapons to Israel.
He's been critical of AIPAC. He's called the
war the moral test of our time. That's going
to be used against him in attack ads, 100%. They'll
paint him as anti -Israel, as radical. Without
a doubt. But his argument is that it's a consistent
application of his core belief. His love your
neighbor theology doesn't stop at the U .S. border.
He argues that you can't ignore the suffering
of Palestinian civilians. It's a morally courageous
stance, but it's also politically perilous. He
also has strong positions on the Supreme Court.
Yeah, he's opened the idea of expanding the court
and he strongly supports term limits for justices
and a binding code of ethics, which is a direct
response to the recent scandals involving. some
of the justices. So his platform is a mix of
folksy branded populism and some genuinely risky
progressive foreign policy. It's a complex balancing
act. And all of this is happening against the
backdrop of this escalating fight over media
and censorship, which brings us right back to
where we started. It's become a central theme
of his campaign. It's not just the Colbert cancellation.
There was also an FCC probe launched into the
talk show The View after he appeared on it. Right,
citing equal time rules, even though those rules
almost never apply to news and talk shows. It
all feeds into this narrative that he's a threat
to the established order. When Stephen Colbert
goes on national television and says, my boss
has told me not to talk about this, but I'm going
to anyway. It makes Telerico look like the one
person who's telling a truth so dangerous, the
powers that be are trying to shut him up. It's
the ultimate validation. It elevates him from
just another candidate. to a cause, a free speech
murder. Which is so ironic because if you actually
watch him, his personal style is the opposite
of a dangerous radical. That's the great paradox
of James Tallarico. He is what I'd call the nice
guy disruptor. He doesn't yell. He doesn't pound
the table. His cadence is very calm, very measured.
It's almost pastoral. It's very youth pastor,
isn't it? You kind of expect him to break out
an acoustic guitar at any moment. You really
do. But that calmness is a political weapon.
It's incredibly effective. It disarms people.
When your opponent is red faced and screaming
about socialism and you're just calmly explaining
your position, you automatically look like the
more reasonable person in the room. It makes
it very hard for them to land a punch. We also
have to touch on his political survival skills.
Right. The redistricting process in 2021 was
designed in part To end his career. Oh, absolutely.
The Republican map drawers took his swing district,
District 52, and they surgically redrew the lines
to make it significantly more Republican. It
was a targeted kill shot. So how did he survive?
He moved. A neighboring district, District 50,
was a safe Democratic seat and the incumbent
was retiring. So Tallarico packed his bags and
moved a few miles over. His opponents must have
screamed, carpetbagger. They did, of course.
They called him an opportunist. But his argument
was simple. I was drawn out of my district. If
I want to keep fighting for these values in the
legislature, I have to be in a district I can
win. And the Democratic primary voters in the
new district embraced him. He won with almost
80 percent of the vote. So he's not just a preacher.
He's a shrewd political operator. He understands
how to play the game. He knows when to give a
sermon and when to read a map. So let's try to
pull all these threads together. We have a politician.
who quotes Jesus to argue for abortion rights
and LGBTQ equality. A type one diabetic who took
on big pharma and capped insulin prices. A viral
sensation who is now at the center of a national
debate about censorship. It is a unique and potent
combination, but it all comes down to the big
question. Can it work? In Texas. Yeah. Is Texas
in 2026 ready for a candidate like this? Let's
be honest. This is still a state that comfortably
reelected Greg Abbott and Ted Cruz. The Republican
Party machine here is incredibly powerful. Tallarico
is making a huge bet. He's betting that the reason
Democrats keep losing statewide is what he calls
the God gap. Right. He believes there's a huge
slice of the electorate, moderates, independents,
even some soft Republicans who are culturally
conservative and religious, but might be open
to a progressive economic message if it's delivered
by someone they see as sharing their values.
He's trying to give them permission to vote Democratic.
He is. He's trying to tell them, you don't have
to choose between your faith. and your economic
well -being. In fact, my faith is what drives
my desire for your economic well -being. So let's
bring it home. Why does any of this matter to
someone listening in, say, California or Ohio
or Florida? What is the national significance
of James Tallarico? I think it's because the
National Democratic Party has a perceived God
problem. For the last few decades, they have,
for a variety of reasons, largely ceded the public
square when it comes to the language of faith,
values, and morality. They talk policy and data,
while the GOP talks about good and evil. And
that's a powerful asymmetry. Telerico is offering
a potential blueprint for how to change that.
He's demonstrating that you don't have to run
away from faith. You can run toward it. You can
use the same text your opponents use, but use
them to argue for compassion, for justice, for
health care. If he could actually win a U .S.
Senate seat in the heart of the Bible Belt. It
would be a political earthquake. It would fundamentally
change the calculus for Democrats running in
red and purple states everywhere. It would prove
that the Republican monopoly on religious voters
is not unbreakable. It could reopen a conversation
that's been closed for a generation. It could.
So let me leave you. and everyone listening with
a final provocative thought to chew on. Tallarico's
central critique of Christian nationalism is
that it's the worship of power, that it is idolatry.
If he wins the Senate race, if his religious
progressive framework proves to be a successful
political strategy, does that fundamentally change
the Republican Party's relationship with its
own religious base? If the God card is no longer
an exclusive Trump card, does it force both parties
back to a place where they have to debate policy
on the merits? Or does it just ignite an even
more intense holy war for the soul of America?
That is the multibillion dollar question, isn't
it? Is he's building a bridge to a new kind of
politics or is it a battering ram that will just
deepen our division? I don't know the answer.
Yeah, it's going to be fascinating to watch.
It certainly will be. Thanks for listening to
this deep dive. We'll see you next time. Welcome
to The Debate. It is Wednesday, February 18,
2026. I am the Advocate. And I am the Dissenter.
So if you happen to tune into CBS on Monday night
for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, you probably
noticed a pretty jarring edit. For I think the
first time in a recent memory, a network actually
pulled a guest segment just hours before it was
supposed to air. And that guest was James Tallarico,
the Texas state representative who is right now
locked in a very heated primary for the U .S.
Senate. A cancellation that has. arguably done
more for his campaign than the interview itself
ever would have. Absolutely. CBS said it was
about regulatory concerns after, you know, getting
pressure from the Trump administration about
equal time rules for candidates. But Colbert,
well, he did what he does. He filmed the interview
anyway and just dropped it on YouTube. As of
this morning, we're looking at what, four and
a half million views? It's the most watched political
segment of the year so far. It's the Streisand
effect in its purest form. The administration
tried to bury a state -level politician, and
instead, he basically minted a national martyr
for free speech. But we need to look past the
media circus here. I mean, the viral numbers
are impressive, sure, but they don't answer the
question of who James Tallarico actually is.
And that is exactly where we're going today.
Tallarico is a really fascinating case study.
He's a young white man in the South who speaks
fluent evangelical Christian, yet he holds one
of the most progressive voting records in the
Texas House. He's running on a platform that
explicitly fuses his theology with policy. And
that fusion? That's the core of the tension we
need to unpack. Is James Tallarico the blueprint
for how Democrats can actually win back the heartland
by reclaiming the moral language of faith? Or
is he a performative partisan, a guy who uses
the aesthetics of religion and these high stakes
procedural stunts like shutting down the government
to build a personal brand instead of actually
governing? Well, I'm going to argue that Tallarico
represents a necessary and, frankly, vital evolution
in political strategy. We are watching a Democrat
who absolutely refuses to cede the moral high
ground to the right. He isn't just, you know,
claiming faith as a cultural signifier. He is
using a rigorous theological framework to dismantle
Christian nationalism from the inside. And crucially,
he backs it up with a real legislative record,
including lifesaving wins like the insulin cost
cap, which he passed in a hostile Republican
legislature. And I'll be taking the opposing
view. I see a career that's defined by contradiction
and, frankly, by calculation. Tallarico champions
the separation of church and state when it suits
in, you know, tearing down the Ten Commandments
in schools. Yet he campaigns explicitly from
the pulpit. He says he wants to get things done,
but then he engages in these radical obstructionist
tactics that just stop the government from functioning.
I argue Tallarico is less of a legislator and
more of a content creator, surfing these waves
of polarization for his own advancement. Let's
start with the substance of the man, because
it is easy to get lost in that content creator
label, given his social media presence. But the
resume, it tells a different story. Tyler Rico
didn't come up through law school or some political
dynasty. He started out as a middle school English
teacher on the west side of San Antonio with
Teach for America. Which is a noble start, but
let's be honest. It's also become a fairly standard
stepping stone for ambitious young politicals
these days. Perhaps, but it grounded his policy
perspective in reality. He went on to run a non
-profit, Reasoning Mind, which focused on digital
literacy in low -income schools. But the real
differentiator and the thing that makes him such
a puzzle for his opponents is his theological
training. While he was serving in the Texas House,
he earned a Master of Divinity from Austin Presbyterian
Theological Seminary. A sitting legislator in
seminary is unusual. I'll give you that. It is
more than unusual. It's the key to his entire
political project. Tallarico frames politics
through the lens of the two great commandments,
love God and love your neighbor. Now that can
sound like Sunday school fluff until you look
at something like House Bill 82. Tallarico is
a type 1 diabetic. He knows the physical cost
of the disease. In Texas, he was paying $684
for a single month's supply of insulin. He took
that personal struggle, applied that moral framework
of neighborliness, and successfully passed a
law capping insulin co -pays at $25 a month.
Which is a significant victory. There's no question.
It's massive. And he did it in a legislature
completely controlled by the GOP. That proves
he isn't just making noise. He's finding the
moral leverage to force the majority to act.
He didn't win that by shouting about data or
economic theory. He won it by making a moral
argument that Republicans just couldn't publicly
vote against. I don't dispute the insulin cap.
It's good policy. But you are highlighting the,
let's call them the Mr. Smith goes to Washington
moments, and you're ignoring the sharp elbows.
Look at his district history. He started in House
District 52, a true swing district. When the
2021 redistricting made that seat redder, did
he stay and fight for those neighbors he talks
about? No. He moved to District 50, a safe blue
seat. That is standard political survival in
a state as aggressively gerrymandered as Texas.
If he had stayed, he would have been drawn out
of existence. It's political calculation. It
suggests he's more interested in preserving his
platform than in representing a specific community.
And now he's running for the U .S. Senate against
Jasmine Crockett. But my main issue is the inconsistency
on religion. I mean, Tallarico made national
headlines for tearing into a bill that would
require the Ten Commandments in classrooms. He
called it un -American. Because it violates the
establishment clause of the Constitution. That's
a consistent position. Is it, though? Because
his campaign slogan is Medicare for y 'all, and
he explicitly cites the Gospels to justify it.
He is using religious authority to sell secular
policy. You can't tell Republicans, keep your
religion out of my schools, and then turn around
and say, my religion demands you support universal
health care. It creates a double standard where
religious arguments are only valid if they support
progressive outcomes. And this leads us directly
into our first area of debate, the role of faith
in politics. You're framing this as hypocrisy.
I frame it as a battle for the very definition
of Christianity itself. OK, explain that distinction
to a secular voter who just sees another politician
quoting the Bible. Telerico makes a distinction
between civil religion and Christian nationalism.
For our listeners, Christian nationalism is the
belief that the American nation is defined by
Christianity and that the government should take
active steps to keep it that way. Tallarico calls
this the worship of power, social and political
domination disguised as faith. He argues that
the far right has turned Jesus into a, I think
his quote was, a gun -toting, gay -bashing, science
-denying fascist. Strong words. But again, he
is fighting fire with fire. He's fighting fire
with water. When Tallarico speaks, he isn't trying
to convert you to Presbyterianism. He is trying
to rescue the moral vocabulary from being monopolized
by authoritarians. He argues that true faith
requires humility, not domination. But he is
using the pulpit to endorse specific policy prescriptions.
When he appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience
back in July of 2025, which was a massive crossover
moment, he wasn't just talking about spiritual
wellness. He was directly connecting the Sermon
on the Mount to specific tax policies and health
care reforms. He is effectively saying, to be
a good Christian, you must vote for the Democratic
platform. No, he's saying that if you claim to
follow a teacher who said, blessed are the poor,
then you have to explain why your policies punish
them. That is exactly what the religious right
does. They say if you follow a God who creates
life, you must ban abortion. They believe their
policies are the logical output of their values,
just as Tallarico does. Tallarico seems to be
saying it's wrong when you use faith to shape
policy because your interpretation is wrong,
but it's righteous when I do it because my interpretation
is correct. He sets himself up as the sole arbiter
of true Christianity. The distinction is coercion
versus inspiration. The Ten Commandments bill
that was Senate Bill 1515 would have mandated
a religious text in every public classroom. That
is state -sponsored coercion. Tallarico advocating
for insulin caps because of his faith doesn't
force anyone to pray. It just makes insulin cheaper.
One is imposing a religion. The other is acting
from a religion. That distinction is intellectually
tidy. I'll give you that. But in practice, it's
messy. He is blurring the lines in a way that
risks alienating the secular base of the Democratic
Party. I mean, we have spent decades arguing
for a secular government. And Tallarico comes
along and says, actually, let's bring Jesus back
into the Senate. But, you know, make him a socialist.
It might work in a primary, but it fundamentally
alters the party's stance on secularism. But
look at the map. In a state like Texas, where
cultural identity is so deeply tied to faith,
you cannot win by simply shouting science or
data. You have to speak the language of the heart.
Tallarico is one of the only Democrats who's
fluent in that language. He's meeting people
where they are. Fluency is one thing. Weaponizing
it is another. But let's pivot from his words
to his actions. Because if his theology is all
about... His legislative tactics are remarkably
aggressive. You're referring to the quorum breaks.
I am. Let's talk about legislative effectiveness
versus obstructionism. For our listeners who
aren't steeped in parliamentary procedure. Breaking
quorum means denying the legislature the minimum
number of members it needs to do business. In
Texas, two -thirds of the House has to be present
to vote. So if enough members leave, the government
just stops. It's a valid parliamentary tool.
It's used by minority parties to pause dangerous
legislation. It is the nuclear option. In 2021,
Tallarico and his colleagues fled the state.
They flew to Washington, D .C. on private jets
to stop a voting rights bill. Then, just last
August in 2025, he was part of the 51 Democrats
who walked out over the new congressional maps.
I mean, this isn't debating. This is taking your
ball and going home because you're losing the
game. But you have to look at the stakes. In
2021, the bill in question, SB7, would have drastically
restricted voting hours. It would have empowered
partisan poll watchers to harass voters and limited
drive -through voting. It was an existential
threat to the democratic process. When the rules
of the game are being rigged to ensure permanent
minority rule for Republicans, you don't just
debate and lose gracefully. You flip the table.
Okay, but where does that end? This is the precedent
argument. If Republicans in a blue state, let's
say California, fled the state to stop a climate
change bill or gun safety legislation, would
you call that a valid parliamentary tool? Or
would you call it an assault on democracy? I
would look at the content of the bill. If the
bill restricts the fundamental right to vote,
then resistance becomes a moral obligation. Not
all bills are created equal. That's a subjective
baseline that relies on your side always being
the moral one. My point is about the degradation
of the institution. By normalizing the shutdown
of the legislature, Tallarico is eroding the
very system he claims he wants to save. And look
at the result. In 2021, they stayed away for
weeks. They got a lot of cable news airtime,
but eventually they had to come back, and the
bill passed anyway. So what was achieved other
than, well, celebrity? This is where the nuance
of Tallarico's position is crucial, and it's
where he actually showed real leadership. He
wasn't the last one holding out in D .C. Do you
remember his role in The Return? He came back
earlier than the main group, yes. He broke with
his own party leadership. He argued that the
quorum break had achieved its tactical goal,
drawing national attention and delaying the bill,
but that an indefinite stalemate was unsustainable.
He took immense heat from fellow Democrats for
that. Some in his own caucus called him a traitor.
That shows he isn't a radical obstructionist.
He's a pragmatist who knows when to use a hammer
and when to put it down. Or it demonstrates he
keeps a finger to the wind. He got the headlines
from the walkout, he milked the national interviews,
and then he avoided the worst of the consequences
like the civil arrest warrants by coming back
early. It feels opportunistic. And frankly, that
stunt in 2025 over the maps led to Attorney General
Ken Paxton suing to have their seats declared
vacant. That is a constitutional crisis that
Tallaraco helped invite. A crisis invited by
Ken Paxton is hardly Tallarico's fault. I mean,
Paxton will sue a ham sandwich if he thinks I'm
a play on Fox News. But Tallarico's ability to
navigate that chaos is why he's effective. And
we can't ignore the fact that when he is in the
building, he passes bills. Javier Ambler's law
banning reality TV crews like Live PD from riding
with police, that came out of a horrific tragedy.
Tallarico built a coalition with Libertarian
Republicans to get that done. That is not the
work of a show pony. I will give you Javier Ambler's
law. That was skillful coalition building, and
it required actual legislative grinding, not
just speeches. But it stands in stark contrast
to his current trajectory, which seems aimed
squarely at the cameras, which, you know, brings
us back to this week. The Colbert controversy.
The Colbert controversy, the view investigation,
the Jubilee video. We have to discuss his national
ambition. I argue the events of the last 48 hours
prove his effectiveness. The Trump administration
does not pressure a network to silence a state
representative unless they are afraid of his
message. They know that Tallarico appeals to
the exact demographic they need to hold on to,
working class religious voters. Or they're just
petty and litigious, which is also a hallmark
of this administration. But look at where Tallarico
is spending his time. He was in that Jubilee
video, one Texas Democrat versus 25 undecided
voters. It plays out like a game show. He is
debating random people on the internet for truntent.
Is he running for the United States Senate or
is he auditioning for a spot on MSNBC? You call
it content creation. I call it modern campaigning.
If you aren't viral, you aren't visible. But
look at the simplification that's required to
succeed in that arena. Medicare for y 'all. A
welcome mat with a lock on the door for immigration.
These are slogans, not policies. They are metaphors
that communicate complex values instantly. A
welcome mat with a lock explains that we can
be a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws,
a nuance that usually gets lost in the screaming
match. He is simplifying without dumbing down.
I disagree. Medicare for y 'all is a catchy hook,
but it glosses over the massive economic restructuring
required to actually implement it. And he's running
against Jasmine Crockett. who has her own national
profile but is seen as a fighter for the base.
Tallarica was trying to craft this religious
left lean that might not actually exist in the
electorate. He risks alienating the secular progressive
base, who are suspicious of any Jesus talk, while
failing to peel off enough evangelicals who are
locked into the GOP culture war. It's a high
wire act with no safety net. And that risk is
exactly why he is the most interesting politician
in the country right now. If he pulls this off,
if he can unite the multiracial working class
with disaffected voters of faith, he cracks the
code that has baffled Democrats for 20 years.
He offers a kind of permission structure for
religious voters to vote blue again. If is doing
a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. Let's
bring this to a close. James Tallarico is attempting
something that hasn't been done successfully
in modern Texas politics. He is fusing the moral
authority of the church with the policy goals
of the left. He has the legislative receipts,
insulin, police reform to show it's not just
talk. And the fact that the White House tried
to silence him this week suggests they know exactly
how dangerous he could be to their coalition.
He is certainly talented and he is undeniably
charismatic. But I remain skeptical of the method.
Blurring the lines between church and state,
even for good causes, degrades our secular institutions.
And engaging in procedural warfare like... Quorum
busting sets a precedent that will inevitably
be used against Democrats in the future. Tallarico
is betting that his personal brand can overcome
the structural gravity of Texas politics. And
I'm just not sure that's a bet I would take.
The Senate primary will be the ultimate test
of that theory. We encourage you to watch the
Colbert interview since CBS couldn't stop you
and look at the legislative record on House Bill
82 and SB 7. Right. Read the bills. Watch the
clips. Until next time.