Welcome to It's Open with Ilana Glazer.

I am so excited to be interviewing again my guest today.

James Talarico is a democratic Texas state rep known nationally for his very strong, concise messaging born out of his human rights OG Christian values.

He goes viral on social media all the time for dismantling the weak and hypocritical arguments of Christian nationalism and extremist lawmakers inside the Republican party.

Tallarico is one of the most effective communicators in Texas politics, and some would argue in the national political landscape.

He's a former middle school teacher and has been a leading voice on education, public funding and separation of church and state.

His viral videos have worked as practical tools to pass and block legislation, like when he blocked a statewide bill that would put a poster of the 10 commandments in all classrooms.

Rep Talarico is an excellent communicator, both IRL and URL.

He delivers complex messages with simplicity and always brings people in building coalition rather than calling him out.

Please give a warm welcome to James Talarico, Rep Talarico.

I am so excited to be talking to you again.

Remember that we had a conversation at South by Southwest, I think 2024.

That's right.

Yeah.

Thanks for having me.

I'm thrilled.

And it's so exciting to see how much energy and organization you've built in these past three years.

Yeah, no, I've been serving in the state legislature in Texas, which as a Democrat, that's not the easiest job in the world, but we've been able to make big progress for working people in our state, bringing down the cost of prescription drugs, bringing down the cost of childcare, bringing down the cost of housing, and now we want to take all those fights to the US Senate.

Well, let's get into it.

Well, first of all, I want to say this episode's going to come out on Christmas.

So.

Merry Christmas ahead of time.

What are your Christmas plans when our viewers watch this?

What are you going to be doing on this.

Day?

I'm going to be with my whole extended family.

They all live in central Texas.

All my aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, and I'm going to be with my little baby niece who is two and a half years old.

Oh, oh my God.

So I'm sure as people are watching this, I'm watching her open presents underneath the Christmas tree.

Wow, incredible.

And you have your whole extended family there because you're an eighth generation Texan.

That's right.

Yeah.

My family's been in Texas since it was Mexico, so it.

It's been.

A long time and we have deep family roots in the state.

Wow.

Okay, so the day that we're recording this, congresswoman, Jasmine Crockett just announced her run for Senate.

What is your relationship with her?

Jasmine and I are friends.

We both served in the State House together before she got elected to Congress.

She is a leader in our state.

She's a colleague of mine.

I have great respect for her and I welcome her to this race.

I think competition can make us all stronger and better in the fall.

Me too.

So do I, which I have a written statement to say this because I am so excited about that aspect of this rep.

Jazz will face racism and misogyny in this race.

What do you make of this?

Well, in the first day of this race, I posted a video online and sent a video to our 10,000 volunteers telling them that we're going to compete vigorously.

We're going to make the case for why our campaign is best positioned to win in November, but at every step in this campaign, we're going to treat Congresswoman Crockett with deserves nothing less and we are going to call out anytime we see someone stooping to that level.

That's right.

And our campaign's not going to tolerate it.

We can have a fierce competition and debate about what's best for the party and how we win in November, but we can do that with respect and with love and with Unity, because that's what our movement is rooted in.

That's right.

This race is hot already.

Congresswoman Crockett just announced forbid, and it is already heating up, and this race looks unlike any political race in a moment, unlike any other I have ever seen.

You and Rep Jazz are both stars.

You are both seriously geniuses, brilliant communicators and millennial elected officials in Texas.

You're the same in many ways.

And of course, you move through the world with very different identities.

We are in a life or death tipping point for our democracy right now.

This race is going to have all eyes on it until the primary on March 3rd.

There's one path here where the rhetoric could be contentious, not necessarily between YouTube but around it, but there's another path, a wider frame around all that stuff that is simple energy, Excitement.

This race shows that the progressive movement within a monolith.

This race shows a healthy democratic process.

This race shows we are actually rich in amazing candidates.

That's a good thing.

This race shows millennials who message so much more effectively than their baby boomer opponent.

This race shows the undeniably of how much more nourishing and nurturing the progressive movement within the Democratic Party is compared to the anti-democracy, anti-human rights Republican party.

This race shows creativity and an enlivening within our democratic system.

It shows an entire spectrum of people who can participate more eyes on this race, gets more people engaged, and we have to get more people involved so that we beat the bad guys.

That's right.

That's.

Right.

And that's all I wanted to say about that.

Yeah, no, totally agree.

Cosign all of that.

Okay.

Okay.

I'm loving it.

I'm really excited.

And you guys both running in this race makes it more likely to defeat the Republican opponent.

Agreed.

That's right.

Why.

Is this race so important right now?

Well, all 30 million Texans deserve a senator who's going to represent them and not billionaire mega donors.

When I first got into this race, the first thing I said was that the biggest divide in our politics is not left versus right.

It's top versus bottom.

Because the more I see what's happening in this country, the more I realize that these billionaires who run our economy, who run our media, who run our politics, they are invested in us being divided in us, focused on how we're all different instead of on how we're all the same.

They divide us by party, by race, by gender, by religion.

So we don't notice that they're picking our pockets.

Right.

They are gutting our healthcare, raising our premiums.

They are closing our public schools.

They are cutting taxes for themselves while they raise taxes on all of us.

Insane.

So the goal of this campaign is to bring people together.

That is the most radical thing you can do in an era of division.

And it's a little risky because we all are very different.

We have different opinions about things, but the goal of this campaign is to recognize our commonalities and our shared dreams and our shared problems, and I hope that through this campaign we can start to heal some of these divisions so that we can unite and take power back for working people in Texas.

Me too.

When you say 30 million, it's like, damn, that is a huge.

A big.

Portion of this country, and I'm so sorry.

It's like I'm in this work and then also I'm still a layman.

What just happened with the Gerry Mandarin?

It did go through the worst gerrymandering.

That's right.

So let's just back up.

Over the summer, president Trump and his Republican allies passed that big ugly bill that's going to kick millions of Texans off their healthcare.

It's going to take food out of the mouths of hungry Texas children all to give more tax breaks to their billionaire donors.

It is the largest.

Largest.

Transfer of wealth in American history from the bottom and the middle all the way to the top.

And they know that's unpopular.

They can read a poll like any politician, but they have this plan to rig the results of the next election.

So basically Donald Trump called up Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, and told them that he wants five more congressional seats.

Similar, if you remember when he called up Georgia Republicans after the 2020 race and asked for 11,000 more votes.

That's right.

Thankfully, thank.

God.

Georgia Republicans said, no, sir.

Texas.

Republicans said, how about Tuesday?

And he said, jump.

They said How high?

And so they passed these corrupt maps that dilute the voting power of black and brown communities across Texas.

You look at this map and it's insane.

It draws some of my constituents in central Texas in the Austin area.

It draws them all the way to the Texas coast.

It draws them all the way to far west Texas, hundreds of miles away.

So somebody is in the same congressional district as somebody hundreds of miles away.

Correct?

That's right.

It's a sick joke.

It is.

And the goal is to escape accountability at the ballot box by drawing these districts into crazy shapes.

They're trying to manufacture the outcome they want, and they're doing it in the middle of the decade.

Typically, as you know, we redistrict at the beginning of a decade after we get a new census because population changes, especially in a fast growing state like Texas.

And so you have to adjust districts based on those population changes.

The problem is in states like Texas, the politicians draw their own lines, which in any other industry would be called a conflict of interest.

There's nothing wrong with that.

And.

They draw those lines to benefit themselves and their party.

So that's gerrymandering.

If you ever hear that word, that's what that means.

That happens.

It happened in Texas back in 2021 at the beginning of the decade, but this is even more egregious because it's happening right in the middle of a decade.

It's unprecedented.

Oh my God.

It's essentially like.

Oh my God.

Two teams.

Coming.

Out of the locker room at halftime, and the team that's ahead says, okay, we're going to change the rules.

So.

That we can win this game.

I think if any of us saw that we'd be throwing food at the television, it's cheating.

There's.

No other way to describe it.

And my colleagues and I in Texas on the democratic side, we broke quorum this summer.

We left the state of Texas.

We went to Chicago To shine a national spotlight on what was happening because people weren't really talking about this power grab until we broke quorum and made this a national story.

And when we did that, we saw people joined the fight.

I saw a graph that showed Google searches for the word gerrymandering, went through the roof when we broke quorum, and then suddenly California decided they were going to fight back by passing their own redistricting map.

And you've seen other states start to get the game two.

And so I'm really proud of what my colleagues and I that quorum break.

We even convinced a Trump appointed federal judge to discriminatory maps.

But as you just mentioned, just a few days ago, the Supreme Court stepped in and kept these maps in place.

This Supreme Court has their own problems with corruption and being bought by big money.

So this is exactly what I'm talking about when I say top versus bottom.

It's people at the top who have power and they want to hold onto power, and they're going to do whatever it takes to keep power in their hands, even if it means preventing all of us from holding them accountable at the ballot box.

So nothing could be more un-American in my book, and it's incredibly dangerous if we allow this to happen.

So it's part of why I decided to step up and run because they may be able to gerrymander all these districts, but they can't gerrymander the state lines.

So we at least still have a shot.

At.

Winning this race statewide, and hopefully we can send a signal that this kind of election rigging, this kind of corruption is unacceptable.

Oh my God, thank you for doing that, for Breaking Quorum.

It was literally dangerous.

Didn't.

Federal.

Agencies go seek you out?

Yes, and we got bomb threats.

We had to move locations three times because we were getting threats.

I mean, it was all kind of scary, but we knew we were doing the right thing.

I got threats on my cell phone.

Because.

This is bigger than us.

It's honestly bigger than any one political party.

I.

Mean, this is about whether or not Americans can hold their elected leaders accountable with their votes.

And if we allow the most powerful man in the country to manufacture the outcome he wants in a midterm election, I really worry that we're not going to be able to stop him from doing whatever he wants in the years ahead.

So this should be a terrifying to all Texans, all Americans, regardless of where you are on the political spectrum.

That's right.

I started getting into this work, political organizing and advocacy about 10 years ago, and as I started understanding the system, I realized this that they cheat because they can't win.

That's right.

That's not winning.

That's right.

That's cheating.

That's right.

That's in fact losing and lying.

Yes.

Why would you even, I don't know.

Why would you even compete if you were just going to cheat, play a different game?

You know what I mean?

I'm always be an advertiser, be in private equity.

Why do you even want to do this?

I am thinking about you are so well known for your faith and your true, as I call them in your intro, OG Christian values for real Christian values.

And I look around at these billionaires who have more money.

I mean, the numbers are made up.

What is a trillion anyway, more money than, I mean they could certainly ever spend in their lifetimes.

It's for nothing.

No, it's for greed, personal greed.

And I keep saying it's for nothing.

And it's an act of cruelty to hoard that wealth because people are suffering.

They could pay to end the suffering of the entire planet and still be the richest people in the world.

What do you as a man of faith make of this evil?

Well, my tradition as well as the Jewish tradition warn us about the dangers of concentrated wealth and power.

And this is throughout our scriptures.

So I think it's incumbent upon people of faith, particularly Christians, to call out this greed, to call out this corruption.

You're right, it's not harmless.

It hurts people every day.

I said recently, the reason poverty exists is not because we can't feed the poor, it's because we can't satisfy the rich.

And that's exactly what we're seeing with Elon Musk becoming the first ever trillionaire.

And you're exactly right.

This is a spiritual sickness because what leads a person to accumulate more money than they could possibly spend in a hundred lifetimes when we have people starving in this one, I don't mean to demonize these billionaires.

In fact, I think taxing this kind of wealth taxing trillionaires out of existence is not just good for all of us.

It's also good for them.

I agree.

We have to protect them from themselves.

I think.

I agree.

The demonizing of the billionaires actually adds to their own mythology, whereas the humanizing of them, it unfortunately sheds a very ugly light to look at.

Really you a person flesh and blood like me, really want to cause this much pain, suffering, destruction, and murder of people.

It's hard to hold, but I think it's so important that we humanize them as well.

They're not the demons that we almost wish they were.

It would almost give an out to our own humanity to have to hold it.

Yeah, that's right.

And our history is filled with very wealthy people who use that wealth to help others.

We think about Franklin Roosevelt, Bobby Kennedy, they were trust fund babies.

They would probably be the billionaires of today if you adjust for inflation.

But they use that power, that privilege to help people who didn't have as much.

And so I always try to put forward those examples to show that there's a better path for these folks.

You don't have to hoard.

You can share what you have, what you've been given and help lift up someone else.

I don't want to demonize success.

I want people to be successful.

Of course.

A lot of people in Texas, including me, we want to provide for ourselves and our families and that's a good thing.

And I want an economy that's going to create more millionaires and fewer trillionaires.

We want to grow and thrive and prosper together as a country.

That's right.

And right now we have an economy that only allows for the people at the very top to be successful.

And the rest of us, no matter how hard we work, no matter how many hours we put in, we can't seem to get ahead.

Oh my God.

What has the race been like for you so far, and what do you think might be ahead?

It's been so fun.

Yay.

Honestly, hear that.

Obviously I'd never run statewide in Texas before and was daunted by the scale of it.

But getting to travel my beloved state, trying all the food, meeting all the people, hearing all the different kinds of music and seeing all the sites in our state.

I mean, it is just an honor of a lifetime to do this.

And it's been such an adventure in the best sense of that word.

And I do think that the energy around the campaign is energizing me.

We do these rallies all over the state and the amount of people showing up blows me away.

We've had to move venues several times because we have so many people.

And I don't think it's of me, it's because people are hungry for a kind of politics that gives them hope.

For 10 years now since Trump came down, that golden escalator, we've had politics that scares us.

We have politics that angers us on both sides of the aisle, but it's been a really long time since we've had a politics that inspires us or that brings out the best in us.

And I'm trying to do that on this campaign.

And I do think that people are hungry for it.

And so people are showing up.

A lot of young people are showing up, which is so cool.

So.

Cool.

I think they're excited to see a millennial running.

And.

They come up to me and they tell me that they didn't hear about me on M-S-N-B-C or New York Times or something like that.

They heard about me on TikTok or on Instagram or on podcasts like this one.

So I do think we're breaking through and we're reaching the people who have the power to change the politics in our state and change the politics in this country.

And it is just so exciting and so energizing, and that's what keeps me going.

Even when the days are long and are hard.

I really want to make sure you and your team are sleeping well and having enough water.

Thank you.

I'm just successful.

Thank you.

The political elected officials, we just need you to have those basic needs met like you're fighting for us to have.

Thank you.

So let's please talk about TikTok for a second because can you walk us through how you blocked the 10 Commandments poster in classrooms Bill using TikTok.

There was this bill in the state legislature in Texas that would've forced every teacher in the state, in every public school to put up a poster of the 10 Commandments.

I should say The 10 Commandments mean a lot to me.

They mean a lot to all of us, and I've tried my best to build my life on those commandments, but in my tradition, I'm taught to love my neighbor as myself.

I was a teacher before I ran for office.

It's hard being a kid.

It's even harder to be a kid when you're different.

If you're a Muslim kid or a Jewish kid or a Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh atheist kid, you stand out in a Texas public school and now your teacher, because they're being forced by the government of Texas, is going to be cramming a certain kind of Christianity down your throat.

And to me, that's not love.

And so not only is this bill unconstitutional, it's a blatant violation of the separation of church and state in our First amendment.

Incorrect.

It's not only un-American because in this country we value religious freedom and religious tolerance, but it's also un-Christian.

It is a violation of the teachings of Jesus who constantly, you go back and read the New Testament always lifted up people from different faith traditions as the heroes of his story.

I think he was trying to tell us that our neighbor love has to transcend religious boundaries.

When religion becomes an end into itself, it's always dangerous.

It always implodes.

And I think that's what you're seeing with Christian nationalism in Texas.

I told my colleagues, I think the unintended consequence of this bill is going to be the, it's going to creation of an entire generation of atheists who think that Christianity is more about power than it's about love.

And so that worries me as a Christian, as someone who cares about my faith.

Damn.

Anyway, I shared these concerns with the bill author in a committee hearing and on the floor, those interactions went viral on TikTok.

Suddenly Texans from all faith backgrounds from across the political spectrum started calling into the offices of state legislators who we were able to kill that bill on the house floor.

They had to try many times to get it through.

They finally crammed it through and then we were able to put a stop to it in the courts.

This is probably going to end up going to the Supreme Court and we'll see what happens there.

But I'm just so proud of the fight that Texans have put up against this kind of religious supremacy, this kind of unconstitutional legislation.

Yeah, it's a stunning video.

And you guys, the way that you edited it, it was actually sympathetic to the person hearing it, but it was undeniable and it was incredible.

Well, thank you.

Great work.

I appreciate it.

We have an amazing team.

So how long were you a teacher for?

So I taught in San Antonio for two years at Rhodes Middle School on the west side of the city.

Yeah.

I taught language arts, sixth grade reading and writing.

Awesome.

So as a former teacher, how has being in the classroom helped shape the way you advocate for Texans and Texan kids and students today?

Well, I was a middle school teacher.

I always joke that teaching middle school is the best preparation for politics.

There's a lot of overlap there.

But I went into the classroom in the fall of 2011 and it was right after the state legislature cut 5 billion from our neighborhood schools.

So I went into the breach as a young teacher and I saw the impact of those decisions of those cuts on flesh and blood human beings.

Oh my God.

I saw students slip through the cracks.

I saw students have their services cut.

I had one classroom with 45 kids in it, and there weren't enough desks for all those kids.

So that's so sad.

It was wild.

And by the way, it was 45 middle schoolers right after lunch, which you can imagine the chaos in that classroom.

That is so sad.

5 billion again for what?

And.

I go do for greed.

That's right.

For three guys or whatever.

That's right.

It's sadistic.

45 kids in a classroom.

I grew up, I went to graduated high school, a high school of 3000 kids.

So.

We had 30 kids per class and it was 10 kids too much.

Yeah, right.

That's exactly right.

And so that I think really made me realize how these decisions made in the halls of power impact real people.

And so that's what motivated me to run for the State House myself.

I was 28.

I had never run for office before.

I threw my hat in the ring and I ran on being a teacher and having a teacher at the decision making table, and I was running in a Trump district, so I was a Democrat running in a really conservative part of Texas that hadn't voted for a Democrat in 30 years.

Wow.

A lot of people told me the race was unwinnable.

People told me it was an impossible task.

I was told I was too young.

I was told I didn't have the money or the connections to win, but my neighbors and I, we ran an aggressive, authentic, unorthodox campaign that brought people together.

And on election night, we flipped that district with 51% of the vote.

So I want to take that experience winning in a tough area statewide, and it's going to require a campaign that can energize Democrats, inspire people who feel disillusioned with politics and have never voted before and peeling people off from their side.

You have to do all the above.

And that's what we did in Williamson County, Texas eight years ago, and I think we can do it again statewide in 2026.

So two years as a teacher, they cut 5 billion of funding and you have 45 kids in classroom and you're like, I'm running.

Well in between there because going from teacher to politician is a pretty big jump.

But I led an education nonprofit.

My thought was I saw how these policies were hurting our students.

I was making a lot of progress in room one 12 at Rhodes Middle School.

I was a pretty good teacher, but I knew that something more systemic needed to be done because my students, when they left my classroom, were going to fall back into the same unjust inequitable systems.

There's Desmond Tutu, who's a hero of mine who we lost a few years back, had this great quote where he said, at a certain point, you can keep trying to pull people out of the river, but at some point you got to go upstream and find out why they're falling in the first place.

So that's why I decided to go into nonprofit work to try to work on some of these systemic issues.

And even doing that, I felt it wasn't enough.

And then that's when I made a decision to run.

Interesting.

I went from being a classroom teacher to a nonprofit leader and then to a legislator.

Wow.

And as a state rep, again, as a Democrat in a Republican dominated legislature, not only have I fought back against Republican extremism like the 10 Commandments bill, like the gerrymandering, but I've also still been able to get stuff done for students like mine and students just like them all over the state.

I passed the first ever cap on pre-K class sizes.

We didn't have any limits on pre-K classes in Texas, and I was able to get that capped at 22 students a classroom.

It should be a lot lower than that, but you take what you can get.

I passed the first ever cap on insulin copays in Texas history type one diabetic.

And when I was diagnosed when I was 28, I was charged $684 for a 30 day supply of my insulin.

Oh my God.

Had to put it on a credit card.

So I passed a bill that caps those insulin copays at $25 per prescription.

Incredible.

Early childhood bill to raise the quality and lower the cost of childcare.

And then most recently passed a housing bill that's going to allow for more affordable housing to be built in communities across Texas.

So we need a senator who knows how to fight, but also knows how to win for the people of our state.

And I think my track record shows that I can do both of those things.

And really it's all motivated by the students that I taught on the west side.

They.

Continue to motivate me every day, even when things get hard.

They showed me what real fight looks like and they continue to be an inspiration for me.

In fact, I just ran into one of my former students on the campaign trail out of nowhere.

I was at a independent bookstore campaigning and meeting voters, and then I heard someone behind me say, Mr.

Ika, which no one refers to me that way except for my students.

And I turned around and her name is Nipsey if she's watching, she was one of my smartest, brightest students.

She's now an up and coming photographer in the Austin area.

Incredible.

So cool to just see my students and everything they're doing, and a lot of them are helping on this campaign, which is really cool too.

Incredible.

A couple things that are coming to mind.

So one thing was I was looking at your bill tracker or whatever, and you have signed, passed and adopted many bills, but a lot.

I can't believe the language.

They're like dead.

The bills that don't pass, they're like dead.

It's so dramatic, but so many bills that you've tried, you've passed a lot, but it takes so many attempts.

It appears.

I mean, it just seems like so, so hard.

It.

Is super hard, and especially in a place like the Texas legislature.

The other thing that's coming to mind is as you're talking about Republicans, and I don't know, it's funny the way that you're talking, I'm forgetting about party lines because Texas politics is so, it's such an amplify.

There's such amplified stakes.

Period.

And amplified identities.

I don't even mean the Senate race, I mean the Southern Democrats, the history of the Southern Democrats, what Texas appears to be and then what Texas actually is.

I've been lucky enough to perform standup there.

You've.

Got a lot of fans in Texas.

I love performing in Texas.

I love it.

Great.

It's different than what they tell us up here in New York and just what's coming up for me is the absolute disillusionment with Democrats.

In fact, the Republicans, I mean these are like, this is a group of monstrous, destructive, violent values that is just the scope at which I'm sorting that out is demon versus human.

What we're talking about demonizing versus humanizing, remembering these are actually human beings With the Democrats, it's almost more disappointing in a way because the corporate money, the big mega donors, it's the same systemic issues with the Democrats, and I'm a Democrat, I'll vote Democrat.

Sure.

Just as it needs to be until we get out of this true crisis and get over this hurdle.

But I dunno, I just want to, that's just what's coming up for me.

The actually disillusionment with the Democrats, that's actually like if you're dating someone and they're cold to you the whole time and then they cheat on you, you're like, well, they were a jerk the whole time.

But.

If you are with someone and it's like a back and forth and this sort of push and pull and then they really fuck you over, you're like, I'm so hurt.

I thought we had something we were going to work on together.

I feel the exact same way, and I think it's important to recognize that these problems are systemic.

At least that's been true in my experience.

I get the sense that most people go into public service for the right reasons.

They see a problem that they want to solve, but then they get trapped in this broken system that incentivizes the worst behavior.

And I'm a part of the system too.

I don't mean to say I'm somehow above it.

I have tried to take steps as an individual and we as a team to at least try to insulate ourselves from some of these, the worst parts of this system.

So for instance, I'm the only member of the Texas legislature that money, which is not easy to do because when you're trying to pay your hard work and staff, it's hard to define donations to do that.

When Walmart comes along and says they got a $2,000 check for you or ExxonMobil or Chevron, it's really hard to turn those checks away, but that's what we've done.

It was a promise I made on my very first campaign.

It's a promise I've kept and I'm running the Senate race the same way, but it doesn't mean I'm immune from the influence of big money in our political system.

It's why I've tried to introduce it, actual policies that could change the system itself.

So I introduced a bill in the legislature that would've capped campaign contributions in Texas.

There are no caps on contributions in Texas.

There's.

No caps in Texas.

They say bigger in Texas.

And it's like, you mean for this bad side of shit?

Exactly.

Geez.

Greg Abbott took one check that was written by an out-of-state billionaire for$6 million.

So if one dude can give your governor 6 million, that guy out of state, out of state, Pennsylvania, no offense, Pennsylvania, but that billionaire doesn't live in Texas, and so he has more of an influence on our governor than we do, and that's a problem.

So anyway, yeah, I think comprehensive political reform has to be the top priority for any candidate and any party that's running this year.

We're not going to make progress on housing, on healthcare, on childcare, on education until we fix the system itself.

And that means getting rid of the influence of big money.

It means banning members of Congress from trading stocks and enriching themselves.

My goodness, James Tallarico, my goodness, is that a scam?

Again, you want to go be in finance or FinTech or whatever, but to go in Congress where you're supposed to be fighting for the people and then these people are lying to people who are insider trading and this is Democrats and Republicans, it it's such betrayal.

It's so horrible.

Once I think as millennials, whatever we were taught and sold as kids, as we came to consciousness about the system, it's heartbreaking to learn about all these Democrats who trade stocks in Congress.

And it's because Democrats aren't immune from.

This.

Broken system.

And so until we change the system itself, you're not going to see better public policy from our legislators at the federal and the state level, and you're not going to have a government of buy and for the people, and that's the goal.

We've always been on that path on a path toward that kind of government that actually represents us.

Sometimes it's been too slow, but we are still on that journey as a country, and there is still so much more progress to make on that front.

We've made progress.

I love your faith.

I love your forward looking.

I was like, which path?

I didn't know which way we were talking about.

So I appreciate that and that is the way I am.

Two, I would say I've stopped saying hopeful.

I dunno about optimistic.

I'm a faithful person.

It's a practice to have faith, and so I appreciate what you're saying, but I wasn't sure there.

For a second, and I'm a seminary student when I'm not doing all this other stuff because my faith is so central.

My granddad was a Baptist preacher in south Texas, and when I was real little, he told me that Christianity is a simple religion, not an easy religion, but a simple religion.

That was always what he said because Jesus gave us two commandments to follow love God and love neighbor.

Two simple commandments, and I've found in my life that holding those two things together, a love for people, all people from all backgrounds and all identities.

Love people, but.

Also a love for our common source, whatever you call it, you can use the word God or the universe, the cosmos, however you want to describe it, but that wherever we all come from, that mystery, having a love for that to help sustain the love for our neighbors, it's not easy to love our neighbors sometimes, especially our neighbors who disagree with us.

Or our.

Neighbors who are different than us.

That can be really challenging.

Jesus could have told us to love our immediate family members.

Or.

Our close friends.

Those would've been easier commandments to follow, but he told us to love our neighbors and that's inherently a public thing and it's why I went into public service first as a public school teacher, now as a public official.

Anyway, I went to seminary while I was a legislator because I felt my faith in democracy starting to waiver a little bit and I needed to connect to that something deeper to keep me going in this work in seminary, I learned Hebrew and Greek so I could read scriptures in their original language.

Wow.

What I found was that word faith is often translated to belief like your believing in a concept.

But.

A better translation is trust that you're trusting in something that's there.

And so I love that you say you're a faithful person, that you're trusting in love or whatever is going to get us through.

Even when it seems unlikely or things seem dark.

It.

Is that trust that love is going to win at the end of the day.

Yes, I.

Do.

Even if it's set back temporarily.

I have absolute faith in fact in knowing that that is true.

Yeah, me too.

It's also funny how the word choice really makes a difference.

And I've gone through this evolution recently where I'm like, it's faith that I have.

And.

Also just the way that you're talking about God and what it means to people.

For me, it's like the love God, love thy neighbor.

I love people.

That is what God is to me.

That's right.

And the mystery to me, I'm like, who knows?

But the people, and that's why I am in comedy and why I've gotten into political advocacy and organizing, just looking at people and knowing that we have way more in common than we have different, most of our DNA is the same.

That's right.

I mean, it's incredible and I think it's just such a, what's so heartbreaking is the shame of wasting.

I mean, you know what?

Forget it.

I actually have faith in we're in the process, we're exactly where we're supposed to be in the process, but it's like couldn't we all just be feeling so good together and caring for each other?

And I have to keep envisioning that to keep working for it.

Yeah.

I mean, I completely agree.

It feels like sometimes we spend so much time looking for God out there that.

We.

Miss God in the person right next to us.

Yeah.

That's.

Right.

And if we can remember that, I feel like that's the key to solving all of this.

Yes.

You.

Were talking about your baby niece having a kid.

I was like, this is God.

This is crazy.

It's just like, it's incredible.

And women my age, there's this, or at least the media tries to paint this picture of some divide between women who have kids and women who don't have kids, but it's actually also the friendship between women who do and don't.

That is this other magical thing that I'm like, we're just looking at the wrong thing and they're distracting us.

They need our attention.

But what we have right here is just magic.

Spending time with my baby niece, I'm always just struck how present she is.

Yes.

And I'm sure you've seen that.

Yes.

And I read somewhere that our best memories in childhood were really just us present in the moment.

That's right.

Not worried about the past, not worried about the future.

That's.

Right.

Not worried about ourselves and our status and our accomplishments.

Just, I mean, my niece can stare at a flower for hours on end.

She can.

It's.

Endlessly delighted by that flower, right?

She kills.

Yes.

And having a trusted adult who you can just be present with, that is the most valuable thing for a kid to grow up healthy.

My husband read this thing that love is the act of attention, and we always return to that with our daughter.

It really doesn't matter if we get out the door on time or this or that, just being present in the moment.

And it teaches me to have that attention with myself and care with myself.

As you talk about big money in politics, I just watched a video of you talking about apac.

What.

Is your stance on Israel, especially as a man of such deep faith, what is your stance on Israel and apac?

Well, I've never taken money from apac, and I'm not taking money from APAC in this campaign.

Seeing what's happening in Gaza makes me sick to my stomach as a teacher, as a Christian, as a human being.

And our country's role in that slaughter makes me feel complicit in it.

I think all Americans should feel that.

There was a theologian who said, I screamed at God for the starving children until I realized the starving children was God screaming at me.

I think God is screaming at us in Gaza right now screaming at all of us.

And so I've said, if I am elected to the US Senate, I'm going to use every bit of diplomatic and financial leverage to end the atrocities.

I have already said I support, I banning offensive weapons to Israel.

And I think we as a country have a moral responsibility to stop the death and the destruction, and we uniquely as a country can stop it.

And it's time for our leaders to find that moral clarity.

Thank.

You.

I grew up on Long Island and I went to Hebrew school starting at five years old.

I had a Jewish education, religious and cultural.

In my early education years, my K through 12, this was the sort of private school that I had that was outside of the school system.

Then when I left home for college and started my career and formed a worldview as an adult, I later married my Jewish education and this worldview that I had independently formed myself for what I picture in my head, when I think of your Southern Christian upbringing as a New York Jew, what I'm wondering is when did you start to question authority within that Southern Christian context?

Yeah.

I feel like we all inherit a tradition, and it is a blessing and a curse always.

There's something beautiful that there is this thing passed down generation to generation, but it's also incumbent upon all of us to question what we've been given to reinterpret, to reclaim, and sometimes to retell these stories.

And I've had to do that in my own faith, and I've had to question some of the things I was taught that I think no longer work and have the freedom to do that because again, the purpose is for religion to lead us deeper into life, deeper into humanity, deeper into love.

And if it's not doing that, then it's not working.

Again, religion shouldn't lead to itself.

It should lead us deeper into life and should lead us toward each other.

And I think we all need to do that now.

We all need to reclaim these traditions and make them work in our modern context.

And I think if we can do that, it could be a real blessing for the world.

There's a lot of wisdom in these traditions.

There's obviously some problematic things too, but if we can remake these traditions in our own image, I really think it's what the world needs now more than ever.

How old were you when you were like, hold on, this is weird the way this is being used?

Yeah.

I mean, I was always kind of a rebellious kid.

As a kid who liked to question authority, I think it's served me well as a legislator just being and speak up.

But to be honest with you, I was really fortunate to grow up in a church that in many ways resembled the early church.

It was countercultural.

I'll give you a couple of examples.

My pastor in the late nineties was ordaining gay and lesbian clergy and blessing same sex unions, which doesn't seem controversial today, but many of us can remember when that was controversial.

And we almost lost our church.

The Presbyterian national denomination came after our pastor for that kind of action.

Oh my gosh.

And so from a very early age, I realized that to be a really faithful person, to really follow love sometimes requires ruffling feathers.

It.

Sometimes requires taking risks.

It requires standing up to bullies on behalf of those who are being hurt.

A few years after that, our church made the decision to house an undocumented mother and son who were facing deportation.

They had fled Central America and the violence there, they were trying to build a better life, and ice was trying to kick them out of our country.

They claimed sanctuary in our church, and they still live there today.

And so again, that to me is what really believing in love, trusting in love requires all of us to do.

It requires us to act boldly.

Love is not passive.

It's not weak, it's not neutral.

It doesn't mean papering over our disagreements.

Love requires conflict sometimes.

I've told the story about my mom.

I was born to a single mom who she was a preacher's daughter.

I mentioned my granddad.

She was also rebellious.

So she left home at 19, she moved up to the big city, Austin, Texas.

She met my birth father who was a 21-year-old high school dropout.

And he had a drinking problem.

And that drinking problem sometimes led to violence.

And one night he got physical again, became abusive.

And that night, her love for herself and for me, it rose to meet that abuse head on.

And she packed all of our stuff into her little Ford escort.

She drove me to the hotel where she worked.

She begged the manager to let us stay in one of the rooms until we found this little apartment in East Austin.

And so I learned at a very early age that love is a ferocious thing.

Sometimes it's not weak, and it stands in between a bully and the bullied.

And I feel like I've taken those lessons into the state legislature, into this campaign.

What does love demand of us in this moment?

And sometimes it demands things that aren't always easy and aren't always pleasant.

Wow.

What's your mom's name?

Tamara.

It's went by Tammy.

Yeah.

Tammy Teleco.

Yes.

Well, she's now, so I should give a shout out to my adoptive dad.

Mark Erco.

Mark.

Teleco.

We later met Mark Talarico.

It was the luckiest thing that happened to either of us.

Oh my.

God.

They're still married today.

Still live in the same house.

They're probably watching this episode.

But Tammy.

Erco, I'm obsessed with an alliterative name.

Well, she's a fan of yours, so she'll.

Be, but Tammy Erco.

Damn girl.

You did it.

You did it.

Oh my God.

What a son.

Oh, thanks God.

Oh my God, that's incredible.

I love that.

Love as a ferocious act standing between the bullied and the bully.

Speaking of updating scripture and what you've learned, you are pro-choice.

Yeah, proudly.

So.

Tell me about it.

There are a lot of pro-choice Christians in this country.

In fact, the Southern Baptist Convention was pro-choice until the late seventies.

A lot of people don't realize this.

The idea that to be Christian is synonymous with opposing abortion rights is a relatively recent phenomenon.

I believe in a God of freedom, a God who rebelled against pharaohs and emperors and dictators and endowed all of us with the ability to make our own choices and to have control over our own lives and our own destinies.

And that includes fundamentally the ability to control your own body.

So I trust Texas women.

I trust women all over this country to make those decisions for themselves in consolation with their families and their doctors and their faith leaders if they have one.

But I certainly don't believe in politicians making those decisions for other human beings.

And so I think it surprises some people to learn that abortion is not mentioned in the Bible anywhere.

And so even though any historian will tell you that abortion existed in the ancient world.

And so when an issue is not explicitly mentioned in the Bible, then we have to look at other scriptures, other wisdom traditions to help us figure out what to do in our modern context.

And so I take the values of freedom, of equality, of human dignity.

All of those values.

Lead.

Me to support abortion rights and to trust women to make these decisions for themselves.

I think of abortion as a way to control women's bodies and to control specifically black and brown women's bodies.

Can you sort of remind me historically how this became weaponized as a political issue from an act of symbol healthcare or I'll say maybe complicated healthcare for some, but.

Still.

Healthcare?

Well, I think everyone watching knows that Texas has the most extreme abortion ban in the country right.

Now.

I have constituents who can't access basic reproductive healthcare.

We have women dying in emergency room parking lots from sepsis because their doctors are too afraid to provide that basic healthcare.

And so again, if you claim to be pro-life, you need to know that these policies are killing women in our state.

And I've said before, I have great admiration for Pope Leo and Pope Francis before him.

Again, something I disagree with, they were certainly consistent in bringing pro-life.

Both of them opposed abortion rights.

They were anti-climate change.

They were anti-poverty.

They were anti-death penalty.

And so I think I could sit across from someone like that and have a conversation about how do we reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies?

How do we reduce the number of abortions?

And what I would point to is that pro-choice policies and lead to better outcomes for women and for children.

Texas also has one of the highest maternal mortality rates.

You were talking about the impact on black and brown women.

We have more black mothers dying in our state than any other state in the country because of these regressive policies.

So if your goal is life, if your goal is the flourishing of all people, then I think you've got to look at the data and you've got to look at the track record and its pro-choice policies that lead to more of that flourishing.

And so I think we can find common ground with some of these folks who are actually pro-life.

A lot of the colleagues I serve with in legislature use it as a way just to control women.

But if someone actually has that concern, then let's figure out how we can actually treat this as a public health issue.

But the thing to me is if you're pro-life, don't get an abortion.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, that's right.

That.

Totally makes sense.

That's right.

That's a hard decision.

I wasn't planning to have this kid, but now I have to pro-life makes sense.

But why would somebody get the chance to control some other person's body, their womb?

The argument doesn't even, I really, really appreciate all that you're saying, but I'm like, then you don't get an abortion.

That's where pro-life ends, whether you would or not.

I've never had an abortion.

I've also not been in the position to decide.

But what my decision would be would depend on the situation at hand.

And then I would be like, oh, for me or for me right now.

But for others, it's just sadistic.

Well.

And if your goal really is to reduce the number of abortions, then why do they oppose scientifically valid sex education?

Right.

That's where the inconsistency falls apart for me, because the same people who are banning abortion in Texas are also outlawing basic sex education in our schools.

I have trouble reconciling those two things.

Which also leads to young people being violated by adults.

If you don't know what sex is, then you are susceptible to dangerous forms of sex.

It's such an important argument that sex ed is the best way to protect kids from predators and from sexual abuse.

We don't always talk about sex ed in that way, but you're absolutely right.

It sort of just occurred to me where I'm like, this is just the layers of evil are really hard to hold.

Women my age, I really, and especially who are moms, I really get it where they're like, I can't look at this.

As a mom, I'm 38 years old.

I.

Can't look at the news.

And I totally get it.

It's too volatile.

The miracle of your child and then the evils of the world.

And what I really appreciate about your campaign is giving people who are every day normal Americans, specific and concrete finite actions to follow rather than having to take in the news.

I take in the current events, my brain is organized like that, but a lot of people want to be involved but can't swallow the evil.

No, it's hard.

And I don't think our little monkey brains are built to absorb this much terrible news.

From.

All over the world.

And this is pretty new for our species.

The fact that in our phones, in our pockets all day long, we're digesting a steady stream of horrific images and horrible news from every corner of the globe.

We have to take steps to protect ourselves because we have to stay in the fight, whether it's in big ways or small ways, the bullies in this world, the bullies in this country are betting on us giving up hope.

That's right.

They need us to give up hope.

That's part of their game plan.

That's right.

And so whatever you have to do to protect that light inside of yourself, to protect that faith and that trust, you need to do that because it's what will sustain the work ahead.

And we've got a long way to go.

And I do always take comfort in our history, labor organizers, civil rights, marchers, farm workers.

They faced tougher odds than we do right now.

And.

They persevered.

That's.

Right.

And so we have to.

Take, and they achieved.

That's right.

They succeeded and they.

Won, succeeded.

And we have to take inspiration from those fighters.

And I think the way we do that is recognizing that progress is a relay race.

We have to do what we can in our finite lifetime.

The hope is that our sunset is going to be someone else's dawn that we're going to pass off this fight to the next generation and they're going to do their part.

And then as a whole, we're ultimately going to get to that more perfect union that we've been striving toward.

And I have faith that we'll get there.

Me too.

Not always evidence, as you said.

Sometimes.

The evidence looks pretty bad, but I do just trust that at the end of the day, love wins.

Even if there's temporary setbacks and temporary defeats, that love will ultimately prevail.

Thank you so much, James Teleco, it is an honor to talk to you.

I have just a Christmas present.

Do you really?

Because it's Christmas today when this comes out my.

There you go.

Wow.

Oh my gosh.

I'm going to watch you open it.

I.

Norm ally don't do this.

I feel like we need Christmas music or a little tree.

Hey, I love this.

Can the camera steal?

Yeah.

Something to remember.

This is so great.

This interview by and reptile Rico's first time in Brooklyn today.

That's right.

Did you hear that first time in Brooklyn?

That's right.

I got my cowboy boots on in Brooklyn.

So good.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for the energy and the inspiration and for the advocacy and the human rights and in such plain language.

I need that.

And you're really giving me faith today.

Thank you.

Well, and thank you for bringing all of us so much joy.

I feel like it's so needed in this world right now, and it's always done a lot for me.

And I thank you for doing that.

For you and Tammy Talarico.

That's.

Right.

I want to thank my guest again, Rep James Talarico for joining me today.

This has been a Starrpix production, and I could not do this alone.

I did this with an incredible creative team.

I want to thank my producers, Annika Carlson, Madeline Kim, Glennis Meagher, Kelsie, Kiley, and David Rooklyn.

I want to thank our editor to Liebowitz and who made this look and sound so incredible.

Lexi Krebs, Nicole Maupin, and Kevin Deming, musical intro and the graphics are by Raymo Ventura.

Outro music is by the band Don Hur.

I think I got it all.

Thanks so much and see you next time.