Transcript: Rep. James Talarico On Confronting Christian Nationalism, And Strange Days In The Texas Legislature
From The Late Show with Stephen Colbert - February 16, 2026
Please note: This is a direct transcription from the YouTube airing of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert interview with Representative James Talarico on February 16, 2026. Any misspellings or grammatical errors are my own. Emphasis on specific statements and audience response added by me.
Colbert: Welcome back everybody. Ladies and gentlemen, joining me now is a representative in the Texas State House who is currently running for the United States Senate. Please welcome to the Late Show YouTube page, Representative James Talarico. There you go.
Talarico: Thank you.
Colbert: Now, here’s the thing. I don’t usually say this to a guest, but if people are watching this right now, it’s because they found us online on YouTube.
I did an act of the show that’s on tonight explaining why. It’s not the first time you’ve caused some drama. “FCC opening probe into the view after appearance by Talarico.” Do you mean to cause trouble?
Talarico: I think that Donald Trump is worried that we’re about to flip Texas [loud applause] and Stephen, this is the party that ran against cancel culture and now they’re trying to control what we watch, what we say, what we read. And this is the most dangerous kind of cancel culture. The kind that comes from the top. [Loud applause]
They went after The View because I went on there. They went after Jimmy Kimmel for telling a joke they didn’t like. They went after you for telling the truth about Paramount’s bribe to Donald Trump. [Loud applause]
Corporate media executives are selling out the First Amendment to curry favor with corrupt politicians and a threat to any of our First Amendment rights is a threat to all our First Amendment rights.
Colbert: I’m just to fact to fact check you. My network said our cancellation was a purely financial decision. Got it. Got it. And I remain very grateful for the last 11 years. Now you grew up in Texas. Here you are.
Talarico: I did.
Colbert: There you are. You can prove it. [Shows picture of a young Talarico] They give you the adult boots as a child and you’re supposed to just grow into them. I understand.
Talarico: That’s right.
Colbert: You served in the Texas House and now you’re running for Senate. The race, frankly, should not be as interesting as it is. Donald Trump won Texas by 14%. Why do you think this year Texas is considered a possibility by Democrats?
Talarico: Well, I’m an eighth-generation Texan. My family has been in our state since it was Mexico. And across—
Colbert: So, you’re going to get deported is what you’re saying. [Audience laughter]
Talarico: Across the state, there is a backlash growing to the extremism and the corruption in our politics. And I have traveled every corner of Texas already from El Paso to Beaumont, from Amarillo to Brownsville. And we’ve had thousands of Texans showing up to rally with us. And I can’t tell you the number of people who come up to me at the end of these events and whisper, “I’m not a Democrat.” Like, it’s some kind of secret. And we’ve recruited 14,000 volunteers who are out there doing the work all over our state. [Loud applause]
This is one of the most exciting parts: We have shattered grassroots fundraising records all without taking a dime from corporate PACs. And so this is really, it’s a people-powered movement to take back our state and take back our country. And I feel like we’re building something really special in Texas. And clearly Donald Trump has taken note.
Colbert: Now, one of the things that’s come up in some of the conversations you’ve had on the Texas State House floor, which some of the videos I’ve seen you do, and one of the things that gotten you attention out there is that you are a Presbyterian seminarian. Yes?
Talarico: Yes.
Colbert: Presently, you’re a seminarian. Okay. The right attempts to co-opt Christianity to say that, you know, you can’t believe in God, you can’t believe in Christ. I think that Donald Trump might have said something like that at the National Prayer Breakfast, like you can’t actually be a Christian and be a Democrat. But the religious right is largely a political movement that references spirituality, but it’s a political. What do you what is your what is your heartfelt hand out to the people who want to use religion as a tool of political power?
Talarico: Well, for 50 years, the religious right, a political movement, that is the perfect description for it. They convinced a lot of our fellow Christians that the most important issues were abortion and gay marriage. Two issues that aren’t mentioned in the Bible. Two issues that Jesus never talked about.
Jesus in Matthew:25 tells us exactly how you and I, and every one of our fellow believers, how we’re going to be judged and how we’re going to be saved. By feeding the hungry, by healing the sick, by welcoming the stranger. Nothing about going to church, nothing about voting Republican. It was all about how you treat other people. [Loud applause]
I’ve said before, don’t tell me what you believe. Show me how you treat other people and I’ll tell you what you believe. [Loud applause]
And I think in our faith, we’ve got to get back to those fundamentals. My granddad was a Baptist preacher in South Texas. And when I was little, he told me that Christianity is a simple religion. Not an easy religion, he would always clarify, but a simple religion because Jesus gave us two commandments. Love God and love neighbor. And there was no exception to that second commandment. Love thy neighbor regardless of race or gender or sexual orientation or immigration status or religious affiliation. And it’s why I have fought so hard for the separation of church and state in the state capital in Texas because… [Loud applause]
Colbert: Well, I want to ask you about that.
Talarico: Yeah, please.
Colbert: Because you did as a state rep, you fought against the bill requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in schools.
Talarico: That’s right.
Colbert: Why even on that level do you think it’s important to keep the separation not just for the state but for the church?
Talarico: Well, because we are called to love all our neighbors, including our Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Seek, agnostic, atheist neighbors. And forcing our religion down their throats is not love. [Loud applause] It’s why I fought so hard for that sacred separation in our First Amendment.
Because my granddad, he raised me to believe that boundary between church and state doesn’t just benefit the state or our democracy, although it certainly does, but it also benefits the church.
Because when the church gets too cozy with political power, it loses its prophetic voice, its ability to speak truth to power, its ability to imagine a completely different world. And this separation between church and state is something we have to safeguard. It’s something we have to fight for.
And I think we need someone in the US Senate who is going to confront Christian nationalism and tell the truth which is that there is nothing Christian about Christian nationalism. [Loud applause]
It is the worship of power in the name of Christ. And it is a betrayal of Jesus of Nazareth.
And I just want to thank you, Stephen, because I know you’re not a politician, but you have really shown people in this country what Christianity should be and what it means to actually live out the teachings of Jesus, even in a talk show.
Colbert: Well, I’m going to push back a little bit on that. That’s very nice of you to say. I would I would never lay that compliment to myself because I think I fall far short of what my standards would be. But I will agree with you on this. I think that it is bad for certainly my church, or any religious organization, to associate themselves from a political party.
How must it diminish God to be associated with something so small as a present political party? [Loud applause]
Talarico: That’s right.
Colbert: Because imagine this. Imagine that you managed to co-opt Christianity. Imagine if you managed to convince everybody that Jesus was on your side. If you then lose the election, sounds like you’ve got a pretty weak Jesus.
Talarico: Yeah, that’s exactly right. And that’s the key is you don’t want to fit the big thing into the small thing. And God is the biggest thing there is. And so to try to fit God into a political party, whether it’s the Republican party or the Democratic party, you’ve got it reversed.
And it’s why I think we have to remember to put those big things first, to put the love of God and the love for our neighbors before anything else. Because right now what you’ve got is people baptizing their partisanship and calling that Christianity when in reality your politics should grow out of your faith, not the other way around. [Loud applause]
Colbert: Now, there’s been some attention on your race in recent weeks after a Tik Tocker that you met in person says that you privately said to them, and I want to get this quote, they attribute to you, right? This person says, you said, “I signed up originally to run against a mediocre black man, not a formidable and intelligent black woman” supposedly in reference to Colin Allred being the black man and you’ve denied this.
Talarico: Yes.
Colbert: Okay. You denied that you ever said that.
Talarico: That’s correct.
Colbert: Okay. Allred continues to talk about it even though he’s no longer running for the Senate.
Talarico: Correct. Right.
Colbert: So where does that stand? How do you, as someone who this person says this about you, say it didn’t happen. How do you imagine this gets adjudicated? And what would you like to say to people?
Talarico: Yeah. I mean, we know that misinformation spreads on the internet and it’s sometimes like a game of telephone. As I said in my statement, I did critique Colin Allred’s campaigning as mediocre, but I would never attack him on the basis of race. I respect Colin Allred deeply. Even though we have disagreements on the best way to campaign and the best way to win Texas.
My job in this moment is to try to lower the temperature. It is to try to remind us that we are all on the same team trying to change the politics of our state and change the politics of our country because we are seeing the consequences of losing elections as we speak.
And we have a moral imperative to win in November in Texas and to win across this country because that’s how we’re going to get things back on track. And so I know things get tense in a primary. I know stuff flies around on the internet. I understand that. But I’m trying to get us all to keep our eyes on the prize, which is remembering we’re on the same team and getting out there doing the organizing work so that we can win in November.
Colbert: Have you spoken to Colin already?
Talarico: I have. I call, you know, I called him after all this stuff came out and everything started to blow up, just to reiterate what I said in my statement that I do respect him.
Colbert: And how did the conversation go?
Talarico: You know, I don’t want to reveal anything in a private conversation, but I hope that he and I walked away with a better understanding of each other.
Colbert: Now, you’re serving in Texas House of Representatives. You’ve had your fair share of strange days. I understand you had to weigh in on legislation about, and I hope I’m reading this correctly, Furries.
Talarico: I did.
Colbert: Now, I know what Furries are. And is that the same Furries that I do not use my work computer to search for?
Talarico: That’s right. Yeah. When I ran for public office, I never thought I’d be talking about Furries in this job. But my Republican colleagues in the state legislature, they were promoting an internet hoax that Texas public school students were identifying as cats.
Colbert: Yes. And I heard the story. I read the story.
Talarico: And that the schools were providing litter boxes to those students. I know. I know.
Colbert: My understanding is it’s not just Texas. It’s everywhere in the United States.
Talarico: It’s an epidemic. [Audience laughter]
Colbert: Biden signed a law that had to happen. [Obvious sarcasm]
Talarico: Yes. Forcing litter boxes in every classroom. Anyway, they decided to write a bill to combat this completely made-up problem. And it fell to me as a member of the public education committee to question the author of that bill. And so I just asked him a pretty simple question. Has there been a single documented case of a school providing a litter box to students? And he couldn’t name one. And this video went everywhere. You can look it up online.
Colbert: So, the law was working. [Audience laughter]
Talarico: Yeah, that’s right. That’s exactly right. He actually kind of said something similar to that. His response was that this law is to prevent that from ever happening, which I guess true.
But anyway, there is a point to this craziness. They want us talking about Furries and bathrooms. So, we don’t realize that they are picking our pockets, that they are closing our schools, they are gutting our health care, and they are raising taxes on all of us while they cut taxes for their billionaire donors. The culture wars are a smoke screen because the real fight in this country is not left versus right, it’s top versus bottom.
Colbert: Thank you, sir. Thanks so much for being here and thanks for being the first guest to ever appear only on YouTube.
Talarico: I’m honored. I’m honored. Thank you.
Colbert: Representative James Talerico, everybody.
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