While running as a moderate with bipartisan appeal, Texas state Rep. James Talarico, who defeated Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, for the Democratic Senate nomination, has a history of making controversial statements on matters of religion, race, gender, border security and beyond.
With Talarico in the national spotlight for the first time, many commentators and strategists are resurfacing some of his past remarks. Among them is a 2021 video of Talarico on the Texas House floor in Austin opposing a bill to ban men from women’s sports and claiming that “God is non-binary.”
“God is both masculine and feminine and everything in between. God is non-binary,” said Talarico, adding, “Trans children are God’s children, made in God’s own image.”
A self-identified Presbyterian seminarian, Talarico casts many of his political stances in Christian and biblical language. However, while speaking on a January episode of “The Ezra Klein Show,” Talarico appeared to equate Christianity with other religions, including Hinduism and Islam.
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“I believe that Jesus Christ reveals that reality to us, but I also believe that other traditions reveal that reality in their own ways, with their own simple structures. And I’ve learned more about my tradition by learning more about Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam and Judaism. And so, I see these beautiful faith traditions as circling the same truth about the universe, about the cosmos,” he said.
Despite his use of biblical language, Talarico’s stances on many core religious issues stand in stark contrast with most traditional Christian denominations.
He has used the Bible to defend abortion and, on his campaign website, advocates codifying Roe v. Wade into national law. On an episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience” last year, Talarico said the story of Jesus Christ’s incarnation justifies his support for abortion.
“I say all this in the context of abortion, because before God comes over Mary, and we have the incarnation, God asks for Mary’s consent… so to me, that is an affirmation in one of our most central stories that creation has to be done with consent. You cannot force someone to create… so that’s how I come down on that side of the issue.”
After the Supreme Court overturned Roe in 2022, Talarico said, “This summer, more than half our population became second-class citizens. Every one of our neighbors with a uterus became the property of the State. And nothing is more un-Christian.”
In a video going viral on social media, Talarico appears to be giving a sermon in a church in which he says, “Did they teach you in Sunday school that Jesus Christ himself was a radical feminist?”
Beyond religion, he has also taken stances that break with common scientific understanding. In a Texas House Committee on Public Education hearing, he stated, “Modern science obviously recognizes that there are many more than two biological sexes; in fact, there are six.”
During the same hearing, he went even further, saying, “The point is that biologically speaking, scientifically speaking, sex is a spectrum, and oftentimes can be very ambiguous.”
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In another sermon, he said the use of the term “woman” in the context of women’s rights should not be understood as an “exhaustive” term.
“Our trans community needs abortion care too. Defending trans Texans is something we have to do every day at the state Capitol, and you better believe I’ll be giving sermons on that too,” he said, continuing, “So when I use the word ‘woman,’ it should not be understood as an exhaustive lens through which we understand, examine and interrogate patriarchy. Similar to how we specify anti-Black racism.”
In a series of 2020 tweets, Talarico referred to racism as a “virus” spread by all White people, regardless of whether they exhibit its “symptoms.”
“White skin gives me and every white American immunity from the virus. But we spread it wherever we go —through our words, our actions, and our systems. We don’t have to be showing symptoms—like a white hood or a Confederate flag—to be contagious,” he wrote, adding, “The only cure is diagnosing the virus within ourselves and taking dramatic actions to contain the spread. The first small step is proclaiming loudly and unequivocally that #BlackLivesMatter.”
On the Senate campaign trail, Talarico has framed his candidacy as one in opposition to billionaires, who he said are “destroying” the U.S.
“The only thing the media wants to ask me about are trans athletes. The only minority destroying this country is the billionaires,” he said during an interview with MSNBC. “Trans people are 1% of the population. Undocumented people are 1% of the population. We are all focused on the wrong 1%. Trans people aren’t taking away our healthcare. Undocumented people aren’t defunding our schools. It’s the billionaires and their puppet politicians.”
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He has also harshly criticized U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, accusing them of using terror to target immigrant families.
“Those neighbors of ours deserve a lot better than ICE terrorizing them and their children, ICE tearing families apart,” he said in an interview with local outlet KRWG.
Regarding border security, Talarico said during the Texas Democratic Senate debate against Crockett that “Our southern border should be like our front porch. There should be a giant welcome mat out front and a lock on the door.”
He continued, “We can welcome immigrants who want to live the American dream. We can build a pathway to citizenship for those neighbors who have been here, making us richer and stronger, and we can keep out people who mean to do us harm.”
Talarico defeated Crockett in the Democratic primary by a comfortable margin despite her already having a national following. Now, Democrats believe that Talarico stands a good chance to flip a Texas Senate seat blue for the first time in 33 years.
He will face off against either longtime incumbent Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, or state Attorney General Ken Paxton, depending on which candidate emerges victorious from the GOP’s May 26 primary runoff election.
Republicans quickly took aim at Talarcio on Tuesday evening, even before his victory over Crockett was called.
“James Talarico is an open borders, Trump-hating radical who can never be allowed to set foot in the U.S. Senate,” National Republican Senatorial Committee communications director Joanna Rodriguez charged in a statement.
Paxton, in a primary night speech in Dallas, claimed Talarico is a “far-left radical who wants to abolish ICE, says God is non-binary — I’m not even sure I know what that means — and thinks Christians are commanded to put boys in girls’ sports. He will do nothing more than be a puppet for Chuck Schumer and the national Democrats.”
And Cornyn, in a Fox News Digital interview on Sunday, argued that both Talarico and Crockett “should be running for the Senate in California, not in Texas. They’re way out of the mainstream in Texas.”
Meanwhile, a veteran Republican operative who works in Senate races described Talarico as “Beto 2.0,” as he referred to former Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke, the one-time rising star who came up short as the 2018 Democratic Senate nominee in trying to knock off conservative Sen. Ted Cruz, and who later ran unsuccessfully for the White House and for Texas governor.
“Republicans recognize that Talarico’s a formidable candidate but also know that Texas is still a pretty conservative state, and they’re going to try and brand him a far-left radical so that center-right voters and independent voters in the state don’t choose him over the Republican nominee,” longtime Texas-based GOP consultant Brendan Steinhauser told Fox News Digital.
“Republicans are going to find every speech on the Texas House floor that Talarico gave that was progressive in nature or to the left, and they’re going to use that time and again to try and brand him as a far left guy. That’s the kind of playbook I expect, and they’re not going to waste anytime doing that,” he added.
Among Talarico’s top supporters is progressive Rep. Greg Casar, D-Texas, who celebrated his primary victory by posting on X, “James Talarico is the future of the Democratic Party.”
“He unites working people of all kinds to take on the billionaires who are making life unaffordable. He’s going to show Texas Republicans how powerful working people are when we stand together. On to victory in November,” wrote Casar.
JT Ennis, a spokesperson for Talarico’s campaign, responded to Fox News Digital’s request for comment by dismissing criticism of Talarico’s comments as “stale attacks to mislead Texans.”
In an emailed statement, Ennis told Fox News Digital, “John Cornyn, Ken Paxton, Greg Abbott and the billionaires who prop them up are scared of James Talarico for good reason: our campaign is building a movement poised to change the politics of this state and take power back for working people.”
“While they lob stale attacks to mislead Texans, we are uniting the people of Texas to win in November.”
And the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee chair, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, touted that “Talarico has spent years fighting for Texans in the state house, where he went to bat for teachers and students, fought to lower the cost of health care, and took on corruption in politics. Now, he’s ready to take that fight to the U.S. Senate.”
Meanwhile, conservative pundits believe Talarico will fail to gain the bipartisan appeal needed to flip Texas blue.
Matthew Schmitz, a conservative commentator, wrote on X, “James Talarico’s woke Billy Graham shtick has the same function as Tim Walz’s trans-affirming Elmer Fudd persona. Democrats desperately want a rural/religious-coded white male who can make their most unpopular positions seem American as apple pie.”
Talarico and Casar did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment.
