James Talarico knows his Texas as well as he knows his Bible, which is apparently not at all.
Less than one week after Talarico reappeared following a mysterious absence from the campaign trail and media due to what he claimed was a “nasty flu,” he appeared on a CNN and Jubilee town hall to Lone Star State voters about his faith and politics.
This “Change My Mind” was supposed to be an opportunity for Talarico to soothe his skeptics’ fears about his radicalism, including describing God as “nonbinary” and expressing love of “trans children.” Instead, it further proved that the “Christian who hates Christianity” has no business holding authority in church or state, specifically the U.S. Senate.
The biggest clincher of the night came when Jodi Hunt, a smiling “farmer and professor” from Burleson, Texas, asked Talarico to “convince me as a Catholic voter that I can trust you that you would protect the most innocent among us.” It’s a fair question, considering Talarico’s track record in the Texas House of repeatedly voting against pro-life protections, against resources for women and babies in crisis, and against prohibitions on unpopular taxpayer-funded abortion.
Instead of touting the theological truths that any biblical pastor and Christian cling to about the sanctity of life, however, Talarico opted to finger-wag Hunt about her biblical understanding of abortion.
“We may come to different moral and ethical conclusions when it comes to the question of should abortion be legal or not. It sounds like you and I do come to a different conclusion. That’s okay. We’re both Christians, and the Bible is silent on the issue of abortion. It means you and I both have to look at at different scriptures to try to come to a conclusion,” Talarico claimed.
This isn’t the first time Talarico has twisted the Word of God to accommodate his abortion extremism. He repeated the lie that the “Bible is silent on abortion” in May 2026 during his appearance on The Jamie Kern Lima Show. More notably, during his July 2025 interview with Joe Rogan, Talarico pretended there is “biblical evidence” for abortion, including parts of the Old Testament that include “some subtle instructions for how to perform an abortion in the ancient world.”
Talarico conceded to Hunt that some of his “spiritual heroes,” including Pope Francis and Pope Leo, “are consistently pro-life,” but continued on to paint abortion as a “public health problem and not a culture war problem.”
“What drives me crazy about this debate is we use it to kind of beat each other over the head, right? We treat it as a philosophical debate or a theological debate, when actually it’s a public policy problem,” Talarico said. “Because I also want to see fewer unplanned or unwanted pregnancies. I want to see fewer abortions, and so you and I actually have the same goal. We may have different moral conclusions when it comes to this particular ethical question, but we actually have the same public policy goal.”
The Democrat claimed the solution lies in “scientifically valid sex education, age-appropriate sex education,” “contraception,” and the eternally vague and euphemistic call to “make sure that everyone has health care.”
Hunt let Talarico finish his spiel, but she didn’t let the Democrat’s falsehoods go unrebuked.
“I just want to add that the Bible is not silent on abortion. There is the 10 Commandments: ‘Thou shalt not kill,’” Hunt began, spurred on by applause. “And as Catholics, we take great insult, I guess, sometimes when it’s described that way.”
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) October 15, 2026WOW
Texas voter and actual Christian CLAPS BACK
"The Bible is NOT SILENT on abortion. There are the 10 Commandments: THOU SHALT NOT KILL." pic.twitter.com/XxvSg0SE3i
Hunt also noted that Catholics like her see “contraception” and sex ed as “very trying” because “we believe the parents are the primary primary educator of our children.”
Not even Hunt’s gentle but firm correction of Talarico, however, could make him change course.
By all measures, Hunt teed up the Texas Senate candidate with an easy question that could have been easily answered. Hunt, in particular, should have been an easy voter to placate or at least not offend, since Talarico identified their common ground several times throughout the sitdown and later extended an offer to “grab coffee” or “do a podcast” together.
Yet Talarico did nothing to address Hunt’s concern that the Democrat can’t be trusted to “provide policies to protect the rest of Texans and to promote dignity and human life” and instead left the potential voter to mull over, in her own words, an “insult” to her faith.
“If I believed if that abortion was murder, that it violated the 10 Commandments, then I wouldn’t support it,” Talarico said.
Talarico didn’t stop there. During another winding word salad, filled with tired lies about “women dying in emergency room parking lots from sepsis because their doctors are too afraid to provide life-saving care” and “girls as young as 10 years old who need that abortion care,” the Democrat called into question the authenticity of Hunt’s pro-life convictions.
“If we are authentically pro-life, I think we should be disturbed by the outcomes of this extreme abortion ban,” Talarico claimed. “That’s why I think you and I actually agree more than we think we do.”
— Team Talarico (@TeamTalaricoHQ) October 15, 2026.@JamesTalarico: The current abortion ban in Texas bans abortion in all cases, including in cases of rape and incest, including when the life of the mother is in danger.
We currently see women dying in emergency room parking lots from sepsis because their doctors are too afraid… pic.twitter.com/G8DOjaKwS8
Calling Texas’ 2021 heartbeat law, which is credited with saving countless lives, both disturbing and extreme is the Democrat abortion radicalism talking, not a candidate who wants to win over a staunch pro-life Catholic like Hunt.
Talarico can claim that “I think you and I actually agree more than we think we do,” but at the end of the day, he doesn’t have much in common with Christians and Texans like Dr. Hunt. His goal, as he admitted at the beginning of the exchange, is not to let his faith shape his politics but to interpret his religion through his politics.
Talarico’s allegiance lies with the Democrats, who have made radical abortion a pillar of their politics. Yet, the majority of Texans stand firmly against the unlimited abortion for all the blue party preaches. As Hunt succinctly noted in her response, Talarico’s embrace of abortion extremism requires a level of biblical illiteracy — claiming both that the Bible says nothing about abortion but also provides evidence for it — that should not plague a self-proclaimed Christian and seminarian. But as Talarico demonstrated, long before he hit the Texas Senate campaign trail, caring about unborn babies and the Bible never really was his priority.
Jordan Boyd is an award-winning staff writer at The Federalist and producer of “The Federalist Radio Hour.” Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on X @jordanboydtx.