Texas Senate hopeful’s pro-border security ad contradicts 2019 interview

Texas Democrat candidate for US Senate James Talarico appeared to further moderate his previous leftist positions as he slammed former President Joe Biden for “failing us” on border security in a new campaign ad released Monday.

Despite an apparently hawkish and straight right-leaning border stance in the recent ad, Talarico previously called for cutting Texas’ entire border security budget in a revealing interview.

“I called on Joe Biden to fail us at the border,” Talarico says in the opening of the ad released this week.

But Talarico’s campaign failed to give Fox News Digital an example of him publicly criticizing Biden during his presidency. And the Texas Democrat explicitly called for Texas’ entire $800 million two-year border security budget to go toward public education in a 2019 interview with The Austin Chronicle.

JAMES TALARICO ADMITS DEMOCRATS HAD ‘LIMITS TO FAILURE’ ON BIDEN

“We also send about $800 million per biennium to the border with Mexico for ‘increased border security,'” Talarico said in the more than seven-year-old interview.

The two-year deal that allocates $400 million a year for border security in the state of Texas was the state’s entire budget for fighting illegal immigration at the time Talarico made the call to replace that funding.

“I would rather take that money and put it back into public education and, for example, help increase the basic allotment,” he said in the interview.

Talarico has stepped up his efforts to come across as more moderate amid claims that he is too progressive to win a Senate seat in notoriously red Texas. His move to a more moderate stance on immigration only began during his Senate bid in the state with the highest rates of illegal immigration.

“Putting a bunch of ships, planes and border patrols on the physical border is expensive and doesn’t solve the problem either,” he said in the interview.

His 2019 criticism of border surveillance comes to the surface as border crossings under the Trump administration fell to a new record low in 55 years in 2025, according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The decline in illegal immigration follows a series of immigration measures implemented by the administration.

“Everybody will admit it’s just political grandstanding,” Talarico said in the interview. “Some lawmakers want to appease extreme parts of their base. And they’re doing it by pumping money we don’t have at the border.”

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In his run for the Senate, Talarico has now labeled himself a “border security” Democrat, despite an extensive history of pushing back on border security reform and authorities.

A former member of the Texas Legislature and a former school teacher, Talarico has repeatedly been in the spotlight for many of his far-left controversies, particularly comments on immigration enforcement. He called for the dismantling of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), claiming it was “time to tear down this secret police force.”

Talarico also referred to illegal aliens as his “constituents.”

He called Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s border security policies “atrocities” and accused him of “hunting” illegal immigrants. The Senate candidate also said that he “taught a lot of undocumented students,” and that the illegal aliens were more patriotic than Americans.

“James is proud to be the only candidate in this race who has unveiled a border security agenda supported by Republican and Democratic border region sheriffs,” Talarico campaign spokesman JT Ennis told Fox News Digital when asked about the flip-flop.

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He continued, “James supports stronger border security and immigration enforcement – that’s why he called for more border patrol agents and said we should arrest and deport violent criminals and human traffickers – not mothers and babies.”

The Texas Senate hopeful briefly went missing from the campaign trail this month, prompting viral rumors to swirl online that he was in a behavioral health center. Talarico dismissed those claims after clearing the air when he reappeared on Friday, reassuring voters that he had recovered from the flu.

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Talarico is running against GOP rival Ken Paxton for the Senate seat in Texas. The race remained close as the November midterms approached.