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The Ezra Klein Show

By Ezra Klein

Produced by Marie Cascione

This is an edited transcript of “The Ezra Klein Show.” You can listen to the episode wherever you get your podcasts.

One of my obsessions over the last few years has been the role of attention in modern American politics: the way attention is a fundamental currency, the way it works differently than it did at other times when it was controlled by newspaper editorial boards. So I’ve been particularly interested in politicians who seem native to this attentional era, who seem to have figured something out.

We’ve talked a lot about how the Trump administration uses attention, how Zohran Mamdani uses attention. But somebody who has been breaking through over the past year in a very interesting way is James Talarico, a state representative from Texas.

Talarico is a little bit unusual for a Democrat. He’s a very forthright Christian politician. He roots his politics very fundamentally in a way you don’t often hear from Democrats in his faith.

Archival clip of James Talarico: Because there is no love of God without love of neighbor.

But Talarico began emerging as somebody who was breaking through on TikTok, Instagram and viral videos where he would talk about whether or not the Ten Commandments should be posted in schools, as a bill had proposed:

Archival clip of Talarico: This bill, to me, is not only unconstitutional, it’s not only un-American, I think it is also deeply un-Christian.

And the ways in which the Bible’s emphasis on helping the poor and the needy had been perverted by those who wanted to use religion as a tool of power and even greed:

Archival clip of Talarico: Jesus liberates, Christian nationalism controls. Jesus saves, Christian nationalism kills.

What was really surprising to many people is that he ended up on Joe Rogan’s podcast — the first significant Democrat that Rogan seemed interested in, in a very long time.

Archival clip of Joe Rogan: You need to run for president. [Laughter]. Because we need someone who’s actually a good person.

Now Talarico is running for Senate in Texas. He’s running in a primary with Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett for what will be one of the most important Senate elections in the country.

So I wanted to have Talarico on the show to talk to him about his faith, his politics and the way those two have come together in this attentional moment to allow him to say things in a language and within a framework that people seem to really want to hear, that people seem hungry for: a language of morality, and even of faith, at a time of incredible cruelty. And at a time when the radicalism of faith seems to have been perverted by the corruption of politics.

Ezra Klein: James Talarico, welcome to the show.

James Talarico: Thanks for having me.

So I wanted to start with your faith, because your politics is so rooted in your faith.

For you, what is the root or the experience of your belief? Is it learned for you? Is it embodied? Cerebral? Is it something you’ve always had? Or something you had to struggle to find?

All the above. [Chuckles.] So my granddad was a Baptist preacher in South Texas, in Corpus Christi and in Laredo, where my mom grew up. When I was real 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 these two Commandments: To love God, our source, and to love our neighbors.

And so those two Commandments have really guided my life at its best moments, and it’s why I’m in public service. I was a public-school teacher, and now I’m a public official. That’s “loving my neighbor.” And it’s why I’m a seminary student studying to become a minister one day — that’s the “loving God” part. And both of them sustain each other, challenge each other, reinforce each other on a daily basis.

But you just slipped into how you live your faith, not what it is for you.

Yeah.

Has belief come easily to you?

Part of being a seminary student is studying Hebrew and Greek, so you can actually read Scripture in its original language. And one of the mind-blowing things that happened to me my first year of seminary is I was studying this word “faith.” In many translations, it is “belief” — the idea of believing in a concept or an idea — which makes sense in English, Western, translations.

But it can also be translated as “trust,” which to me is much more experiential: Trusting that love is going to get you through the hour, through the day, through your life. That love is going to carry all of us forward. That love will ultimately prevail, even when it’s temporarily defeated.

To me, that’s what my faith feels like. It feels like trust. Almost like when I learned how to swim at our neighborhood pool, and I remember my swim teacher telling me: Don’t fight the water. Let the water carry you.

There’s so much temptation in our lives to control our surroundings and control other people, and I think the opposite of that control is faith — that kind of trust, letting the universe hold you up — and not fighting it. That’s what it feels like for me, again, when I’m most faithful.

It’s a struggle on a daily basis to feel that trust and not to fight the water.

Was it always there for you, or did you have a period as a college atheist reading Chris Hitchens?

[Chuckles.] I was really lucky that I grew up in an incredible church community. I didn’t grow up with my granddad as my pastor. I grew up in a Presbyterian Church, actually, in Round Rock, Texas: St. Andrew’s. Shout-out to our church!

And our pastor, Dr. Jim Rigby, married my parents. He baptized me when I was 2 years old. He’s a unique religious leader and thinker. He got in trouble a lot when I was in elementary school: He was ordaining gay and lesbian clergy. He was blessing same-sex unions, which now doesn’t seem controversial ——

Well, in some traditions it certainly is.

That’s true. But I think it’s hard to remember just how controversial universally it was, how radical and dangerous it was. We almost lost our church because of those actions by our minister and our congregation, and the national Presbyterian Church put him on trial. And so these early memories were kind of seared into my brain.

So I was brought up in a very countercultural faith that didn’t sound like everything I heard at school or at work or in the media. I feel like I was given a really healthy tradition and one that has worked for me, partly because Dr. Jim, my pastor, always said that religion shouldn’t lead to itself — religion should lead you deeper into your own life. To me, that is such a gift that you can give a young person.

Can you say more about what that means to you?

Yes. I’ll just speak about my tradition. The genius of Christianity — the miracle of Christianity — is not the claim that Jesus is God. It’s that God is Jesus, meaning that Jesus helps us understand the mystery. A mystery can’t help us understand Jesus. So this idea that ultimate reality, the ground of our being, the cosmos, however you want to define God, somehow looks like this humble, compassionate, barefoot rabbi in the first century, someone who broke cultural norms, someone who stood up for the vulnerable and the marginalized, someone who challenged religious authority — that, to me, is such a revolutionary idea, and it leads you to challenge organized religion.

The Gospel just inherently tries to break out of some of these religious dogmas and orthodoxies and challenges religion itself.

I’ve heard you talk in different clips and interviews about the difference between a living religion and a dead religion. Is this what you’re talking about when you describe that? This difference between a religion that has been absorbed into structures of power that now is itself a structure of power, versus one that is still challenging the ways of this world?

Yes, the separation of church and state — I was taught that constitutional boundary was sacred, not for the benefit of the state, although there are benefits to our democracy, but for the benefit of the church. Because when religion gets too cozy with power, we lose our prophetic voice, our ability to see beyond the current systems, the current era.

One of my favorite verses in the New Testament is in the Sermon on the Mount. I encourage everyone to go back and read it, especially as Christianity is more and more in our political conversation. Go back and read Christianity 101, which is the Sermon on the Mount.

It’s interesting because Jesus takes his followers not into a church, not into a business, not into a governmental building. He brings people to a hillside, and he says: Look at the birds of the air. Look at the lilies of the field. This is how we’re supposed to live. This is who we truly are.

That is revolutionary. It is radical in the true meaning of that word, going to the root of all of our lives and our problems and our dreams. And to me, that is the spirit of our tradition of breaking these chains, of breaking out of these systems.

The word “church” in Greek means: to be called out of our culture, called out of our economy, called out of our political system. That is what religion at its best does. It’s what I was given. I was given that kind of religion just because I happened to be growing up across the street from this incredible church.

How do you think about the competing claims of different religions? Do you believe Christianity to be more true than other religions? Do you believe there to be exclusivity in these beliefs, that they’re incompatible with each other?

I believe Christianity points to the truth. I also think other religions of love point to the same truth. I think of different religious traditions as different languages. So you and I could sit here and debate what to call this cup, and you could call it “cup” in English, and you could call it something else in Spanish and French, but we are all talking about the same reality.

I believe Jesus Christ reveals that reality to us. But I also think that other traditions reveal that reality in their own ways, with their own symbol structures. And I’ve learned more about my tradition by learning more about Buddhism and Hinduism and Islam and Judaism.

I see these beautiful faith traditions as circling the same truth about the universe, about the cosmos. And that truth is inherently a mystery.

I think the most destructive thing is when religion becomes an end in and of itself. That’s when religion implodes.

My pastor always told me growing up that religious symbols are like aspirin: In order to work, they have to dissolve. They point beyond themselves. If you get lost in the symbols, if you get lost in the words, you’re missing the reality that we’re all trying to describe and talk about.

What is your relationship to prayer?

Prayer is essential for me. I start out every morning in prayer. Sometimes it’s silent prayer, which to me is probably the most helpful. Oftentimes, those are just prayers of gratitude that God woke me up this morning, that I have health, that I have my family, that I have my friends, that I get to do a job I really care about, making an impact. That gratitude, to me, checks the worst parts of myself every morning.

Then, almost every morning, I’ll say the Lord’s Prayer aloud, and that’s a different experience. It’s much more of a ritual. But rituals are also a gift because it’s a rhythm that you’re getting back in touch with, a prayer that has been said for 2,000 years in our tradition. That prayer, in particular, reminds me of the work that we have in front of us. Because religion without works, faith without works, is dead.

When does prayer feel real to you, and when does it feel false?

Well, sometimes, a ritual — sometimes you’re not ready to feel it. But part of the ritual, whether it’s the Lord’s Prayer, whether it’s Communion on a Sunday, is to get you into that mode even when you’re not feeling it.

I’ve been thinking about prayer in my own life recently, and I’ve been reading “On Prayer,” this book by Abraham Joshua Heschel. He writes:

Prayer is our humble answer to the inconceivable surprise of living. It is all we can offer in return for the mystery by which we live. Who is worthy to be present at the constant unfolding of time?

I like that a lot. I’ve been trying to think about: When does prayer feel real, and when does it feel false? Understanding prayer as a kind of admission of gratitude and wonder has been a little bit closer to something that I could touch.

Yes. One of my favorite books of all time is “The Sabbath” by Rabbi Heschel.

Yes, one of mine, too.

And to me, prayer is almost like the Sabbath breaking in throughout the week. And in that book, he describes that throughout the week, we’re all concerned about our status and our jobs and our to-do lists. And the Sabbath is when you — I think he describes it as: glimpsing eternity.

To me, that’s a little bit of what prayer is, for a few minutes in the morning or throughout the day: It is trying to touch eternity even as you’re trapped in a finite world.

So prayer is an act, and it seems to me that the way you have described your faith, as a faith of acts, that the question of whether or not you are living in religion is not about what you believe but about what you do.

Well, and that’s what we’re taught as Christians. Matthew 25 tells us exactly 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, by visiting the prisoner. Nothing about being a Christian, nothing about going to church, nothing about saying the Lord’s Prayer, nothing about reading the Bible — just helping others. Just loving.

I mean, it’s remarkable when you go back and read that passage. But they need each other. Prayer needs action, and action needs prayer. And I don’t want anyone to misunderstand what I’m saying, because you can be out there doing the work, but if you’re not connected to something deeper, you’re going to burn out really fast.

When I said earlier that the love of God and the love of neighbors sustain each other, they are in relationship. They are united. The entire mystery of incarnation is the divine and the human being brought together into one union.

So I listened to you when you did your “Joe Rogan” appearance, and you offered there a very, very progressive form of Christianity.

Archival clip of “The Joe Rogan Show”:

Rogan: What do you think is the biblical evidence to support the opinion of being pro-abortion?

Talarico: So before God comes over Mary and we have the incarnation, God asks for Mary’s consent, which is remarkable. Go back and read this in Luke. 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. You cannot force someone to create. Creation is one of the most sacred acts that we engage in as human beings, but that has to be done with consent. It has to be done with freedom. And to me, that is absolutely consistent with the ministry and life and death of Jesus.

You’re not just emphasizing in your politics different aspects of your faith, but you’re very much challenging quite widespread interpretations of it.

Again, I think that’s what we’re called to do as Christians. Almost every debate Jesus is in is with the religious authorities of his time, directly challenging orthodoxy. Jesus was a religious reformer. Paul was a religious reformer. And so I think when we’re at our best as Christians, we are challenging religious dogmas and religious supremacy.

But I also try to come at this with humility. On the issue of abortion, I’ve said before, I don’t know what Jesus thought about abortion. The Bible doesn’t tell us. The Bible doesn’t mention abortion at all. And so, as with many issues that aren’t mentioned in the Bible, we have to take Scripture, and we’ve got to try to piece together what we think is what love demands of us on a particular policy question.

And you’re right: For the past 50 years in this country, the religious right, a political movement, convinced a lot of Christians in America that the two most important issues were abortion and homosexuality — two issues that aren’t really discussed in Scripture. Abortion is never mentioned. Consensual same-sex relationships are never mentioned.

It’s remarkable to me that you have an entire political movement using Christianity to prioritize two issues that Jesus never talked about. And so I’m not saying they’re not important — I actually think both of those issues are very important. But to focus on those two things instead of feeding the hungry and healing the sick and welcoming the stranger — three things we’re told to do ad nauseam in Scripture — to me, is just mind-blowing.

How do you understand that? I’m Jewish, but when I read the New Testament, I always come away a little bit amazed that politicized Christianity is so worried about gender and sexuality, and so unconcerned with greed.

You’re preaching to the choir. [Laughs.] Absolutely. Concern for the poor, concern for the oppressed, is everywhere. Economic justice is mentioned 3,000 times in our Scriptures, both the New Testament and the Hebrew Scriptures. This is such a core part of our tradition, and it’s nowhere to be seen in Christian nationalism or on the religious right.

And the Bible is all over the place when it comes to marriage. Paul tells us not to get married, and you certainly see many different kinds of marriages throughout Scripture. The same with gender. Paul says that in Christ, there is neither male nor female, which is pretty woke for the first century.

Again, it’s because religion is being used to control people and accumulate power and wealth for those at the top. This is a tale as old as time, and it is not unique to Christianity. Powerful people will always see religion as a tool to make more money and to keep people in line.

For those unfamiliar with the term, what is “Christian nationalism”?

You can define it a lot of different ways. I define it as the worship of power in the name of Christ. I define it that way because I want us to see it as part of a very long tradition.

How do they define it? “They” being the people who would self-identify with it.

I would think they would define it as wanting a Christian nation. But again, these politicians want a Christian nation — unless it means providing health care to the sick or funding food assistance for the hungry or raising the minimum wage for the poor. It seems like they want to base our laws on the Bible until they read the words of Jesus: Welcome the stranger, liberate the oppressed, put away your sword, sell all your possessions, and give the money to the poor.

I mean, I’m not exactly sure a Christian nation is really what these people want. Again, I believe the separation of church and state is sacred. I think a nation with one supreme religion is not just un-American, I also think it’s un-Christian, given how Jesus taught about religious supremacy. But I do think if these people are going to call for a Christian nation, they need to reach for all of it.

I’ve fought the bill to require the Ten Commandments to be posted in every classroom. And I’ve often wondered, instead of posting the Ten Commandments in every classroom, why don’t they post “Money is the root of all evil” in every boardroom? Why don’t they post “Do not judge” in every courtroom? Why don’t they post “Turn the other cheek” in the halls of the Pentagon? Or “It’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into the kingdom of heaven” on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange?

This is the inconsistency I’m trying to call out, because they’re using my tradition — they’re speaking for me — and so I think I have a special moral responsibility to combat Christian nationalism wherever I see it.

One thing I appreciate about President Trump is he doesn’t pretend that his politics are built on piety. That’s not his style. But the vice president, JD Vance, does suggest that his politics are built around a Christian ethic. And I want to play a clip of him for you.

Archival clip of JD Vance: As an American citizen, your compassion belongs first to........

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