Texas Talarico freakout

The people of the Great Nation of Texas have not elected to Democrat to the Senate since 1988, but this year, that might change. James Talleriko, a Presbyterian seminarian, school teacher, self-convest, cringe-progressive. Yes, I was doing it maybe in an annoying way. He's leading in most polls. His opponent, Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, is facing two headwinds, the price of gas and everything. Also, Paxton has done some very, very bad stuff. No Republicans have been trying some messaging. Questioning whether Talleriko is man enough for Texas. Low T-Talleriko, two week for Texas. Tofu Talleriko? They're questioning some other things, too. I love you, too, sir, in a totally platonic way to be clear. I'm the Vice President, not James Talleriko. Mima would be appalled, but what do Texans think? Are they buying it? And today, explain from Vox, we pay a visit. Support for today's episode comes from Delta, official airline of the National Women's Soccer League. Traveling is basically magic. It creates opportunities, it fosters understanding, expands horizons, it connects people and communities to each other and to their own potential. Deltas are the values that drive Delta. With up to 5,500 daily Delta and Delta connection flights, to more than 300 destinations on six continents, Delta is committed to helping you explore your world. Whatever gives you the travel bug, Delta is here to help you get there. Visit Delta.com for more info. Delta, wherever the journey takes you. Getting a business shouldn't feel like surviving a software group project. One app for accounting, another for inventory, another for sales, and somehow, none of them talk to each other. That's where Odo comes in. And all in one business management software that brings every part of your business together. From sales and accounting to inventory and marketing, all in one powerful platform. No messy integrations, no bouncing between tabs, and best of all, no spreadsheets. Stop managing software and start managing your business with one unified system. Check it out for free today at od.com/vox. This is today explained. Last week, producer Peter Balanon-Rosen and I went to a rally for Ken Paxton in Fort Worth. Paxton supporters lined up in their 10s TVH, although we were pretty early. This is an older crowd, but energetic, and it quickly descended into Boomer on Boomer violence. Older fella in a yellow shirt stalking back and forth along the line of supporters with a little dog, shouting about the things A.G. Paxton would prefer everyone forget. He cheated on his wife, according to his now estranged wife. He's been investigated for financial corruption and securities fraud, and he was impeached by fellow Republicans for abuse of office, though not convicted. Paxton's campaign has to do something with all of this, and so they've gone on the offensive. Their message is that his opponent, James Talleriko, while personally, Ravis WikiClean, holds beliefs that are untaxed. Talleriko has said this about God, "God is both masculine and feminine and everything in between. God is non-binary." And this about the sexes, "modern science obviously recognizes there are many more than two biological sexes, in fact there are six." He voted against restrictions that would have barred some trans students from sports teams. But at the Paxton rally anyway, the Paxton argument appears to be working. "Talleriko does not have Texas values. We believe in God, country, we don't believe in the whole gender takeover of the children. Texas doesn't like that." "My shirt says no, 'Taller' freaking way, because he is kind of a freak. How about you talking about God, like he's non-binary and there's six sexes? No. It's not okay." One of the things that I've noticed in the ads is Talleriko's manliness. Do you think he's manly enough to be the senator from Texas? Oh, no. No, no. That was quick. Why do you say that? Well, if you really had to look deep, he's probably got some likes on his panties, but that's just my opinion. There's nothing masculine about him. He looks like a little boy. He's not tough enough. We need masculinity back in Texas. Talleriko? Talleriko. No, freako. Nobody who's a Bible-based Christian says God is non-binary. He's kind of a, let's luni take. At least for them and not for you, so. He's more like, you know, pro-trans. Pushing transgender surgeries on children. He's the wolf and sheep's clothing. Wolf and sheep's clothing. So the base has got the message, but this year, the base is not going to be enough. Some of the base is going to sit this one out due to President Trump's unpopularity. Ken Paxden is going to need independence. Who pay very little attention to politics, but generally, like the way things are going, you've got to convince those voters, I think, that Talleriko is unacceptable. Texas political journalist Ryan Rusak, until recently, led the Fort Worth Star Telegram's opinion section. We're not a state that likes to vote much at all. We're a state where the vast majority of people, if things are running okay, they can pay their mortgage and the economy's growing and they have jobs and their neighbors have jobs and the price of gas is reasonable. They'll stay home, or they will vote for the guys that are keeping the machinery humming. But the machinery ain't humming this year. President Trump's approval rating is hovering around 32 percent. That is quite low. 36 percent of likely voters told the Texas political project that either the economy or the cost of living is their top issue this year. And anecdotally, people here would tell you, those are the same thing. The next biggest issue for those Texas voters pulled is a bit of a shocker. Corruption. Corruption more than abortion, more than socialism, more even than stopping the Democrats. So, what do you do with that if you're the candidate who is dogged by corruption allegations? You seize on any perceived weakness that you can find. James Talleriko, a seminarian, is the rare Democrat who will not stop talking about his faith, rather than dodge it, he has leaned all the way in. So, what if you say he's the wrong kind of Christian man? He is one of a lot of Texas Southern Baptists or independent Christian conservatives would call Christian light. His church is almost a caricature of a progressive church. They use a Bible that uses inclusive language and everybody can go to heaven, not just followers of Jesus, and Talleriko is a soft spot for him. Okay, so there are fights happening behind this thing that you don't necessarily see unless you're in Texas and understand this landscape. Let's ask for, let me ask you for a similar sort of comparison when it comes to the question, James Talleriko being a real man or not a real man. When we hear James Talleriko is not a real man, what would we be picking up on if we understood what we should be picking up on? For a while, I thought it was sort of a general sort of against the feminization of masculinity against sort of if a Trump Republican is a sort of a manly man, you know, brash and bold and gets things done and eats a lot of meat or Trump's case, a lot of fast food, that there was some other definition for Talleriko. It's soft spoken, it's, you know, caring about the environment, it's, you know, not eating too much meat. You know, that's not the guy who's going to wear his cowboy boots with his suit on the Senate floor like Senator Cruz does. Ryan points out that the narratives conflict here. On the one hand, Talleriko and his policies are too soft, too weak, too low teeth for Texas voters, no, Tallerfreakin way, but on the other hand, Talleriko is a monster who's going to trans your kids, he's a wolf in sheep's clothing. One consequence of this is if you're trying to scare your voters, that, you know, if James Talleriko is elected, we're going to have abortion on demand and all kids will be forcibly trans. It's hard to then make fun of him as like a vegan sim, right? It's one or the other, he's either threatening or he's not. So James Talleriko might be a bad man or bad at being a man. But as we talk to people in Texas, we learned a big problem for Ken Paxton is that a lot of women see him as a bad guy. So I've been involved in Texas politics over 30 years and this is the first time I've truly been concerned we could lose a statewide since the Republicans took over in the 90s. That is Jill Tate. Jill leads the Texas Federation of Republican Women and her job is to get Republicans a W on election day. Ken Paxton's biggest sin from the point of view of the Texas Federation of Republican Women has to do with his estranged wife. In July of last year, Angela Paxton announced she was seeking a divorce on "biblical grounds". It has been a rumor around Texas. years. Oh, okay. So I don't think that it was a shocking thing to hear. Our board has about 100 ladies on it. All from all over the state of Texas and many of them, we feel very, the sisterhood of Angela, because she is one of our members. And so there was that, you know, you hurt our sister. We don't want you. We're not going to do anything for you, but it would Angela Paxden is an accomplished member of the Texas State Senate. These women are her friends. And the thing about women is that we tend not to vote for our friends dirtbag X's. But you know, Angela actually has been very clear on the fact that it is still very important to vote for Ken. She came to our board meeting almost a month ago and gave a speech called the elephant in the room. And she talked about the fact that while our candidates may fall down and they may do things that are disappointing and morally wrong, it is extremely important to remember that is the human side. And we have to vote for the team. In that moment, you could hear a pin drop. Everyone was listening and it was, I saw heads nodding and I saw minds changing. The timing of Angela Paxden's speech was not at all random. Her ex has been trailing or neck-and-neck in the polls for months now. And this is where the Paxden playbook comes in. Remember, Ken Paxden may be the bad ex, but James Telerico is scary. He is a radical. He is a radical. He is not a Democrat. He is not the conservative Democrat of days of old here in Texas. He is for radical policies. He's also a heretic. He is absolutely, he talks about God being non-binary and six genders and those are things that are not Christian. He's just not the good old boy that he is portraying himself on TV. We've seen some advertising that takes aim at Telerico's masculinity. So the vice president has two things that I think were somewhat shocking to some people. The first was, he sort of came out and said, like, Telerico's gay. I didn't hear that, but it's possible. He said, I don't know. He did that one. He did that one. And the second one was he made this sort of allusion to Telerico's search history. I wouldn't want to see what's in there. So these are sort of like, this is a specific type of allegation that seeks to cast Telerico as gay. Maybe I don't know, pervert or pedophile. Do you, do you approve of that as a Christian? No, because, well, you know, it's, as the Bible says, we're not supposed to gossip about things. I hear you saying, Ken Paxson is the right candidate for Texas. James Telerico is the wrong candidate for Texas. Why are you worried then? Because of the organization and the fact that they are working so hard, this is something I have not seen the Democrat party do in a long time. They're organized. They've got a plan and they're knocking doors. The Democrats are organized. So Republicans want voters to focus on Telerico's comments about God and the sexes. And some voters do care about those things most. But it's possible, maybe even likely, that this year many more voters are focused on the rising cost of gas, of groceries, of life. I don't care what you do in your closet under your sheets or whatever. Let's stop there. Every single commercial that I see right now from Republicans is about kids going to school and coming home, the opposite sex, right? And so the Republicans are doing anything and everything to distract from actual policy and actual issues, right? I mean, everything's gone up. We need to get better representation and just the economy needs to get better for the folks. The smart money says this election is going to be really close and it's going to come down to what motivates people to go out and vote. Fear, as we've seen in the US over the past decade or so, is a great motivator. Fear about immigrants, fear about trans people, fear that we're in a period of moral decay. Ken Paxton is campaigning on fear and counting on fear. James Tallerico, the gentle seminarian and alleged vegan, might ironically be helped by the other great motivator. Rage, rage at the status quo, rage at the unaffordability, rage at the corrupt elites. What might have been a weakness in 2026 is an advantage. A wolf in sheep's clothing might turn out to be exactly what the people of Texas want. Coming up next, we were a little surprised in Texas at how many voters say they'll be voting for the person who is the best Christian. We're going to talk to a young conservative Christian voter about how she's dealing with the candidates' biblical baggage. Running a business shouldn't feel like surviving a software group project, one after accounting, another for inventory, another for sales, and somehow none of them talk to each other. That's where Odo comes in, an all-in-one business management software that brings every part of your business together. From sales and accounting to inventory and marketing, all-in-one powerful platform, no messy integrations, no bouncing between tabs, and best of all, no spreadsheets. Try for free today at odu.com/vox. That's odl.com/vox. Are you tired of hearing about business, tech, and finance from the Rose? We are the Tiger Sisters, a top business podcast with the Vox Media Podcast Network. Tiger Sisters releases every Monday, and we decode money, power, and love. And who doesn't love all those things? We are the internet's Wall Street and Silicon Valley big sisters. Tune in every Monday for late night sister talk meets boardroom strategy. Check out Tiger Sisters on YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the Tiger fam. Support for the show comes from hymns. Let's go for it, guys. If you're feeling dissatisfied with your sex life, particularly when it comes to ed, the last thing you want to do is sit in a doctor's office and describe what's going on while your provider takes notes gross. hymns is here to help offer a solution. hymns combines personalized treatment plans on 100% online process. That means no office visit, no famously line, no awkward conversations. You can just connect with a licensed provider who can determine if treatment is right for you. And if a provider decides it's the right fit, your treatment plan is prescribed online and ships discreetly to your door. Ready to build a better sex life? You can visit hymns.com/explain for personalized plan for sex, hair, weight loss, and more. That's hymns.com/explain. Prescription products required online consultation with a licensed health provider who will determine if prescription is appropriate. Restrictions apply, individual results may vary. See hymns.com for full details. There was a Republican leader who said Richard Nixon might be a crook, but he's our crook. Ken Baxon is our guy. Well, I'm not a crook. I've learned today explained. Morgan Prudome is 23 years old. She's the president of Turning Point USA. That's the Charlie Kirk founded conservative campus advocacy group at Southern Methodist University. I'm an undergraduate student here, setting political science. I'm also a wife, a mom, and most importantly, a Christian. Can I start by asking just who's your candidate? Who are you going to vote for? I would say definitely Ken Baxon, but we can't pretend that he's a perfect biblical, you know, Christian man and role model. I'm a Christian first and a conservative second. So voting for Ken Baxon is purely because he is the choice that is going to best slow societal decay in my opinion. As far as Halariko, you know, he's born, he's on Rogan. That is the key step. You need to run for president. We need someone who's actually a good person. He's on TikTok. I've been eating barbecue since before Ken Baxon's first indictment. No one should have to crowd fund their cancer treatment. Texans are sick of these AI ads trying to deceive voters, putting words in my mouth. Voters rate him authentic, but authenticity is not the same thing as truth. He said that when the angel came upon Mary and told her that she was going to bear Jesus was going to bear a son, that the angel asked for consent. The angel comes down and asks Mary if this is something she wants to do and she says, if it is God's will, let it be done. Let it be. Let it happen. So to me, that is an affirmation in one of our most central stories that creation has to be done with consent. That's not true, but people don't check. The angel directed her that she was going to bear a child, and I can even read you the verse. "Behold, I am the servant of the Lord," and then she said, "Let it be to me according to your word." He didn't ask her for permission. Rogan doesn't know his scripture either, so he believed him right off the bat. A lot of people listen to that for their information. It's 2026. Yes. It seems to me like maybe one of the things that James Telleriko is trying to do is to say, "I'm bringing a message from the Bible and trying to sort of make it and put it in like 2026 language, and therefore I'll talk about consent or I'll talk about God being non-binary." What do you think about the argument that he's just trying to sort of relate to people, to use the Bible to relate to people unlike modern day terms versus quoting scripture? I would say that Jesus said, "Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves." I don't agree with politicians twisting the Bible to support their positions in any way, but this is especially heretical, like the definition of heresy. Heresy? Yes, this is heresy. This is absolutely heresy. This is the definition of heresy. So you can't use, we believe that the Bible is God's living and active word. It is His breath on a page. So you can't use God's word to twist and support whatever it is that you believe. But especially when you twist it to support things that God specifically speaks against, you just, you can't do that, God will not be mocked. We need to talk about Ken Paxton because Ken Paxton has engaged in some behaviors that are certainly outside of what the Bible expects of us, commands us to do, asks us to do. Ken Paxton's wife, when she announced that she was leaving him, I was sort of stunned by this. She said I'm divorcing him on biblical grounds. Yes. That's a pretty strong statement. Yes. Was it a struggle for you to decide I'm going to vote for this man whose own wife said, I am going to divorce him on biblical grounds instead of just saying he cheated on me? For me personally, I always have trouble with voting when I'm voting for someone who claims to represent Christian values who I feel like doesn't. I don't need to follow him over this candidate. It doesn't need to be pure and holy and everything they've ever said needs to be perfect. I'm not voting for a savior because I already have one. By sitting out and not voting in the election, you're making a choice. You are voting for James Tolerico, which one of my fears is that it could influence Christians that are in Congress already to vote in a different way based on his arguments. And so I would say it was difficult at first figuring out who I was going to vote for. And it might honestly disqualify him some of the things that he's done, but he will best slow societal decay as Jesus directed. So that's why he's my choice. It might even disqualify him some of the things that he's done. Yes. That's an enormous statement to make about a man that you plan to vote for. Yes. But he does the job much better. I would say that I mean, for example, you look at Trump a lot of people don't like Trump. He has a personal life and it's really colored, you know. And yes, sometimes there are things in a candidate's past that in my view, my disqualify them from doing the job because I don't think that they're the best example for Christians, for society. However, we're not giving many choices in America. And so at the end of the day, I'm always going to vote Republican. As long as they are the party that continues to align with biblical values, when that changes will become a Democrat. But currently, that's not the landscape. How old is your son? He's three, almost four months. Your son is too young to sort of comprehend who Ken Paxson is or who James Telluriko is. But is Ken Paxson the type of man you want your son looking at and saying, that's a Christian? I mean, no, I would hope that he looks my husband first in our pastor. You know, we can find someone else to replace him. Hopefully next time, you know, someone who does represent Christian values better. Except one of the things that I think President Trump may have illustrated to us is that if you elect someone with a lot of personal baggage, with a lot of allegations about their personal life and their allegations of corruption, it does seem more likely that you do it again the next time. Okay, that guy with all that dark history, with all that unChristian behavior, he can win and he can win Christians. So what is the motivation for the next guy to be a good Christian? If the previous guy wasn't and still won Christians? I mean, I would say that this is the responsibility of the church. You have to raise up good men. We need men to stand up and say, "I'm going to support you and I'm going to support the kids." And we're going to go to church every week and we're going to be Christian members of society. Those are some of the things that Ken Paxson said he was. There's a verse about separating the wheat from the chaff. That's not a verse about just like people in general. It's a verse about Christians. There are people who claim to be Christian, who are not Christian, whose lives do not represent that. Jesus knows your heart. You're going to answer for that someday. The problem is when you asked about my son and an example for him to follow. I don't want him following James Talleriko's example either. And so both choices aren't exactly great. But with Ken Paxson, I have more of a hope that he's not going to grow up in a school where he comes home one day and he tells me that he thinks he's a girl. And that, you know, he wants to go by this name instead and whatever else. I don't love this choice. I don't love that I'm making it. I don't want this person as a model for my children, as a model for a state or for the country. But ultimately, this will best slow societal decay. [Music] Morgan Fruton at Southern Methodist University. Today's team, Peter Balanon-Rosen, Julie Myers, Bridger Dunnigan, Gabriel Dunnettov, and me, Noelle King, it's today, explain. [Music]