#2352 - James Talarico

Joe Rogan: Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day. How are you, James?

James Talarico: I'm doing well. How are you?

Joe Rogan: Very good. Nice to meet you.

James Talarico: It's nice to meet you. Thanks for having me.

Joe Rogan: My pleasure. I found out about you from my friend Brian Simpson. He was in the green room of the Comedy Mothership and he was telling me how excited he was about you. He said he watched some lecture. I think it was probably not a lecture, a speech you were giving about the Ten Commandments in schools. And so then I watched it and I said, "Oh, OK, this is very interesting." So I thought we'd have a cool conversation.

James Talarico: Yeah. Well, I'm just honored to be here.

Joe Rogan: My pleasure.

James Talarico: Thanks for including me.

Joe Rogan: Thank you. I'm honored to have you. It's always interesting to see a person who is a Christian who is not for the Ten Commandments in schools.

James Talarico: Yeah.

Joe Rogan: And I think you made a very compelling argument.

James Talarico: Yeah. You know, I've gotten that a lot. People are like, "You're in seminary, you're studying to become a minister. Why wouldn't you want the Ten Commandments in every classroom?" So I recognize that it's kind of a weird position to be in. But I grew up in a tradition that cherished the separation of church and state, not just because it protects the church or protects democracy, but it is what allows this democracy to happen where we can all have different faith traditions and live together in peace. Any attempt to erode that boundary, I feel like I have a special obligation to speak out against it.

So I told my colleagues that I thought the bill was unconstitutional, that the bill was un-American. But I went one step further and I said I thought the bill was unchristian, which probably sounds weird to people. But in all of Jesus' teachings, he's always focused on the outsider, the outcast, the person who's left out or the person who's different. So as a Christian, I think my concern is for the Muslim kid and the Jewish kid, the Hindu kid, the atheist kid who's sitting in a classroom who now has a poster on the wall forced by the government that says, "Your religion is inferior" or "You're not welcome here." I think if Jesus saw that, he would weep for those students and would demand that we love them as ourselves. That's why I spoke out against the bill on theological grounds, not just constitutional grounds.

Joe Rogan: So what is the bill? Can you explain?

James Talarico: Yeah. So the bill forces every teacher in the state to display the Ten Commandments in their classrooms.

Joe Rogan: Is this even in private schools?

James Talarico: It's only public schools. Because that's really where we have authority as the state legislature. The bill, and this is going to sound weird, it even specifies how big the poster is, the dimensions of it.

Joe Rogan: How big is it supposed to be?

James Talarico: It has to be in a conspicuous place. It's basically the size of a sheet of paper, a regular sheet of paper. The idea is they didn't want anyone to make it too small so someone wouldn't read it. But the bill says that the school doesn't have to spend money on it. It can be donated. That sounds fine to most people until you realize there's this huge network of Christian nationalist organizations that are already preparing to flood every school with these Ten Commandments posters for all of their classrooms. So the donation thing sounds innocuous until you realize the donations are already ready to go from all these outside groups.

There's going to be legal challenges, of course, but if it's not struck down in the courts, every teacher is going to have to put up the Ten Commandments in their classroom against their wills, even if they don't want to. Speaking as a Christian, if we have to force people to put up a poster, to me that means we have a dead religion, a religion that no longer moves people, a religion that no longer speaks to people's hearts. If we have to prove our legitimacy by micromanaging what teachers put up in their classroom, to me that means we have a real crisis in our faith. We should be leading by example, not by mandate.

Joe Rogan: How did this get proposed and what is the support for it?

James Talarico: Well, the support is pretty broad within the Republican caucus. Again, I serve in the state.

Joe Rogan: Is it universal, essentially?

James Talarico: Yeah, I don't think there was a single Republican who voted against it this time around. And again, I serve in the state legislature. A lot of people think that I'm a congressman. I serve here in Austin at the state capitol.

Joe Rogan: What is your position?

James Talarico: So I'm a state representative. I serve in the house, in the state house. There are two chambers just like the federal government, a senate and a house. The Republicans have a majority in the house and in the senate. I'm a member of the Democratic Party. So I literally can't get anything done without working on a bipartisan basis. It's actually a blessing in this modern era where we're all tribalized and polarized that I am forced to work with people who have completely different views than I do. And actually, you get to know them.

In D.C., from what I hear—I have only been to D.C. a few times in my life—but from what I hear, you're really kind of separated physically from your colleagues. You don't spend a lot of time talking to each other anymore. It's a lot of fundraising and events and not really a lot of relationship building. In the state capitol, you don't have the same media scrutiny, the same spotlight. So we can still get to know each other and go out to eat with each other and meet each other's families. I actually think it's something that we could benefit from at the national level, that kind of camaraderie and professional working relationships with people across the aisle.

Joe Rogan: Tulsi Gabbard told me she tried to do a lot of that. When she was a congresswoman, she said it was very difficult and she would get pushback from other Democrats.

James Talarico: Yeah. The system doesn't encourage that at the national level here. We do not. I think in D.C., the minority party appoints the committee chairs or ranking members. Here at the state level, the speaker of the House, who is elected by Republicans and Democrats, that's the person who decides what committee you're on and what bills you can get passed. In some ways, that forces you to be loyal to the body rather than loyal to your party or your caucus. I'm proud to be part of the Democratic caucus, but I literally can't get anything done if I don't have some kind of Republican support. I'm able to pass a lot of bills as a Democrat because I have good relationships with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle.

But on the Ten Commandments issue, it became one of these culture war fights. There wasn't room to have an honest conversation about—

Joe Rogan: When did this get proposed?

James Talarico: It originally got proposed two years ago in 2023 during the regular session. I spoke out against the bill. I kicked up a bunch of dust about the bill and it went all over social media. I think that pressure ended up delaying the bill enough to where it died on the deadline. So it didn't pass. Then it came back this session, 2025, and eventually passed both chambers and got signed by the governor. So unless it's stopped in the courts, it's going to be law in the state of Texas.

Joe Rogan: Wow.

James Talarico: I try to always take someone's argument at face value and assume best intentions. This is how I'm able to work in a place like the legislature here in Texas, because I try to listen to what someone's argument is. If I'm being charitable, the best argument for this is that the kids are not all right. Young people are growing up without the structure of faith, whether it's the Christian faith or Islam or Judaism or Hinduism, whatever it may be. Students are just less religious than they once were. People are less religious than they once were. We know that's a fact.

There's this rise in mental health issues, anxiety, depression among young people. There are folks out there, and I would even put myself in this camp, who say it's because children are growing up in an incoherent universe. There's not a tradition, a story that helps them make sense of their lives in a profound, almost cosmic way, which is necessary for human beings. No matter who you are, you need that structure and that meaning in your life. I recognize that is a problem.

But what I firmly and passionately believe is that the government forcing teachers to put up a poster actually makes that problem worse. I was a middle school teacher before I became a politician, so I know students. They have the best BS detector around. I think this bill will create a whole new generation of atheists who think that my religion, my faith tradition that means everything to me, is more about power than it is about love. They already kind of think that. Young people already think that about religion. I think this is just going to confirm people's worst inclinations and impulses about organized religion.

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Joe Rogan: Yeah, I would agree with that. It just doesn't make sense that we've always had a separation of church and state. It's been very important. Imposing this on kids in school, in non-religious schools, just seems kind of crazy.

James Talarico: Well, the staunchest defenders for the separation of church and state throughout American history were Protestant Christians, Baptists in particular. The letter Jefferson writes where he first uses that phrase, "a wall of separation between church and state," was to the Danbury Baptists. These Protestants were fleeing Europe as religious minorities. This is kind of essential to the founding of this country, was religious freedom. Those Christians understood that once the government starts preaching your religion, starts making decisions about your faith, that doesn't lead anywhere good.

We should be very suspicious of the state usurping the role of pastors and Sunday school teachers. If you want to deepen your faith, we have churches on every street corner. A lot of them don't have a lot of people in them. We've got mosques and temples and synagogues that have a ton of room in them. Why would we have the government start to teach kids about or preach a certain religion when we have houses of worship that can do that?

Joe Rogan: I think it's also a really important point you made earlier that if you try to force kids into doing things, they don't like to do it.

James Talarico: Correct.

Joe Rogan: Especially if you try to force kids that are secular and they come from households that maybe are atheist or agnostic, and then you have this on the wall and you impose it on them, they're going to think about it like a lot of other government BS. As they should.

James Talarico: Yeah. I honestly think that Christianity has a lot to share with the world at this moment of kind of crisis everywhere. But this is giving Christianity and religious people broadly a bad name because this is what people think about religious people: that we're more interested in imposing our faith or our values or our beliefs on others instead of living it out ourselves.

Joe Rogan: What do you think this is in response to? Why do you think they're trying to impose this? What would make them want to put this in schools?

James Talarico: I think fear. I get that fear. I want to acknowledge that I also feel this fear. I look across my church on Sunday mornings and I see a lot of gray hair. I worry about the future of my church, of my faith in this country. Everyone has seen the charts of declining religious participation and the decline in the number of people who belong to faith.

Joe Rogan: What do you think that's about?

James Talarico: I think a lot of it is well justified. Organized religion has done a lot of damage to people, particularly if we're talking about this country. This country is going to be Christianity right now. In India, maybe a conversation about Hindu nationalism. But here, the dominant religion is Christianity. We've seen too many churches, too many faith leaders have abused that trust. A lot of Gen Z, a lot of my fellow millennials, when they hear me talking about my faith and how it informs my public service, they say, "I never heard of this kind of Christianity."

They were told that if you wanted to be a Christian, you had to hate gay people. If you wanted to be a Christian, you had to want to control women. If you wanted to be a Christian, you had to reject science. When Gen Z and millennials were faced with that choice, it was a pretty easy choice for them. They chose their gay friends. They chose women's rights. They chose believing in science. In my opinion, that was always a false choice. In fact, a lot of those positions are contrary to biblical values, to the teachings of Jesus.

There's always going to be progressive Christians and conservative Christians. That's a very healthy debate we should always have. But in this country, it's become synonymous with right-wing politics so much so that when people hear I'm a Christian politician, they just assume I'm a Republican. I think that has pushed a lot of people away.

Joe Rogan: So where does that come from? Let's start with gay. Where does this rejection of gay rights come from?

James Talarico: Well, I think broadly, using religion to control the people is a tale as old as time. This is powerful stuff. It's part of why I made the decision to go to seminary. I thought, "If I'm going to talk about my faith and my beliefs and my values in a public setting or on this podcast when millions of people are going to listen, I better know what I'm talking about. I better be thoughtful in how I approach these things because it has real power on people's lives." You've seen that from the beginning of the Christian tradition. You've seen it across traditions, those in power—whether it's people with political power, social power in terms of homosexuality, or economic power—using that faith to hurt and control other people.

Let's take the issue of homosexuality in particular. One, it's something Jesus never talks about, even though gay people existed in the ancient world.

Joe Rogan: Is it in the Old Testament?

James Talarico: So in the Old Testament, there is a prohibition against men lying with other men. Here's the thing, and any biblical scholar will tell you this: in a lot of ways, we're dealing with ancient euphemisms. It's hard to tell what a euphemism means thousands of years later. I had a professor at seminary. This is going to sound weird, but he said, "Think about 2,000 years from now, how difficult it'll be for people to tell the difference between a butt dial and a booty call." Those are two things that sound very similar on a piece of paper and they have very different meanings.

In the Hebrew Bible, you do have this prohibition. We're not sure exactly what it means. If we're taking it just literally, does that mean we're also prohibiting same-sex relationships between women? Because that's not prohibited in that particular scripture.

Joe Rogan: How is it described? What is the actual passage?

James Talarico: That's the one I just gave you about men.

Joe Rogan: What is the punishment?

James Talarico: In most of these violations of the law, if it's called an abomination, the punishment can sometimes be death. This is true of eating certain foods, of planting two different crops next to each other, wearing two different types of cloth.

Joe Rogan: Sure, sure.

James Talarico: Again, I'm not a rabbi, so I hesitate to speak with authority on the Jewish scriptures. But this was a people who had found freedom from slavery in Egypt. They were trying to set themselves apart from that domination that they knew in Egypt. They wanted a completely new world where God was in charge, not some pharaoh, not some emperor. This was a radical community they were trying to build. They put rules in place to remind themselves that while it may only take a few weeks to get out of an empire, it takes a lifetime to get the empire out of you.

Now, 2,000, 3,000 years later in terms of the Jewish scriptures, we're reading it with modern eyes, trying to interpret what they mean and apply it to our modern context. One, I think that's sloppy theology. Two, I think it's disrespectful to the Jewish people. Three, it's a misunderstanding of Christianity because the whole idea of Jesus's movement was that he was simplifying the law. He simplified it into two commandments: love God and love neighbor. Those are the only two commandments that we Christians should keep our focus on.

Jesus regularly got into conflicts with the religious authorities. Jesus is always getting in trouble with the church of his time because he is rejecting legalism and embracing the spirit of the law, which is loving your neighbor as yourself. In our modern context, that should mean loving our gay neighbors as ourselves. When I'm looking at the teachings of Jesus, I think it's very clear how we should treat those who are different, those who are left out, those who are on the edges. Trying to take the Hebrew tradition and interpret it for our own political benefit really does a lot of violence to that scripture.

The word "homosexuality" wasn't even invented until the 19th century. If you see the word "homosexuality" in your Bible, that's an interpretation. That's a translation using a word that didn't even come around until thousands of years later.

Joe Rogan: What do you think it meant in the Old Testament, though? If you're looking at a literal translation of it, "a man lying with another man is an abomination." What do you think they were trying to accomplish? Where do you think it came from?

James Talarico: It could be a whole host of things. Some of these things are put in place for health reasons. They didn't have modern medicine. If there were things that were considered hazardous to your physical well-being, sometimes those were included in the law. Preserving family structure. You obviously had a patriarchal structure in the ancient world where it wasn't just about your commitment to your wife. It really was about how land and wealth were passed on to children. All those things were important to protect that family structure. Some of these ancient commandments, which again I don't claim to know what the original meaning was, may have been put in place for some of those reasons.

But again, if this was something that really was central to Jesus's ministry, I would think he would have said something about it. We have four gospels with tons of teachings from Jesus, and none of them are about this. I get suspicious when anybody—whether it's a televangelist or a politician—tells me that something is central to my faith when Jesus never talks about it. That should ring alarm bells as to what the agenda is, what someone is trying to get across.

I think if we're looking at the last 40, 50 years, the religious right has made a concerted effort to make homosexuality and abortion the two biggest issues for Christians. The Southern Baptist Convention was pro-choice until the late 1970s. This idea that to be a Christian means you have to be anti-gay and anti-abortion, there really is no historical, theological, biblical basis for that opinion.

Joe Rogan: When was abortion even invented?

James Talarico: Well, there were certainly abortions in the ancient world.

Joe Rogan: How did they—

James Talarico: There are interpretations of certain passages from the Torah where some folks will even say there are subtle instructions for how to perform an abortion in the ancient world, certain things to drink, things like that. The point is that this idea that there is a set Christian orthodoxy on the issue of abortion is just not rooted in Scripture. We can have an honest debate about it. If Pope Francis were to come back and sit at this table and tell me, "James, I'm pro-life and anti-abortion, here's my theological argument," I'm here to listen and respect that opinion. I have dear friends who are anti-abortion.

All I'm asking is that for Christians who are pro-choice and who respect the bodily autonomy of women, that we be given the space to make our theological argument. I think there is a lot of biblical evidence to support that opinion.

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

James Talarico: One, in Genesis, God creates life by breathing life into the first human being, which we later call Adam. That life starts when you take your first breath. That is actually the mainline position in Judaism, that that's when life starts.

Then, if you think about it from a Christian perspective, something interesting that Jesus does throughout his ministry is breaking first-century norms about women: talking with women, learning from women, having women lieutenants in his movement. This was unheard of in the first century. The longest conversation Jesus has with anybody in the whole Bible is with the Samaritan woman at the well. This affirmation of women as full and equal people is a huge part of the Jesus movement, especially the early church.

The last story I would go to is the story of Mary. Mary is probably my favorite figure in the Bible, the mother of Jesus. She is an oppressed peasant teenage girl living in poverty under an oppressive empire as a Jew. She has a vision from God that she's going to give birth to a baby who's going to bring the powerful down from their thrones, scatter the proud, send the rich away empty. This revolutionary song that she sings, it's called the Magnificat, and it's actually been banned by certain authoritarian regimes because it is so radical.

I say all this in context of abortion because 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. She says, "If it is God's will, let it be done. Let it happen." 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. That is absolutely consistent with the ministry and life and death of Jesus. That's how I come down on that side of the issue.

Again, I'm very open for my fellow Christians to disagree with that. They may have scriptural passages they point to to be anti-abortion. I think that's a debate that we should feel comfortable having. All I'm saying is that it shouldn't be assumed that just because you're a Christian, you are anti-choice or anti-gay, because there are so many Christians out there who don't subscribe to either of those policy positions.

Joe Rogan: There's a lot of nuance if you're talking about abortion. Because you're not just talking about a woman's right to choose, but you're also talking about rape and incest.

James Talarico: That's right.

Joe Rogan: So you're talking about a woman's right to choose whether or not she carries a baby when it was not her choice to begin with.

James Talarico: That's right. It's why I think almost everyone in this country is pro-choice to some extent. The polling indicates that the vast majority of Texans, the vast majority of Americans support exceptions for rape, incest, or threats to the mother's health.

Joe Rogan: I've had arguments with people that don't support that, though, which is interesting. The argument they give is that two wrongs don't make a right. It's a crazy argument because they're even talking about it with underage girls. But at least they're consistent.

James Talarico: Again, if you believe that a fetus is a person.

Joe Rogan: Well, it certainly has the potential to be a person, right?

James Talarico: A fetus is alive in terms of just biologically alive. But we do have literally trillions of living organisms in us right now.

Joe Rogan: But they don't have the potential to be a full-grown human.

James Talarico: Absolutely. But the question is, is a fetus or is an embryo a person with full legal rights that trump the rights of a woman or a girl, as you mentioned? If you're a 16-year-old girl who's been raped, does that embryo or that fetus, does its rights trump the rights of that girl? I say no. I think most Americans say no. To me, that exposes the lack of support for fetal personhood. We can have conversations about limits to abortion, all those things. But I do think it's clear that most Americans believe that a woman or a girl should have the autonomy to make those decisions about their own body.

Joe Rogan: I think most Americans probably would agree with that. But I think also most Americans are very uncomfortable with the concept of late-term abortions.

James Talarico: Sure.

Joe Rogan: What are your thoughts on late-term abortions?

James Talarico: If you look at the data, the late-term abortions that happen are almost exclusively to save the life of the mother. Now you're talking about people who have picked out a name, who bought a crib, people who want this baby. The only time this happens is for immediate, life-threatening medical reasons.

Joe Rogan: But there are exceptions to that, right? There are people that change their mind.

James Talarico: Within Roe versus Wade, there was a legal framework for states to be able to make decisions about how you regulate abortion. If a state decides that they wanted to ban elective late-term abortions, if those things happen, then that was completely fine within the framework of Roe versus Wade. But we're not having that conversation. We're having a conversation about a total extreme ban on abortion here in Texas, the most extreme.

Joe Rogan: The thing about Roe versus Wade, though, was Roe versus Wade, the issue was that it was a federal thing and that it was supposed to be up to the states to make their own decisions, right?

James Talarico: So how did it get passed in Texas that it was – I think it's six weeks, right, which is very early, which is a point where a lot of women don't even realize that they're pregnant.

Joe Rogan: Well, and that was the original ban that passed. But then Texas had a trigger law in place, which was if Roe v. Wade is overturned, which it was, then Texas would automatically ban abortion in all cases. So no longer a week-by-week framework. It was a total ban.

James Talarico: So there was that original ban that went into place, but then that was because Roe was overturned, was then replaced by a total ban. So in Texas, again, we're not recognizing any of the shades of gray in this conversation. It is the most extreme ban in the country, and we've seen the devastating consequences of it. We saw Texas women who were forced to wait in emergency room parking lots until they went into sepsis. I mean, we've seen women banned from using public highways to travel out of state to get an abortion. I mean, that's what they were just trying to do in Lubbock was prevent women from using public highways.

Joe Rogan: Well there was also the thing where they were trying to go after women that traveled to other states.

James Talarico: Right. Yes.

Joe Rogan: And even if there was no evidence, like say if a woman travels to see her in or her parents or something like that and then has a miscarriage.

James Talarico: Right.

Joe Rogan: That was that to me was very creepy. That if this woman had traveled somewhere where abortion is legal and then lost her baby, they would then be accused. Even if they had not had an abortion. They would be questioned. And that to me is incredibly insensitive, especially when you take into consideration some of these women might not have had abortions at all. They might have just lost the baby, which happens quite often where there are miscarriages.

James Talarico: It's interesting you bring up miscarriages because if I'm, again, trying to take people at their word, trying to assume the best intentions and hear a good faith argument on the other side of this. If my concern is with the life of an embryo or the life of a fetus, the greatest threat to that life is a miscarriage. I mean, if your concern is how many embryos or fetuses we're losing, the number that we lose to miscarriage versus the number we lose to abortion, it's dwarfed. And so I'm always interested why the pro-life movement is not more interested in figuring out how we prevent more miscarriages. Because, again, if your concern is that embryonic life, finding ways to prevent miscarriage, which we have best practices that can do it, right? Making sure people are covered by health insurance once their pregnancy starts. I mean, that is a huge opportunity to prevent miscarriages. You're not going to prevent all of them, but there are things we could do to stop it. And so the fact that all the attention is on abortion rather than on some of these other things that maybe we could all agree on, to me, again, it makes me suspicious about the true motives of some of these politicians and some of these activists who are pushing some of these bans. Because it doesn't seem like it's about children. It doesn't seem like it's about mothers and women and girls. It does seem like it's about control. And I think that's what we see across this Christian nationalist movement is controlling what you do with your own body, controlling what you read, controlling what you learn, controlling where you travel. I mean, this is religion at its worst, is trying to control people and what they do.

Joe Rogan: How do you define Christian nationalism? What is that to you?

James Talarico: Yeah. So I think there's lots of different ways you could describe it. The way I define it is a little broader. I say Christian nationalism is the worship of power, whether it's social power, economic power, political power, in the name of Christ. And I think it's relevant to describe it this way because it's something we've struggled with within the Christian church from the very beginning. So the first followers of Jesus didn't even call themselves Christians. They called themselves "the way" because their crucified teacher had taught them a different way of being human, a different way of relating to other people, of understanding your relationship to neighbor and to God. And this transformed them. They became these "peculiar people," is how the Bible describes it, because they didn't participate in the economy, the military, the culture. They were persecuted because they turned the world upside down. Again, that's how it's described in Acts. But 300 years after the Roman Empire crucified Jesus, Emperor Constantine made Christianity the official religion of that very same empire, the same empire that crucified Jesus. So this is 300 years later, and now Christianity is the official sponsor of the empire, of Western civilization.

Joe Rogan: Do you think Constantine was a Christian, like legitimately, or do you think that he was using it?

James Talarico: It's always hard to tell with politicians, and I say this as a politician myself. When was Constantine baptized? Well, he was baptized, I don't know the year, but he was baptized after he had this vision before a decisive battle when he saw the cross and decided that his soldiers would put the cross as part of their emblem, and then they won that battle. Which, you know, who knows if it was because of his vision or not. But it started a trend, which we've struggled with for literally more than 1,500 years, of powerful people—emperors, billionaires, dictators, megachurch pastors—using religion to protect their own wealth and power. And to me, Christian nationalism is just the latest iteration of that. Whether it's the Ten Commandments bill, whether it's the bill—I don't know if you read about this—a bill that we passed that allows schools to replace school counselors with untrained, unsupervised religious chaplains. Sometimes people who go online and become a chaplain within five minutes. That to me, again, is an example of Christian nationalism. It's using the state, it's using political power to elevate one religious tradition over all the others. It's using governmental power to dominate our neighbors instead of loving them as ourselves, which is exactly what we're called to do as Christians. And then of course, most recently, we saw this bill that defunded public schools here in Texas to subsidize private Christian schools. And to me, again, that is a bill that's right in the middle of this Christian nationalist movement to erode the separation of church and state and force a certain interpretation of Christianity on everybody against their wills.

Joe Rogan: Yeah, there's this narrative that this is a Christian nation. It was founded as a Christian nation. And I think they call upon that when they're making these decisions and talking about it in this very particular way.

James Talarico: Yeah. And I think no one would disagree that Christianity was influential in the founding of this country. And it's still influential. I mean, it's suffused throughout our culture, our politics. It is a central part of who we are as a nation. But I think it's really important to clarify that we were not founded as a Christian nation. We were founded as a nation where you are free to be a Christian or a Jew or a Muslim or a Sikh or a Buddhist or an atheist. I mean, that is the promise of America. That we are this multicultural melting pot where no one is told how to pray and no religion is elevated over the others. It's also important to point out that it wasn't in the Pledge of Allegiance until communism was an issue in this country.

Joe Rogan: Yeah. And, you know, to be fair, the Declaration of Independence does mention a creator. And it doesn't necessarily mention the Christian God, but it does mention a creator. I think probably in a deliberate attempt to be less sectarian and more open.

James Talarico: I mean, a lot of our founders, if we're being honest, some of them weren't religious at all. Thomas Paine, and then a lot of them weren't really what we would consider Christians today. A lot of them were deists, where they saw God as this impersonal clockmaker who created the universe and stepped away.

Joe Rogan: Clockmaker. That's an interesting way of describing it.

James Talarico: Well, and I'm not casting aspersion on that.

Joe Rogan: Where did you come up with that?

James Talarico: I think this is how deists would describe it because the universe—

Joe Rogan: They would describe it as a clockmaker? Really?

James Talarico: Yeah, that the universe is—and it's because they were Enlightenment thinkers. So they were enthralled by physics and the natural scientists, and they saw that the universe fit together in this perfect way, almost like a clock or a watch. And so they assumed that God was this watchmaker, this clockmaker, and then kind of stepped away from God's creation.

Joe Rogan: That is a very different view.

James Talarico: It's not an invalid view. I don't mean to cast aspersions on that view, but it's very different than a lot of Christians today who have a personal relationship with God and feel God's intervention in our lives and in our world. And so those are very different kinds of religious. And so for Christian nationalists today to say that our founders were these evangelical Protestant Christians is just not quite historically accurate. These were Enlightenment thinkers. They had their own suspicions of religion. I mean, Thomas Jefferson created his own Bible where he took out all the miracles.

Joe Rogan: Really?

James Talarico: Yeah.

Joe Rogan: He also owned slaves.

James Talarico: Well, yeah. I mean, and then all these guys had—

Joe Rogan: Pretty anti-Christian.

James Talarico: I would say so. But again, Christianity was used to justify slavery. It was also used by abolitionists to tear it down, right? Christianity was used by Bull Connor and white officials in the South to maintain Jim Crow. And it was also used by Dr. King and the civil rights movement to tear down that system. So, faith, it's really in the hands of the user. It can be used to do a lot of damage to people, but it can also be used to move us toward a more just and loving world.

Joe Rogan: That's where it gets weird, right? It's like we need someone who interprets faith in a way that is beneficial for all and not personally beneficial or beneficial to their ideology or the narrative that they're trying to push.

James Talarico: Well, and I honestly think, if I'm being my most hopeful self, that Gen Z and millennials, young people, are going to be the ones to lead us out of this.

Joe Rogan: Why? Because of TikTok?

James Talarico: Because of the TikTok.

Joe Rogan: Because they're addicted to video games? Like, what is it?

James Talarico: Because there is power in disillusionment.

Joe Rogan: Okay.

James Talarico: Because that's fertile ground. So let me back up. So in my faith tradition, Jesus is not just a great teacher. Jesus is the embodiment of the pattern of the universe. This is trippy stuff.

Joe Rogan: I like trippy stuff.

James Talarico: Yeah. He, in his person, his life, his death, his teachings, that we somehow learn something about God, this ultimate reality. And Jesus' life, again, in our tradition, the milestones are incarnation. That's Christmas, right? When God takes human form. Incarnation, by the way, is not just limited to Jesus. It's everybody, right? Everybody bears the image of the sacred. Joe Rogan does. James Talarico does. Every listener to this podcast bears the image of the sacred, made in the image of God. A radical view, right? So that's incarnation. The second is crucifixion, right? That's Good Friday, where Jesus, because he confronts the powerful, is executed on a cross, a humiliating death along with other criminals. And then the last step is resurrection. That something new and beautiful rises from those ashes. So those three things, incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, that's the pattern of the universe. Again, just take religion out of it for a second. Let's just think like a physicist or a biologist. Creation, destruction, recreation. I mean, that is the story of the physical universe. It's the story of our lives, right? That we are all headed toward a brick wall at the end of this. There is birth, death, rebirth. Hindus would say reincarnation, right? This pattern of reality is something that's recognized across traditions. I say all this in response to your question because all of us in our faith start off with order, disorder, and then reorder if we get to that last step. All of us kind of inherited a faith from our parents. It was usually pretty stable. We didn't ask any questions. And it was comforting, right? You were childish in the best sense of that word, innocent. You grow up, you have experiences, you meet new people, you're exposed to new ideas. Suddenly you start to question all those things that you were taught. And now you have disorder, disillusionment, right? That maybe what I was told wasn't real. Maybe this isn't right. Maybe I've got to question everything. And that's healthy and essential. You need that crucifixion to break apart what was there before. That third step of resurrection, reincarnation, rebirth, reorder, however you want to describe it, to me, it feels like that's what we're on the precipice of. And it does feel like young people in particular are the ones that are asking these questions because young people have always, on every major issue, have usually been the ones who have been able to kind of think outside the box and see things anew. But it does feel like they are waking up to how broken organized religion is, and they are starting to yearn for something bigger and something better and something that's more true and more honest. I hear from people all day long, yes, on TikTok, but also in real life where they're just like, "I want a relationship with God, and I'm just not sure how to find that." I mean, I think that's—maybe it was the pandemic, but there is something brewing out there where people, they're hungry for something bigger and deeper. So again, that's me on my hopeful days. I've also had my days where I'm more cynical.

Joe Rogan: What happens on your cynical days?

James Talarico: So I'm in my fourth term in the Texas House. They're two-year terms, so that's eight years. In my second term, I kind of had a crisis of confidence, I guess. It was a brutal session. It was a lot of really vicious fights on the House floor, a lot of really terrible bills. The abortion ban, which we just talked about, was passed in my second term. And I just kind of, I honestly lost faith in the impact I was making and maybe even in democracy as a whole. Whether this thing was even going to work, this idea that we were all going to try to solve our conflicts nonviolently and peacefully through a political process. I don't know, all of that kind of—I started to doubt in a profound way the work I was doing. And throughout my life, whenever I've felt that doubt, I've always fallen back on faith. Faith is the thing that is kind of the foundation for me. And so in that second term, I had thought about quitting altogether. I thought about resigning my seat and just going off to do other things that maybe would be more fruitful. But there was a lot of praying and a lot of soul searching and a lot of meditation. I made a slightly different choice, which was to go to seminary and go back to school and go through the process of becoming a minister. My granddad was a Baptist minister in South Texas. And so it was a part of my upbringing. And I had really not thought about doing it myself, but I think I had just—loving thy neighbor is really hard sometimes. And the work I do in the legislature is my attempt to love my neighbor through the bills I pass or the work that I do on prescription drugs, on childcare, on public schools, on justice reform. But I was losing faith on whether I was actually doing what I came here to do. And so I made that decision to go to seminary to follow Jesus's first commandment, which is to love God. Those are the two commandments he gave us: love God and love neighbor. And as a seminarian and a lawmaker, I'm kind of starting to figure out how these two commands relate to each other, how they sustain each other. You need that inner life, which I feel like I'm cultivating at seminary. And then you also need this outer life of how that impacts your relationships and the work you do out in the world. And you really can't have one without the other because if you do the second one, the work out in the world, you can burn out so easily, which I think I was about to burn out in that second term. You can burn out if it's not sustained by that love of God. And again, I don't mean God as that word is charged for a lot of people. I don't mean like a sectarian religious orthodoxy definition. I just mean that ground of your being, whatever that is. Anyway, I don't know if it answers your original question.

Joe Rogan: What was the main struggle? Like what were you facing in the house that was causing you to have this crisis?

James Talarico: Well, so there were several bills. I mentioned the abortion ban. There were a few others—

Joe Rogan: Was it dealing with the human beings though? Was it the actual—

James Talarico: So the bill, this was the straw that broke the camel's back. Toward the end of that legislative session, my Republican colleagues brought a—again, this is the way I would describe it—a voter suppression bill, making it more difficult to vote in the state of Texas. Again, Texas is probably the hardest place to vote in the country, just in terms of the paperwork, the requirements, the hoops you've got to jump through.

Joe Rogan: How so, though?

James Talarico: There's a whole host of things. You know, the fact that we don't have online voter registration in the state, when a lot of other states do. I mean, think of all the things you do online. Voter registration is not one of them. The IDs that now count for registering to vote or voting are very selective. So, for instance, you've got a concealed carry license. That license counts as ID, which I agree that it should. But a student ID from a college or university doesn't count as an ID. You have to get a driver's license.

Joe Rogan: Yeah, you got to go get a driver's license. And again, for someone like—

James Talarico: What about a passport?

Joe Rogan: Passport would work, right?

James Talarico: Yeah, passport. But again, I didn't have a passport for most of my life, right? I didn't travel outside the country until I was in my 30s. And so I didn't have a passport. A lot of people don't have a driver's license, especially older folks. So the point is that these rules get added on top of each other and make it even more difficult.

Joe Rogan: What are these rules? What's the reason for these rules? Is the rules—they're trying to keep people that are non-citizens from being able to vote, right?

James Talarico: Well, not exactly. I mean, there is that concern. And here's where it kind of breaks down. The main concern is voter impersonation. Which is the idea that I would show up to vote as if I was someone else, like I was going to go and impersonate Joe Rogan and vote for Joe Rogan.

Joe Rogan: That does happen, though, right?

James Talarico: Vanishingly few incidences of this happening.

Joe Rogan: Right. Because it requires, you know.

James Talarico: Sure.

Joe Rogan: Shouldn't there be zero incidences?

James Talarico: Yes, of course. And Ken Paxton, he's our attorney general here in Texas, decides to spend millions of dollars trying to find voter fraud, right, to try to prove that this is a widespread problem. And if he comes up with anything, it's usually like one or two cases of some mom who made a mistake on her form. I mean, the Secretary of State here in Texas, a Republican, said that our elections are safe and secure. So I'm all for making sure that our elections have integrity. I think you have to have that in democracy. My concern, though, is when some of these bills are adding unnecessary regulations on top of that just to make it harder for some folks to be able to vote rather than make everyone have the same opportunity to vote.

Joe Rogan: Who do you think they're trying to make it harder for?

James Talarico: I think young people. I mentioned this issue of colleges and universities and those student IDs not being eligible. Two, in Texas, you've got to change your registration every time you move counties. Not necessarily if you move within a county, but every time you move counties. This is something we don't have to do. Like we have logistical systems in place where we could track voter registration across counties. But think about the people that disenfranchises. The people who move a lot—who moves a lot? Young people move a lot. Every time you get a new job, get a new apartment, if you go to a college or university, then you are moving and your voter registration has essentially been erased until you redo it. And young people are more likely to vote progressive and liberal. I mean, I don't even know if that's true anymore because a lot of young people voted for President Trump in the last election.

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Joe Rogan: I think that's because a lot of young people felt very disenfranchised by some of the laws that were being passed by the previous administration and some of the actions they were taking to suppress freedom of speech. I think it's fair.

James Talarico: My point is, when Republicans in my workplace try to disenfranchise certain groups, I think they should give themselves more credit and believe in their ability to actually win over those groups, right? Instead of trying to make it harder for young—

Joe Rogan: I don't think they're speaking to them, though.

James Talarico: Well, but my point is, instead of making it harder for young people to vote, why don't you just go out and try to win their votes? Clearly, Donald Trump was able to do it. And if Donald Trump was able to do it, I think more Republicans should feel they can compete for those votes. Competition is a good thing.

Joe Rogan: Yeah, but again, I think a lot of the reason why people were voting for Trump was a rejection of the previous administration and the idea that this was a continuance, that the Kamala Harris administration would be a continuance of the previous administration.

James Talarico: Yeah, I think that's true. But again, I'm arguing for my Republican colleagues here. I do think there is something that Donald Trump tapped into that other Republicans could tap into. And again, this is weird because I'm a Democrat making an argument for Republicans. The reason I'm doing this is I think when politicians feel that they can win over voters, we all compete to win over those voters. And that leads to better public policy, right? If you write off voters, then that leads to extremism in your policy making, because you're only focused on pleasing your people.

Joe Rogan: Well, that was an issue with young men.

James Talarico: Yes, yep. And so the fact that I do think the Republican Party can speak to this desire to be an entrepreneur—Democrats too often, my party, we think that people are going to be happy with a handout. No one—I never met someone who wants a handout, right? I mean, people want to work.

Joe Rogan: You've never met someone who just wants free money?

James Talarico: I actually haven't.

Joe Rogan: Have you? I have.

James Talarico: I should hang out with different people.

Joe Rogan: Well, there's a lot of people that just want the government to take care of them.

James Talarico: Here's the thing. I think some people may think they want that. And let's take the government out of it. Some people think they just want to sit on their couch, right? And I do too, right? When I'm exhausted, the last thing I want to do is rot. My point is, after a while, that doesn't make you feel good.

Joe Rogan: No.

James Talarico: Right? Every human being has the desire to work, to produce, to contribute. I think that is a natural human urge that's built into us.

Joe Rogan: That is true. But I also think there's a lot of people out there that feel completely disenfranchised.

James Talarico: Agreed.

Joe Rogan: And the idea of working sounds abhorrent to them. The idea of giving your life every day to something that you hate to do. And if there's enough money out there where that's not necessary, they would rather do that.

James Talarico: I think that's absolutely true. And I think that means that we aren't creating enough jobs where people can find meaning. How do we create jobs where people find meaning? I don't think you and I have—and I don't want to speak for you, but I don't think of this role that I have as work, right? This is something that moves me every day to get out of bed and work on these issues. Now, I don't get paid to do this, so I have to actually have a whole other job, but that's a whole different issue. But there's a difference between a career and a job.

Joe Rogan: Yes.

James Talarico: I think everyone that I've met, everyone I grew up with, wants a career.

Joe Rogan: Yes.

James Talarico: And that career can look very different. That career does not have to be in an office. I mean, that career can be outside, can be with your hands, or that career can be at the home. My little sister just had her first child two years ago, my baby niece, Jane. And she is a stay-at-home mom. Madeline is, and she's spending so much time with Jane. And I've never seen my sister more alive than the work that she's doing.

Joe Rogan: Yeah.

James Talarico: Right. And my sister was a successful accountant. She worked at Alamo Drafthouse. She had cool jobs, but I think this is the career that she wants. She knows that she could do other things if she wants to, but this is what's giving her meaning in her life. And I want to have kids one day. So I definitely see that. There's work that I want to do. Part of why I'm going to seminary is that this is something I feel called to do. It's something that's giving me purpose and meaning in my life. I just think every single person deserves that. And I don't know the best way to do it. But how do we give everyone that opportunity to give the gift that they're meant to give? I mean, we're all here for just a short amount of time. We are all so different. There is literally no one in the history of the universe that is you, right? Joe, this collection of atoms and elements is only going to exist once. And thank God you found a way of how do you shine that light? How do you give that gift? But think of all the people across the state in this country who don't have a way to give that. What are we missing out on? The cure for cancer is trapped in the mind of a kid in a low-income school.

Joe Rogan: Right. But this is all a great sentiment. But what are the actions that could be taken in order to give people a path to a career rather than a job?

James Talarico: So let's just talk about—I think we're all either thrilled or terrified of this AI future. And who knows what it's going to look like. It's probably not going to be apocalypse and probably not going to be utopia. It'll probably be something in the middle. But it is going to change how we understand work. It's going to change how we understand our jobs and our careers. It's going to eliminate a lot of jobs, I would imagine. And so this is now going to be a spiritual question about what does it mean to be a human being?

Joe Rogan: It's one that we are not equipped to answer right now because in a lot of ways we have thrown out the baby with the bathwater. And because of the problems with organized religion that we talked about earlier, we've just jettisoned the whole thing. So we're no longer having conversations about what it means to be a human being.

James Talarico: But to get to your question about what specifically this could look like, I'm intrigued by some of the pilot programs on universal basic income and what they've provided. But I think what's missing in this idea is how do you provide people the support to go off and realize whatever dream has been festering in their brain for a long time? Almost like entrepreneurial grants, right? Where we invest in someone's next big idea for an industry, for art, whether it is community work or nonprofit work or solving a community problem.

My point is, my life shows me that people have this creativity and this imagination that we are not tapping into. So much of that is trapped in people who are either in these meaningless jobs or have gone to inadequate schools and therefore don't even get into a job where they could express themselves and give this gift. I do know that it's out there, and if we tap into it, it could be a game changer. So I don't know what this looks like, but it does seem like the disruption that's coming could be an opportunity. Again, back to out of crucifixion comes resurrection—disruption is an opportunity to do something.

Joe Rogan: I think it's also very dependent upon the individual. I think the best thing we can give them is inspiration. And oftentimes the best thing you can give them is an example of someone who also did it.

James Talarico: Yeah.

Joe Rogan: There's a lot of people that feel completely disenfranchised by the system that's currently in place now that I think is going to be upended by AI. So there is an opportunity for them to do something completely different. The positive aspect of universal basic income is that, first of all, I think we could both agree that if an enormous amount of jobs just go away, that probably is the only way to sustain society. You can't just have people go poor and go hungry when we have unfathomable wealth that's being created by these same systems.

James Talarico: Right.

Joe Rogan: Universal basic income, on one hand, has a lot of hope because there is this potential that you no longer have to worry about survival. We're locked into this situation where you think that you're working and you have to work because you have to take care of food and shelter. Most people in this country right now are living paycheck to paycheck, essentially getting by. Any catastrophe, medical or otherwise, will eliminate all savings instantaneously, and they're doomed. So they're just working, giving most of their life just to sustain whatever state they're in currently. That's very frustrating for people because they don't think they'll ever get ahead, and they don't think they have any potential to get ahead.

So if something comes along that takes care of that aspect of life—if universal basic income can provide you with food and shelter—now you no longer have to think about food or shelter. Now you have to find meaning. The problem is, for a lot of people, there are so many distractions that are unproductive, like social media, like video games, like many things that people participate in all day long. Then you add in a factor of drug addiction and partying and a lot of other fruitless things that people participate in. If you only lived for the first 35 years of your life just to deal with food and shelter, and now food and shelter is provided for you, now at 35 you have to sort of reformulate your view of the world and find meaning and find something.

Maybe you're an atheist, so you don't find meaning in religion and you don't have any desire to find meaning in religion. What do you do? How do you educate these people? I think there's going to be an upheaval the likes of which we have never seen before. There's going to be a lot of chaos, and it's going to be very uncomfortable for a lot of people. I think we're going to deal with unprecedented levels of addiction, whether it is with drugs or gambling or whatever things that people get addicted to, because I think people are going to look for thrills. They're going to look for something that entices them, that gives them some excitement, because they're just getting a check every month.

Unfortunately, just the way humans are wired, that's not good for us. We know that from lottery winners. People get an enormous chunk of money—you might win $200 million—and then you're living in hell. For whatever reason, you don't like it. You now find yourself surrounded by people that are trying to take money from you. You feel like you're a target. All the people that you grew up with are now looking for handouts. It gets really crazy. Most of them wind up penniless within a short period of time. I think it's like less than 20 years, even when they have enormous amounts of money. So the only thing that you can do for those people is to somehow inspire them to live in a different way. I don't think that's a function of the government. I think it's a function of individuals and of inspirational people that can provide some sort of an example that differs from what they're surrounded by.

James Talarico: I agree. If we approach this when it happens—which I agree it's about to happen, and I don't think any of us are ready for it—if we approach it as a technological problem or even an economic problem, I think we're missing the full picture. I do agree with you that it is primarily, first and foremost, a spiritual problem. What I do know about human beings is that all of us ask these questions: What does it mean to be a human? What is all this about? Where is my life going? Why are we all here? Late at night, I can assure you, almost everybody has asked those big, deep questions. That is essential to being a human being. Whether you're religious or not, whether you're an atheist or not, we all struggle with these ultimate questions.

I think what's borne out over thousands of years of our species' history is it's best to wrestle with those questions in community.

Joe Rogan: Yes, I agree.

James Talarico: Because right now, especially on my side of the aisle, where religion has declined among certain populations, there's this tendency of, "Well, I'm not religious, I'm spiritual." I'm very open to people who say that, and I understand where they're coming from. But you want to be careful that it is not private spirituality only—meaning that it's only something that you own that only impacts you and has no connection to other people. I do think we've got to be a part of communities where we ask and struggle with these questions together. It can look like a church or a mosque or synagogue. It can also be a book club, to be honest. Or a podcast. This space, in a lot of ways for the whole country, has become a place where people are having these bigger conversations that aren't just about your job or the current events of the day, but something deeper.

Joe Rogan: Yeah.

James Talarico: I think we're going to need that now more than ever. And right now we're not equipped.

Joe Rogan: No, I agree. There's also a lot of people that don't have a legitimate in-person community.

James Talarico: That's right.

Joe Rogan: That's part of the problem. The people that do reject the concept of religion, finding an in-person community that doesn't turn into a cult is also a problem. Generally, these in-person communities are led by charismatic people who tend to want all the glory for themselves and tend to want to be praised. It gets real weird sexually. It gets real weird with control. They impose rules on the group. It always goes sideways. There's not a good example of a new religion or a new cult that's been formed where you think, "Oh, those guys really nailed it. You got a benevolent leader who really just cares about everybody else."

I think, weirdly enough, podcasts do fit into that space for whatever strange reason. If you can find someone who really does profess these thoughts that you genuinely want good for other people and you genuinely want the world to be a better place and you genuinely don't want all this for yourself. You genuinely want people to do better, and you take real joy in watching people succeed and get their life together and find purpose. But that's rare. Most people are selfish. Most people also feel suppressed and dismissed most of their lives by larger organizations or more powerful people. So when they do get into a position where they have power of their own, they want to exert that power on others because this is a pattern that they've grown up with.

James Talarico: Totally agree.

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Joe Rogan: Well, everyone contains multitudes, so we are all selfish. I completely agree with that. But I also think we're all selfless, too.

James Talarico: Yeah.

Joe Rogan: We have the potential.

James Talarico: Right. It depends on whatever situation a person is put in and what roots someone has to draw upon. It's why I feel so lucky that I was brought up in a faith tradition that really emphasized my own experience as a validator for faith. What you just described of a pastor or clergy consolidating power is something we see all too often in organized religion. If you don't empower your congregation or someone who is seeking answers to check everything based on their experience and use that as a measure for what's true and what's good, then you make people dependent on that one guy.

Joe Rogan: Right.

James Talarico: Which is way too much power for one person.

Joe Rogan: Too intoxicating.

James Talarico: Right. You have to use your own life as a way of saying, "Does this work for me? Does it not? Does this ring true with everything I've lived through, or does it not?" Trust yourself in some ways.

Joe Rogan: But a lot of people don't have a reason to trust themselves. They don't have confidence. They don't have a history of overcoming adversity and obstacles, which is also difficult.

James Talarico: Yes.

Joe Rogan: This is also part of the problem with meaningless jobs. Meaningless jobs that don't give you a sense of purpose never develop your feeling of accomplishment. So you find yourself 35, 36—I don't know why I'm coming up with that number—but this is like a point of no return where if you haven't had a family by that point and you haven't had real love and relationships, now your body is starting to get tired. You don't have the energy that you had when you were 20, when you could get four hours of sleep and still show up and go do things. You had the courage to say, "I'm going to quit this thing and go pursue some completely different thing because I think I can do it because I'm young and brash." When you get older, you have a bunch of bills.

One of the things that I liked that you talked about was that if we were really a Christian nation, we would forgive student loan debt. I am a big fan of that. I do not like that we are predatory towards young people and condemn them to loans that are unforgivable regardless of any other kind of bankruptcy. That's really kind of sick. The idea that we have put education that may or may not be even helpful for you in the future—like say you spent hundreds of thousands of dollars getting some degree in the humanities, some nonsensical degree that you're never going to get a job from—and now you are condemned to pay that initial debt with interest forever. There are people right now on Social Security getting their Social Security docked, chunks taken out to pay for their student loan debt that they will never pay off. They will go to the grave in debt for predatory loans that they took out when they were so young their frontal cortex wasn't even fully developed yet. They didn't have any idea what they were doing. They were being coerced by a bunch of people that told them, "This is the only way. Otherwise you're going to be a loser."

That easily could have been me. I was very lucky that I didn't fall into that. I only went to UMass Boston because I didn't want to be a loser. I thought you had to go. I got tired of telling people that I wasn't going to school after high school, so I was like, "I better just go do something." That is a sickness in our culture. It's a sickness in our society. It's a sickness in our civilization that we have allowed these financial institutions to prey upon the youngest and most vulnerable people with inescapable loans that they will carry with them often for decades. It's sick. The resistance to forgiving that is also sick. We spent so much money on other countries—USAID, developing foreign nations, influencing elections and regime change—and we're so resistant to giving people the freedom to have education as a thing that doesn't burden you with financial ties that you can't escape. The idea that you can't escape it even with bankruptcy is so sick. It's just a sickness. We've just accepted it, like, "Well, that's just how it is." Someone's making money. Someone's profiting off of that. You're allowing people to profit off vulnerable young kids to the tune where the interest compiles every year and you're stuck with it forever.

I said this before, but I'm going to say it again: You want to make America great again? You want less losers? How do you get less losers? You get less people that are financially crippled by student loans. You get less people that grow up in a neighborhood where there's no hope. We find neighborhoods that are riddled with drug addiction and crime and gang violence, and we just leave them alone? We just say that's their problem? No, that's our problem. If we really want to think of ourselves, the United States of America, as a community—that's how I like to look at it. I like to think of us as a big community. I don't like to think of us as right versus left and blue and red and all this nonsense. It's a bunch of people that agree we're all the same. If we are a community, how are we allowing these places to create these disenfranchised people generation after generation and do nothing about it?

James Talarico: And those kids were doing exactly what we told them to do.

Joe Rogan: Exactly.

James Talarico: Right? Go to school, kids.

Joe Rogan: Yeah, go to school. Go to college. I think we've overcorrected. Now we tell every kid to go to college, which does a lot of damage too, because a lot of kids don't want to go to college. Their gifts and their skills aren't going to be fully developed at a four-year university. Also, we're dismissing the value of trades. My God. How much more money do they make? Having a great plumber is so important. Having a great carpenter is so important. Electrician.

James Talarico: No, I mean, so important. You make a lot more money. The guys I went to high school with that have a boat out at Lake Travis are not the ones who went to a four-year university like I did. They certainly didn't study the nonsensical stuff that doesn't get you anywhere.

You know, I mentioned to you before I was a politician, I was a public school teacher, which is kind of an unusual route to serving.

Joe Rogan: What did you teach?

James Talarico: I taught sixth grade language arts at Rhodes Middle School.

Joe Rogan: Oh, so it's something that's valuable.

James Talarico: I often say teaching middle school is the best preparation for politics. It's a lot more like middle school than people think. The egos, the drama, just all of it.

Joe Rogan: Isn't it crazy how no one gets past that?

James Talarico: Yeah. We could talk about this all day, but there are lots of stories I have where I'm just blown away by the ego. And again, I have an ego. You have an ego. There's no way you can do this kind of difficult work without an ego to be able to say, "I want to make decisions for 200 constituents." I mean, the job I have right now takes a certain amount of ego to make those kind of decisions. You just can't let the ego be the boss.

Joe Rogan: Correct.

James Talarico: This was the problem. We focused so much on President Biden's age, which I agree was a problem, but I don't think we've really discussed that the biggest problem was ego. It was his inability to step aside and let someone else do the job.

Joe Rogan: Yes. Right? It should have happened a lot earlier. That should have never happened in the first place. Let's be realistic. In 2020, we all knew. Anybody that was paying attention knew that he was compromised.

James Talarico: Well, he said he was a transitional figure. I don't know how explicit he was, but he certainly made it sound like he was stepping in so that he could usher in a new generation. That never happened. When you get into these offices—and again, I'm just a little state rep at a low level—but even I know people call you "Representative." Your mail says "The Honorable."

Joe Rogan: Nice.

James Talarico: Yeah. You're like, "This feels pretty good."

Joe Rogan: That's pretty cool.

James Talarico: People, you know, and you have a bunch of new friends. All the lobbyists are now professionally friendly. All that can go to your head very quickly.

Joe Rogan: I'm sure.

James Talarico: Think about someone who's been in it for 60 years. It almost becomes a fused part of your identity to where you can't step aside.

Joe Rogan: Oh, yeah. Everything is for self-preservation. Look at these politicians that are in their 80s that are still in office. Desperately clinging.

James Talarico: Desperately clinging. I look at these people and I'm like, "You have grandkids."

Joe Rogan: It's not just that. It's also the support system that's behind them. All those people need that person to stay in office.

James Talarico: Correct.

Joe Rogan: Yeah, they all depend on them. But if I'm 80 years old and I'm still in elected office, it's like, go home. Take some time with your grandkids.

James Talarico: What if you're still valuable? I'm not dismissing that. Age comes for all of us, right?

Joe Rogan: I don't dismiss the possibility that you could be an elder statesman and be very wise and kind and benevolent and doing a really good job. But to me, it suggests that you think there's no one younger with more energy who could do this better.

James Talarico: Well, why do you have to have no energy if you're old if you take care of yourself?

Joe Rogan: So I think there's a lot of people that have learned a lot in their time. But you got your situations like your Nancy Pelosi where they're clearly using the system for extreme wealth. They're generating preposterous amounts of wealth for a reasonable income. They may have a reasonable income of $170,000, $200,000 a year, but yet they're worth hundreds of millions of dollars. That's kind of crazy, right? That's supposed to be above board? That's nuts. Or I just saw the story about this congressman right before the big, beautiful bill passed, and he sold all his stock in a company that does Medicaid reimbursements.

James Talarico: Oh, Jesus.

Joe Rogan: Because you knew it was coming. Insider trading. Everyone wants to use Nancy Pelosi as an example. She gets used as an example just because she's been so good at it. But if you look at the actual insider trading, it's red and blue. It's the whole thing. It's filled with people that are benefiting.

James Talarico: So going into this, when I first decided to run, I was 28, had never run for anything before.

Joe Rogan: How old are you now?

James Talarico: 36. I just turned 36. I was a former teacher, so I didn't know about how to run.

Joe Rogan: Why did you decide to run for office?

James Talarico: I was a teacher on the west side of San Antonio, which is, for those of your listeners who are in San Antonio, the west side is this beautiful, historic neighborhood, Mexican-American neighborhood. It's also one of the poorest zip codes in the whole state of Texas. Every day I saw my students struggling to overcome poverty and these systems that were designed to hold them back. The school I was at was underfunded. It was a Title I school. I taught 45 kids in one classroom, and the classroom was not that much bigger than this studio.

Joe Rogan: Oh, my God.

James Talarico: So you can imagine 45 kids in here. I literally had kids sitting on the air conditioning unit because there weren't enough desks. This is the 21st century in the United States of America.

Joe Rogan: Wow.

James Talarico: It pissed me off. I had one student. I was a first-year teacher. What happens in schools, especially schools in high poverty neighborhoods where things are really hard, the administration will oftentimes give the kids who need the most help, the kids who have the most troubles, to the first year teachers. Almost like a hazing thing. I remember my first year of teaching, my principal told me that I was going to get this kid named Justin who had gotten kicked out of his elementary school the year before because he had brought a knife to school and threatened to stab his fifth grade teacher. So I was a first year teacher, kind of freaked out, right?

The kid shows up. One, he's not a monster. He's an 11-year-old boy, like this high. I took him aside, introduced myself, told him I was happy he was in class, told him I wanted to get to know him. He gradually started to raise his hand a little bit more in class. He was super smart, super quick. He also had a great smile. He was very popular with the girls in the class, a lot of personality. I started to invite him to our little lunch group because I had kids who came and ate in my classroom during lunch. We started to build a rapport. He didn't have a lot of male teachers, so I think that was helpful to see a guy as a teacher and be able to build a relationship with him.

Anyway, right before winter break that year, it was the last day of school, he brought me this wrapped gift. The wrapping was all janky, but I opened it up and it was this little cup with a snowflake on it that he had bought at the Dollar Tree for his teacher. Again, this is a kid who was going to stab his fifth grade teacher. A few months later, he's bringing a snowflake cup to his sixth grade teacher. I was feeling like I was on top of the world as a teacher. I was like, "Who's going to make the movie, right?"

Joe Rogan: Sandra Bullock's going to play you in a movie.

James Talarico: Yeah, who's going to play me? Then I came back after winter break. I was in my third period class and I heard this commotion out in the hallway. I immediately stepped out of the room to see what was going on. There were two of our coaches, and they were both restraining Justin on either side of him. They were carrying him out of the school. He was screaming. His feet didn't touch the ground. He literally was just carried out of the school. I found out that he had started a fight in his third grade class and that was his last strike. It was the last time I ever saw Justin.

I did some digging to figure out what had happened. Turns out in the previous semester, Justin had been seeing a therapist that was provided by the school district. It was this lady that he really was hitting it off with and getting along with, and they were going through all his issues because Justin had been abandoned by his mother at a very early age—which'll screw anybody up, right? Justin had experienced violence, had experienced all this trauma. So for the first time...

James Talarico: Justin had experienced violence, had experienced all this trauma. And so for the first time, there was a professional who was helping him work his way through it. And there was a teacher who liked him and who believed in him. And that was all it took for Justin to see all these improvements.

James Talarico: I found out that after winter break, because of budget cuts from the legislature, the district had eliminated the therapist. So this lifeline suddenly went away for Justin. So literally everybody had abandoned Justin—including his own mother—and now the adults that he was trying to trust again were abandoning him.

James Talarico: That was the kind of radicalizing experience for me. Because these people at the state capital had cut five billion dollars from our schools. Who knows why, who knows what the justifications were. But I saw firsthand how that screwed up a kid's life. I saw the damage that did to real flesh and blood human beings.

James Talarico: So I promised myself right then that if I ever got a little bit of power or a little bit of influence, that I would do everything I could with every fiber of my being to stop that from happening again. So literally, Justin and my students are the ones I think about when I'm at the Capitol. They are the criteria that I use to evaluate public policy. Not if it's a Democratic bill or Republican bill, not if it's going to get me ex-lobbyist support. It is, will this help my students or will it hurt my students, period. And it makes things a lot easier.

James Talarico: I have a picture of one of my class periods on my desk at the Capitol. So that is what got me into this whole mess. I miss being a teacher because I miss having that immediate impact. All the impact I make now, if I make any impact at all, feels very diffuse and far away because there's all these layers. But I like to think that some of the bills I'm passing are at least helping teachers like me and students like mine.

Joe Rogan: That's beautiful. It's beautiful that you made that decision. And I think that's what we need. We need people that have legitimate, personal, real life experience with other people that are benefiting from certain social programs and certain things that should not be cut.

Joe Rogan: I think there's too many wealthy people that are just very disengaged with everyone else. And that's a real concern. They sort of huddle up in these elite groups and go to these elite meetings and have these conferences. They fly on private jets and try to figure out how the world should operate. Climate change on their private jets. It's fucking crazy. It's crazy. It's really crazy and gross.

Joe Rogan: And I don't think it has anything to do with climate change. I think it's like a boys club, a weird club where these elite people get to hobnob and eat caviar together. My point is if you're going to a conference to discuss climate change, but you're taking your giant private jet. I've seen Bill Gates justify that because of all his work that he does.

James Talarico: Sure.

Joe Rogan: Even Bernie Sanders, when he's talking about campaigning.

James Talarico: Yeah.

Joe Rogan: And he was saying, how am I going to go to all these different places? We go Southwest like fucking comedians do, dude. We travel all over the country too, buddy. Southwest is great.

James Talarico: Yeah.

Joe Rogan: Listen, when I was traveling, I was doing a lot more dates than him. And I never took private jets. Look, there's ways to do it. And the idea that there's only one way to do it—that's just the nicest way. It's certainly more convenient. It's easier. It's more comfortable if you've got the money. But the idea that you're going to preach to everybody else how to live their lives, you're so disconnected from most people.

James Talarico: Well, I would say that I am probably the poorest member of the Texas legislature. And I'm not poor, but relatively speaking, most of the people I serve with are either very successful lawyers who own their own law practice, doctors and surgeons who operate their own medical practice, or it's trust fund babies. No offense to those people.

Joe Rogan: Yeah, that is a weird thing.

James Talarico: It's just people who have a lot of family money. And here's—because I mentioned earlier that I don't make any money at this job. I'm like a congressman because I think congresspeople make like $100, $150 or something, which is a real salary. I make $7,200 a year. That's $400 a month after taxes as a state rep. That's my salary. Now, I also get a per diem when we're in session, which is a little bit more, which is helpful.

James Talarico: The reason I say that is because there are systematic barriers to a regular person running for the job that I have. Right? Unless you have an ability to support your family or sustain your life or pay your bills, a teacher can't run for the job I have. A firefighter, a police officer, construction worker—you can't run for state rep.

Joe Rogan: And you wouldn't be able to take time off.

James Talarico: No. How are we gonna do it? So the only people who end up serving—and again, I understand why paying politicians—no one wants to do that. Right? Like I understand that I'm not a sympathetic character here.

Joe Rogan: Well, you are.

James Talarico: But when you don't pay a politician, especially a state legislator who's making most of the big decisions that affect your life—it's really not people in Congress, it's the state level people—if you're not paying them a living wage, then you're only going to get trust fund babies and lawyers and surgeons.

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Joe Rogan: What do you think is the motivation of those people that are involved? I mean, do you find people that are benevolent, that are trust fund babies and surgeons and doctors?

James Talarico: For sure. I mean, FDR was a trust fund baby, right?

Joe Rogan: Was he really?

James Talarico: Yeah. I mean, he's one of the wealthiest families in New York. Bobby Kennedy was a trust fund baby and still sympathized with working people. So I don't think that you have to be born poor to be able to do that. I do think it provides a helpful perspective. I was born to a single mom, and that experience has helped inform how I view things.

James Talarico: So a lot of my colleagues, I would say, just have no experience. For instance, there was a bill that we passed, unfortunately, that would make it easier for landlords to evict people. And we were trying to work with the author of that bill to add some exceptions for, if you just miss a bill because you're late, you shouldn't get evicted, right? Like we're trying to build that out. And the author just kind of had no conception of how you could miss a bill.

James Talarico: When you have people who do that, right? He was like, his accountant does all that. I'm like, but when you're a working person, you're balancing raising kids, working multiple jobs, right? Maybe trying to exercise when you can. When you're doing all that and God forbid you have a medical problem, yes, some stuff falls through the cracks. 100%. And evicting that family because of a mistake or because they missed a bill—to me, it's not that he's trying to be malicious. It was that he just had a complete blind spot on what it was like to be a working person.

Joe Rogan: But there's also people that do, they are malicious. They don't care about people that are struggling, and they only care about their peers. They care about enriching the people that are already wealthy.

James Talarico: Yes. I do feel like those people I have found are very loving parents and spouses and even friends.

Joe Rogan: Isn't that crazy?

James Talarico: And to me, that means they haven't broadened that circle of concern. Right? I'm always—because you want to think some of these people are just two-dimensional villains. I sometimes fall victim to that thinking, but then I spend time with them. I'm like, this person is kind and funny and good-hearted and treats his wife well and treats his kids well, treats his neighbors, his immediate neighbors.

James Talarico: So my challenge is always, how do I try to expand that circle a little bit more to where they care just as much about a neighbor who lives in a completely different city than the one who's right next door to them in Highland Park or River Oaks or one of these nice neighborhoods? That to me is the challenge—seeing everyone as your neighbor, not just the people who live right next to you.

James Talarico: And that's the central teaching of my faith and in most of the great faith traditions. I mean, sometimes we try to pretend that there's all these diverse religions and who knows who's right. In reality, there is giant ethical overlap between the major world religions. There is literally not a faith tradition that tells you when someone gets sick, see how much money you can make off of them. No religion teaches that. None of them, right?

Joe Rogan: Right, right.

James Talarico: You know, there's no one that's, love your neighbors only when they agree with you. That's not what any of the faith traditions teach. There is this consensus, this ethical consensus. And the reason I think we try to pretend that all these religions are so different is because we are threatened by that moral consensus of how you should treat one another, how we should treat the least among us. And that's a threat to the people who are in power, the people who run the status quo right now. I mean, it upends the status quo. They didn't kill Jesus for being a nice guy.

Joe Rogan: Right. That's part of the problem is that the people that are in power want to stay in power. And the best way to stay in power is to enrich the other people around you that are like you and create laws and create a structure that allows you to maintain ridiculous wealth.

James Talarico: Yep.

Joe Rogan: And suppress competition. And divide everyone to keep them distracted.

James Talarico: This is my personal—the more I've done this, I've done this for four terms now. I think of politics now less as left versus right and much more as top versus bottom. Because I just see how we are all pitted against each other. And I mean literally. These social media platforms, they only get clicks when there's conflict. Right? They don't get clicks when we're having a conversation, when we're understanding each other, when we're coming to some kind of mutual agreement. That doesn't get anybody any profit.

James Talarico: And so the Rupert Murdochs of the world, the cable news networks, the social media platforms, the Zuckerbergs and Musks—these platforms are literally tearing us apart by design. And I just think there has to be something better than that.

Joe Rogan: Well, I don't even know if it's by design, but that's the way that it's the most profitable. And I think algorithms—people always like to want to point towards algorithms as being by design. But they only work because they work, right? They only work because people do engage with the things that piss them off the most.

James Talarico: That's if we're measuring engagement as the sole good.

Joe Rogan: Right.

James Talarico: But it doesn't have to be that way. If we're measuring people's well-being, now you have a different metric.

Joe Rogan: Right. But it's almost impossible to do. It's like, how do you judge? I mean, you'd have to get to an individual human being and find out why they're engaging with what they're engaging. What you do when you manage at scale is you try to figure out what's the best way to keep people engaged.

Joe Rogan: Well, if human nature made you only engage with things that you're interested in, and that is possible. You can do that. I've done that. It's possible to do. But obviously, I'm in a privileged position to be able to do something like that. But like my friend Ari did this experiment once where on YouTube, he only looked up videos of puppies for like a long time. That was his whole feed was puppies.

James Talarico: Okay.

Joe Rogan: And the reason why he was doing it was just trying to show that it's not the algorithm. It's not like the algorithm was feeding him Holocaust deniers and a bunch of shit that pissed him off. It didn't. It only fed him puppies. That's what he was interested in.

Joe Rogan: The problem is people are interested in things that piss them off. And I think a lot of that also is a distraction from your own issues in life. You look towards external things that maybe don't even really affect you, but provide you with a source of—you can pay attention to them and get invested in them and get angry and ignore maybe the shortcomings of your lack of discipline and your lack of focus and the things that are really holding you back in life.

James Talarico: You know, you can get distracted by some stuff. You can get distracted by some things that may be legitimate issues but how much do they affect you in day-to-day life? Very little probably.

Joe Rogan: Well, I just think we all—and I know I have this experience of just feeling terrible when I'm on a lot of these platforms.

James Talarico: Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan: Right? I mean, it does feel like everything is making us feel terrible, whether it's the news we're watching, the TV, the social media algorithms.

James Talarico: But I think this podcast is evidence in the opposite direction.

Joe Rogan: Yeah.

James Talarico: Because why would people tune into these really long conversations with very different people? I mean, you've had Trump and Bernie Sanders in the same chair. Right. So why are people attracted to that, though? Because this is not clickbait stuff on your feed that's just trying to provoke conflict for clicks. So clearly this format exposes that people do have a hunger for something healthier, something that builds understanding, right?

Joe Rogan: Yeah.

James Talarico: So people have both of those things inside them, I guess.

Joe Rogan: Well, I think people—listen, there's a reason why we have complex technologies, societies, cities, urban development. There's a reason why we have all those things. It's because the human mind has a genuine—there's a desire for improvement and for innovation and to learn. It's normal.

James Talarico: Yes.

Joe Rogan: But we can be distracted.

James Talarico: For sure.

Joe Rogan: But you have to decide not to be distracted. And a lot of my shows are distracting. A lot of my shows are complete nonsense because I can get caught up in nonsense too. But this show is a reflection of my own personal interests. But it's also long form. I mean the platforms that I'm—the social media platforms just abuse your attention so much.

James Talarico: Do they though?

Joe Rogan: Yes.

James Talarico: Or do you allow them? Do you allow them to take over?

Joe Rogan: They don't abuse mine, but they have.

James Talarico: Do you not use the typical platforms?

Joe Rogan: Very little.

James Talarico: Really?

Joe Rogan: Yeah, very, very little. I go on Twitter every morning when I go to the bathroom to find out what everyone's mad at, and then I leave it alone. It's the best place to be on Twitter. And even then I don't feel good, and I leave it alone. I don't look at anything about myself. I look at stuff that's going on. I follow thousands of people, so my feed is very diverse. It's filled with all kinds of different voices. And I just see a few things that people are pissed off about or people are interested in. I find a bunch of cool science stuff, a bunch of cool James Webb telescope discoveries. And then I leave it alone.

Joe Rogan: But you and I, to some extent, we had the privilege of growing up in a childhood without that.

James Talarico: Right.

Joe Rogan: So I just want to acknowledge that for kids.

James Talarico: Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan: Right? They don't have the same impulse control.

James Talarico: 100%.

Joe Rogan: So if we're feeding this to them, it's almost—I mean, it's just as bad as some of the junk food we're feeding them.

James Talarico: Right. But you know what else is popular with those kids?

Joe Rogan: Me.

James Talarico: That's right. This. So if I tell them I'm not doing it and I tell them why I'm not doing it.

Joe Rogan: Yes.

James Talarico: And it's clear. It's clear by what I pay attention to. It's clear by what I focus on that I'm not caught up in that the way a lot of people are. And then I'm open to a bunch of different perspectives and ideas, and I welcome them because I really want to know how people think about them. As long as they're genuine, real thinkers, as long as they have good faith arguments and discussions about things.

Joe Rogan: There's a lot of people out there, particularly in mainstream media, in corporate media, that just by nature of the format of those things, they're grifters. They latch on to whether it's a right-wing perspective or a left-wing perspective. And they're the champion of that perspective. And they argue with it. And they don't see humans. It's professional wrestling.

James Talarico: Yeah.

Joe Rogan: And I loved it. When I was growing up, I loved professional wrestling.

James Talarico: See, I didn't.

Joe Rogan: You didn't?

James Talarico: I mean, I did when I was in high school. I did when I was a young boy, I should say. But then once I started competing in martial arts.

Joe Rogan: An actual sport?

James Talarico: Yeah, I didn't like it anymore.

Joe Rogan: Well, because it's entertainment.

James Talarico: Yeah.

Joe Rogan: Right? I mean, it's not a sport. I mean, I know there's athletic ability. But, you know, it's the heroes and the villains. Sure, it's fun.

James Talarico: But it didn't have real consequences to me. And to me, real life consequences were so much more fascinating.

Joe Rogan: Yeah.

James Talarico: Real competition, like an actual real wrestling match between two Olympic champions. That, to me, was so much more fascinating.

Joe Rogan: Yes. And, but, you know, you have to engage in some sort of a discipline to appreciate that, to appreciate the difference between someone who's really had a singular focus in their life of excellence and trying to figure out a way to be really good at something, and then watching them compete with other people that have had a similar thing, and try to figure out what separates the champions from other people, and what are the characteristics, what are those things, and how do those apply to everyday life?

Joe Rogan: And they do apply to everyday life. When I was a kid in martial arts, one of the things that my instructor told me at a very young age is that martial arts is a vehicle for developing your human potential. That you're engaging in this very, very difficult thing to learn about yourself and that you could apply these lessons to everything in life. And there's too many people that don't get that lesson.

Joe Rogan: They don't understand that you can figure this thing out and your path is going to be different than my path. It's going to be different from everybody's. But there's certain principles that you can apply to whatever your individual path is. And you can learn about the value of discipline and of personal autonomy and understanding and personal accountability and figure out how to get better.

Joe Rogan: You're going to have failures and they're going to feel awful. They're going to feel terrible, but they're very valuable. And you can't shy away from them because that's where you really learn how to get better. And then your feelings of success, don't dwell on those either because it's not about that. It's really about this path. The path is what it's really about. And it's really about learning how to live and learning how to exist in a harmonious way with not just other people but also with yourself.

Joe Rogan: And you have to have respect for yourself. And the only way you develop respect for yourself is you have to know what you've done. You have to know that you've worked really hard, that you've overcome things, and known that you've had these little mental battles where you've had these little bad ways of thinking that you've turned around. And you realize like, okay, that's possible. I did it before. I'm going to do it again.

Joe Rogan: And you're going to have these moments where you're like, oh, this one's impossible. I can't get through it. But you can get through it.

James Talarico: Yeah.

Joe Rogan: And you can. And it can be done. And if there's anything that I try to teach people, it's what I've done. I have overcome a lot of these little personal demons. I've overcome a lot of these little things. They're not little. They're huge. It's huge in your mind. But this can be done. And it's not going to be done on TikTok. It's not going to be done dedicating yourself to just fucking off and scrolling and playing video games and doing drugs all day. That's not going to do it. It's not going to help you.

Joe Rogan: But you can learn. You can. And you can be a better person, and you can respect yourself more.

James Talarico: I mean, it's a practice.

Joe Rogan: Yeah, it's a practice, and it's a way of life. And again, the failures are very valuable and the successes are very valuable too, but you can't dwell on them either. You just got to keep going.

James Talarico: Right. Well, and I think the thing that's encouraging about both this podcast but also the format in general is that it is long form, and so it forces you to pay attention in a different kind of way. Your attention on TikTok or Instagram or some of these other platforms, it is so superficial and shallow. And that attention I think is abused on those platforms. And I think I've talked to people in my own life who feel like the more time they spend on those platforms, the less you're able to pay attention to something.

Joe Rogan: Oh yeah.

James Talarico: Right. In your daily life. But the fact—and what you mentioned about martial arts is this focus, right? I mean, you can't do anything great in your life without that focus. It's all—I mean, I'm going to sound like a Buddhist, but the ability to kind of control your own mind and focus that mind and that spirit on something right in front of you on the here and now—I mean, that is the key to all success.

Joe Rogan: Yes.

James Talarico: And whether you're doing a podcast, whether you're doing sports or politics, it feels like there's a whole generation of kids who are growing up who aren't getting that training for their attention. And it's just getting abused and shot and scattered.

Joe Rogan: The only way for them to get that is to see an example of someone who's doing it. And this is where sports come in, where I think really excellent sports figures that excel, that do something that the other people that are their peers can't do. And then you can learn, like, what is he doing? What is LeBron James doing that's different? What is Ronaldo doing? What are these people doing that's different? And almost all of them is discipline and focus. That's a giant—there's genetic factors and coaching and where they started. There's a lot of variables, but you can apply those things to your life.

Joe Rogan: I think one of the things that's unique about podcasts is that it was a mistake in that no one saw it coming. So no one cashed in on it. So no one controlled it. No one dictated how you do it. No one told you what the questions should be or how you should talk to people. You had to kind of figure it out on your own. So you got unique individual perspectives that are legitimate. They're authentic. And authenticity is the thing that's missing from television news. It's missing from anything that's corporate controlled because you wouldn't allow it to be so scattered and so chaotic and so kind of dangerous.

Joe Rogan: Because if you're banking all your money on something succeeding, you would want to narrate it. You would want to curate it. But it doesn't work that way. And humans don't work that way. And I think in this landscape where we don't have authentic perspectives, the thing that rises is authentic perspectives. And I think that's—if you look at most of the successful podcasts out there, the people that are doing them are authentic human beings. And their perspective is uniquely their own.

Joe Rogan: And I think when they go sideways is when they become a part—they get bought out. They sell a piece of it to some corporation and then they get curated and there's a lot of weirdness that gets involved. And I've managed to resist all that. But it was also because it got so big before anybody came calling that I had already figured out the right way to do it is just to do it my way. And my way is to have genuine curiosity, to be a real human being, and just to talk to people.

James Talarico: Well, I've just noticed just in this conversation we've had that you have a gift for listening. And I think this is something these platforms or most of our cable news or most of our media environment doesn't value anymore—is actual listening and learning. It is now all about what you say, what your opinions are, rather than actually creating a connection with another person.

Joe Rogan: I've fallen victim to that too. I had to learn how to do it. You know, if you go back to my earlier podcast, they were terrible.

James Talarico: Why?

Joe Rogan: Because you were talking to them—I would talk too much, or you know, I want to speak. But I genuinely have always wanted to know how other people think and why they think the way they think. And you can find holes in the way people think and you can find strength in the way people think. And it's very inspirational. I've had an unexpected and unintended education from doing this.

James Talarico: Yeah.

Joe Rogan: Yeah, I didn't intend. When I first started doing it, it was just me and my friends and we were just fucking around. And I just thought that was fun. I was like, it'd be fun to get together with my comedian friends. Like we only work at night. What are we doing during the day? Most of us during the day are just screwing off. It's like, what should we do? Let's get together and just have a bunch of laughs.

Joe Rogan: And then all of a sudden it was like, okay, this has gotten so popular that people want to come on. Okay. Let me see what Anthony Bourdain has to think about things. What does he have to say about stuff? What does Graham Hancock have to say about things? And people that I found genuinely interesting were willing to sit down and talk to me. I'm like, well, this is cool. Now I've got this weird platform so I can ask questions and really find out why do people think the way they think? Why do they live their life the way they live? And what can I learn from that? And how can I apply that to my life?

Joe Rogan: And how can I give them this ability to express themselves as clearly as possible? Where I'm not getting in the way of it and I'm just trying to help them get it out as clearly as possible, whether I agree or disagree. I want to know, why do they think the way they think? Like, what is it?

Joe Rogan: And I want to know if you're a real thinker or if you're just a grifter. What's really fascinating to me is watching these people that were exiled from mainstream media because obviously the ratings have crashed and their credibility has plummeted. So then they try to pivot and become podcasters. But they're still like—Elon Musk said this so good, so well about Don Lemon. He's like, he's trying to do CNN outside of CNN. And you can't do that. You can't bullshit people in this world of no bullshit. And that's the podcast world. The podcast world is—it was certainly some bullshit. But for the most part, what attracts people is if they know that this is really how you think.

Joe Rogan: And I know this is resonating with a lot of people out there that you're forced to go to a job where you pretend to be a certain person all day, and if you step outside of those lines, you're gonna risk career opportunities. You're going to risk advancement. You have to stay within the very rigid confines of whatever your occupation is. And it's not very satisfying. It doesn't feel right. It doesn't feel like you're a human being. And they think that's the only way. And then they hear people talk and they go, OK, this is not the only way. There's other ways to think and there's other ways to live your life.

James Talarico: Well, and the fact that you have people from such different perspectives on—I think—I just don't think we have very many platforms like that anymore. And to me, that is probably the best thing about working in the legislature. I think I told you this, of being forced to get outside my bubble. Because, of course, I live in a bubble like everybody else does, right? My information feed is curated like everybody else's. And I try to break out of that whenever I can. But my job forces me to break out with that because I have to sit down with very far right Republicans, very far left Democrats and hammer out solutions to problems. I mean, that's what I do all day at the Capitol, or when things are going well, that's what I'm doing.

James Talarico: But, you know, I think about there was a colleague. I hope he doesn't mind me mentioning him on here. His name is James Frank out of Wichita Falls. Very, very conservative Republican. And he and I met when I got elected and we bonded over the stupidest thing, which is that we both have the same first name. Right? Like that's when you meet someone—sometimes you go off of like the most superficial basis to create a friendship.

Joe Rogan: James is a really common one.

James Talarico: I know, I know. That's his joke. But we started this joke of like, we're the James caucus and you're vice chair, blah, blah, blah, right? It was a stupid basis for a friendship, but it was a basis. And from there, he started to like come back to where I sat on the floor. And like when things were slow, he would just come kind of sit and shoot the shit. And he would say like, he would reveal some of the interesting non-orthodox views that he has about politics, which then gave me an opening to kind of express some of my dissatisfactions with this political system in both parties and the way it forces us into tribes, all that stuff. Anyway, all those conversations really created an actual friendship. And I consider James an actual friend.

James Talarico: And then what got interesting is how we took that friendship into public policy. Because I think it was two sessions ago, James had a bill that all the Democrats hated, including me. I hated the bill too. It was a bill to allow homeschool kids to participate in UIL.

Joe Rogan: I know you have. What is UIL?

James Talarico: Yeah, I was going to say. That is basically school sports in Texas. It's like the sports league. And as you know, sports are very important.

Joe Rogan: Why did you not like that?

James Talarico: Well, my concern was that the public education system is not a buffet table, right? Where you can just come and say, I want to do the sports, but I don't want to participate in the actual school or the academics, the life of the school. I didn't want it to become this fragmented thing that everyone could just pick apart and just do the fun stuff. That was my first reaction. James sat down with me, which right there—a Republican coming to a Democrat and actually having a private conversation about a bill—that doesn't happen enough. And it should, because when he sat me down, he was able to use all the conversations we'd had to talk about this policy. And he said something to me that just blew my mind.

James Talarico: He said, "James, whenever we talk about immigration, you always say don't punish kids for the decisions their parents make."

Joe Rogan: There you go.

James Talarico: Right. And immediately I was kind of first embarrassed and ashamed, right? That's our natural reaction when we're wrong. But I was like, James, he's absolutely right. Like these kids didn't decide to be homeschooled. This may be their only opportunity to interact with kids their own age in a public school setting. The opportunity to do UIL football or choir or theater or debate—this could be a door that opens for these kids. So anyway, I ended up crossing party lines to support that bill. And I got a bunch of blowback from my folks. But I felt like this trust that I had with James, someone who was on completely polar opposite side of me, moved me in a way that I actually changed my opinion on something.

Joe Rogan: That's awesome. I think also, if you just look at it objectively, that would be socially beneficial to those kids. So if it's beneficial to those kids, those kids would be better members of the community.

James Talarico: And you know what? We passed that bill a couple years ago, and I got to talk with some of the homeschool kids that are participating, and it has been a game changer for them.

Joe Rogan: That's awesome.

James Talarico: And what's interesting is that that has become a great recruitment tool for the local public schools, right? Because then the public school is able to show off the UIL, how much fun it is, and then the kids sometimes enroll. The point is, like, I was open to changing my own mind. And that goes both ways. The next session, I had filed this bill. Sometimes I file a bill that I know is not going to pass in a Republican legislature, but I file it anyway so I can at least start a conversation, right? I passed a bill that was actually a Bernie Sanders idea. Or sorry, I filed the bill. It was to import cheaper prescription drugs from Canada directly to Texas because Canadians pay half of what we pay for the same prescription drugs. And I didn't think it was going to go anywhere. And all of a sudden, James calls me and it's like, "I just read your bill. I love it. I'm a big believer in the free market, and big pharma is disrupting the free market." So suddenly it was me and James Frank. We got it through the House, we got it through the Senate, and we got it signed by the governor. And now Texas is working on its application to the FDA to import cheap prescription drugs from Canada.

Joe Rogan: That's awesome.

James Talarico: So it goes both ways of you being open to changing your mind and the other person being open, and suddenly progress is possible when there's a relationship.

Joe Rogan: Well, that begs the question, why are you a Democrat?

James Talarico: Well, my mother, as I told you, I was born to a single mom. She was a preacher's daughter from Laredo down on the border. She left home at 19. She moved up to Austin. She met my birth father, who was a high school dropout and had a drinking problem. And that drinking problem sometimes led to being violent with my mother. And there was one night, it was me and mom and my birth father, and he had had too much drink and got violent again. And that was kind of the straw that broke the camel's back. And my mom decided right then and there that she was leaving. So she packed all our stuff. She put me in her little Ford Escort. She drove me to the hotel where she worked downtown. The manager let us stay in one of the rooms for a few weeks until we found a little apartment in East Austin. And mom, she took on double duty at the hotel. She fought for me at every instance, even when it was her own physical safety was at risk.

James Talarico: And back then, this was early nineties, she could look over at the Texas Capitol and she saw Texas Democrats like Ann Richards, Bob Bullock—people who fought for the little guy, for working people, people who were forgotten and left behind. That was the classic Democratic Party. Right. And so I remember when I was, I guess I was maybe kindergarten, and someone in school, they were talking about political parties. And I asked my mom what we were. And she was like, "We're Democrats, because Democrats fight for the people." That was what she said. My mom is still a Democrat today, but I don't know how much our party is still true to that. But I do know that that's our historical legacy—is the party that fights for the little guy. And I think we're at our best when we do that today. We're at our worst when we stray from that.

Joe Rogan: I would agree with that.

James Talarico: So I still believe the Democratic Party can get back to those roots. I hope last year was a wake-up call, especially to the National Democratic Party, about what needs to change and how we need to be different if we're going to build a big coalition to take on the issues that we care about. But that's why I'm a Democrat and why I hope the party can get back to those roots.

Joe Rogan: What are your aspirations politically outside of what you're doing right now?

James Talarico: So, you know, I told you I went to seminary. I'm still in seminary. I have about a year left of coursework. I'm going slow since I'm doing all this other stuff. My goal is to go full-time into the ministry whenever I'm done with seminary and I get ordained. You basically kind of like passing the bar after you go to law school. Like you go through seminary and you've got to get ordained, which is a whole different process. But basically I want to become a minister full-time, and I would love my pastor to probably listen to this podcast. Whenever he's ready to hang it up and retire, I would love to take over and lead my home church. So I say all that because I don't want to do politics forever. I like the work that I'm doing. I do think I'm making an impact. A lot of the bills that I've passed are actually helping people, helping students like the ones I taught. But it is a bruising business to be in.

Joe Rogan: It's interesting because you're the type of person I want to go into politics. But I've always said that the people that you want to do it don't want to do it. Because it's terrible. I mean, everything about it is terrible.

James Talarico: Exactly.

Joe Rogan: But unfortunately, terrible people want to do it. The people that you want to do it don't want to do it.

James Talarico: Well, because it's terrible. I mean, everything about it is terrible. Not everything about it.

Joe Rogan: Unfortunately, terrible people excel at it.

James Talarico: There are great things about it. I really don't want—I am not a victim here. I have a great—this is a—no one was given this job away. I had to work to get this job, right? I had to raise money. I had to knock on thousands of doors. And I do—I mean, the fact that I went from serving 150 students at Rhodes Middle School in room 112 to now serving 5.5 million Texas public school students as part of the public education committee in the Texas house. So like that's—you know, I passed a bill to allow incarcerated minors to get a high school diploma while they're in prison. And then I got invited out to speak at their first graduation ceremony in the prison. And I saw these kids who made horrific mistakes, but I saw them with their parents with a cap and gown, and suddenly their whole conception about who they were changed in an instant because of a bill that I passed.

Joe Rogan: That's amazing.

James Talarico: There's all kinds of terrible stuff in this—the corruption, the partisanship, the polarization, the tribalism. It's all terrible.

Joe Rogan: Yeah.

James Talarico: But then like you give a kid an opportunity to earn a diploma and you're just like, I can hang it up.

Joe Rogan: Do you see a pathway where that stuff can be at least minimized, the negative aspects of politics?

James Talarico: Yes.

Joe Rogan: What is that pathway?

James Talarico: One, I think this is a model right here. Like having a place that we can all come together and listen to each other. I told you about your talent for listening. I learned this in my seminary training because what pastors do is listen a lot, and how hard it is to actually listen to someone.

Joe Rogan: Right.

James Talarico: It's easy to stop talking and then start talking when the person is done.

Joe Rogan: Right. Exchanging monologues.

James Talarico: Right. That's easy. But actually being open to hearing someone is a whole different ballgame. You have to genuinely care.

Joe Rogan: Yes.

James Talarico: You have to recognize something in someone else, a part of yourself, right? That image. Again, I would describe it as the image of God, but I don't want to make people feel weird about religion. But that's something—that is what it is.

Joe Rogan: Well, because I think the most revolutionary teaching in my religion is the teaching to love your enemy. I mean, it's crazy from two perspectives. One, it's Jesus acknowledging that we're going to have enemies. Because you could see a world where he's just like, don't have enemies, right? But if you're going to do difficult work, if you're going to speak your mind, if you're going to stand up to entrenched power, you're going to get some opponents, right?

James Talarico: Yeah.

Joe Rogan: But then the revolutionary part is that you are called to love your opponents and your enemies just as you love yourself.

James Talarico: It's easy to say in church. Imagine—I mean, I try and fail every day to do that in legislature, to see my opponents as children of God, to see Donald Trump as a child of God. I'm probably going to get a primary challenge right there for saying that. But he is. He is. And that's a hard thing for progressives and Democrats to get their head around. But it's like until you—Dorothy Day, who is this great Catholic activist for the poor and labor organizer, she had this great quote where she said, "You really only love God as much as you love the person you love the least."

Joe Rogan: Wow.

James Talarico: You only truly love God as much as you love the person you love the least. In other words, the test of Christianity is not "Do you love Jesus?" because Jesus is pretty lovable. The test is "Do you love Judas?" I mean, that is—now that is radical.

Joe Rogan: Yeah.

James Talarico: And I think that is the key to saving this whole American experiment, right? Is how do you love your enemies? And how do you get that idea out there in the zeitgeist? That's part of the key, where you reject the idea of being this person that attacks their enemies, which is also—

Joe Rogan: Conquers their enemies.

James Talarico: This is a big aspect of social media is constant attacking people that disagree with you.

Joe Rogan: I reject that. I haven't engaged in that in forever. I used to argue with people online, and I realized I never feel good. I never changed their opinion. It doesn't do any good. And then even if I would like win—air quotes—win some online—I never felt good.

James Talarico: No.

Joe Rogan: I felt terrible, you know.

James Talarico: So I actually—this happened to me in my first campaign. We were on—Facebook was the main platform at that time. And there was a guy who had written kind of a snarky comment about how I was a Democrat who wanted to take away everybody's guns. And I, again, I wanted to respond in anger, right, because that's always your first instinct. But I tried to check that anger, tried to remember my teachings, and I responded and I asked him to get coffee. Again, this is a guy just a guy in my comments, right?

Joe Rogan: Oh, that's wild.

James Talarico: And so we actually met up for coffee. Turned out to be a lovely guy. He actually brought his wife and his kids—adorable kids. He talked about how he was a gun enthusiast and he was also a certified NRA safety officer. And so the more we talked, we actually got down to how we both really value safety in this conversation, and how he was talking about how gun owners in many ways are the biggest advocates for safety. And then we found some consensus on background checks, stuff like that. But it turned from this dunking in comments on social media to when we were face-to-face, human-to-human. Suddenly we heard each other, right? We listened to each other. And he realized I was not trying to take people's guns. I have no interest in that. He recognized that I was just trying to find a way to safety, which is his value too. Suddenly that's a conversation.

James Talarico: I'm not saying I don't want to be—I'm not naive. This stuff often doesn't end well, right? You don't often get to an agreement. But I have seen over and over again that when you extend an open hand instead of a closed fist, it's a game changer.

Joe Rogan: Yes. People mirror that behavior. And person to person, which is the only way human beings are really supposed to talk.

James Talarico: Amen.

Joe Rogan: That's one of the beautiful things. That's also one of the reasons why it's been so easy for me to disengage with social media because I engage with social conversation, like real.

James Talarico: Real social.

Joe Rogan: Yeah. So it's like, you know, social media to me is not attractive. I get plenty of interaction with human beings, even human beings with completely different perspectives than I do. I'm very fortunate. I know that's not available to a lot of people. I get it. But I think people get something out of these conversations because of that. And they're hungry for it.

James Talarico: Yes. People are hungry for connection. And social media is almost like empty calories. It feels like you're eating, like you're getting connection, but actually it just leaves you more hungry. You're hungry at the end of the day.

Joe Rogan: Yeah, there's a guy who I've had on the podcast. Is it Alan Levinovitz? Is that his name?

James Talarico: Yes.

Joe Rogan: He describes it as the same way consuming processed foods is bad for you.

James Talarico: Yes.

Joe Rogan: Processed information is bad for you.

James Talarico: Oh, it's so good. It's really the same thing. Feels like food. Feels like information. Feels like interaction, but it's not. It's overly processed, and it's gross.

Joe Rogan: Well, and this certainly exists on both sides of the aisle. But I think in recent years, this cancel culture on my side of the aisle has just become kind of the default spirituality on the left. And it is so toxic because nothing is more antithetical in my faith than canceling another human being.

James Talarico: Right.

Joe Rogan: Right. If we are all endowed with the sacred image, if we are all holy, then we are all of infinite worth and we are all entitled to unconditional love. As a progressive, as a Democrat, that is central to how I understand the world. That's why I fight for universal health care and against big money. It's because I believe each person is sacred. So then in a conversation where someone happens to not agree with you on a policy, even an important policy, the fact that you would write them off as irredeemable, as trash—I just can't imagine anything more diametrically opposed to my values, my faith, but also to, I would think, the values of the Democratic Party. I mean, the way you win in a democracy is you persuade people. You win the argument.

Joe Rogan: Yes.

James Talarico: But to say, you know, you are now a bad person, you're a villain—I mean, it's making everyone two-dimensional.

Joe Rogan: It's also a byproduct of social media.

James Talarico: Yes.

Joe Rogan: Because there's this frustration that you're not face-to-face with that person. I don't like the way they're talking. I don't like their perspective. Let's get rid of them forever.

James Talarico: Yep. Cast them out of the kingdom.

Joe Rogan: Yep. And, you know, Marc Andreessen had this very interesting way of describing what's going on with people, that it's akin to cult-like rituals. You demand complete total compliance. When that person does not comply, you cast them out of the social group. You eliminate them, which is what cults do.

James Talarico: Yeah.

Joe Rogan: When someone doesn't agree, they're kicked out, and then you no longer engage with that person, and you treat that person like a pariah. And that also reinforces this idea that everybody has to be compliant, otherwise you will face the same fate as those people do.

James Talarico: In the absence of any sort of religion, people form their own religion. Politics becomes a religion?

Joe Rogan: 100%.

James Talarico: Ideologies become religions. They find—we have—for whatever reason, we have a default setting in our mind in the way we interact with reality that is very religious, whether we like it or not. I mean, that is inherent in our species. I mean, we are a moral, believing species. I mean, that's what separates us from all the other animals is that we can think abstractly, think about the future and the past, tell stories, and then ask questions about what this all means. Why are we all here on this floating rock out in the middle of a vast, infinite universe?

Joe Rogan: And the least connected, most lost people I know are atheists. And that is really weird to me. That's really weird. These people that reject religion for whatever reason, they seem less connected and less engaged with reality. It's very strange. It's very strange and also more rigid in their perspectives, more rigid in their ideology. Their ideology becomes their god. It becomes—

James Talarico: Yeah.

Joe Rogan: Well, and oftentimes I feel like atheists or agnostics have very valid criticisms of organized religion.

James Talarico: For sure.

Joe Rogan: Sometimes they see the church more clearly than I can on the inside of how it's not living up to its values.

James Talarico: I think the thing you're hitting on is that there is a baby in that bathwater.

Joe Rogan: Yes.

James Talarico: Right? If we just throw out the whole thing.

Joe Rogan: Yeah.

James Talarico: I mean, now we're conducting an experiment on humanity in real time of what happens when you take this believing species and rob it of any community to make sense of the world. I mean, that's why you're—I honestly believe that's why we see higher rates of anxiety and depression, especially among young people, is because they're growing up in an incoherent universe.

Joe Rogan: Yes, absolutely. And accentuated by social media, for sure, this over-processed information. I think there's a perspective that people have that their way is the way that they have to defend and that other ways are the wrong way. And I think there's a spectrum when it comes to everything. And religion, like, let's say, if you're looking at someone who's a right wing person, is a conservative person, conservative Christian, who's a Republican, they look at the left like Antifa. They see Antifa. They see the summer of love in Seattle. They see that as like the worst aspects. And I think someone who's agnostic or atheist, they look at like the Joel Olsteens. They look at these mega church pastors. They look at these hypocrites that drive Rolls Royces and fly in private jets and make millions and millions of dollars off of their followers as the worst aspects of Christianity, you know, because that is the worst aspects of Christianity in a lot of ways. It's the bastardization of the teachings, the taking advantage of people that want to believe, and using it for their own personal gain. And so they think of those people as hypocrites and they think of all these people as like the worst aspects of society because they're looking at the worst aspects of this one group that's comprised of a billion people, which is kind of crazy, but that's what we do.

James Talarico: And it's not just religion. I mean, a big criticism I have of my own side is that—I mentioned earlier this pattern of order, disorder, reorder as the pattern of the universe that these religions are talking about. And we all, you know, we're born into certain stories, whether it's religion, patriotism, masculinity—these are stories that we're born into. We grow up and we start to question these stories, which is natural. I feel like my side is stuck on that second step. We haven't made it to that third step, that reordering, that resurrection, reincarnation, where we're taking these things and we are understanding them anew. Because religion can be toxic, but it is not inherently toxic. Patriotism can be toxic, but it is not inherently toxic. Masculinity can be toxic, but it is not inherently toxic. Like understanding that these are things that we can reclaim and be proud of—I think is something that hasn't quite seeped in on my side. So we end up just rejecting all of it. All religion is bad. Patriotism is bad and naive.

Joe Rogan: Right.

James Talarico: And I just don't think those things are true.

Joe Rogan: Yeah.

James Talarico: So I do think our challenge on my side of the aisle is how do you get to that third step of feeling disillusioned, but then using that to rise and create something new and reclaim? You know, yes, politics is corrupt, but it doesn't have to be.

Joe Rogan: Right.

James Talarico: Every system we have is a choice. They're human systems. We made them.

Joe Rogan: Right.

James Talarico: I mean, we can make it better if we make that decision to do so. You know, I do feel like right now cynicism is like the hottest thing. It's very cool to be, you know, too cool for school. But I do think earnestness and hope and optimism are going to make a comeback.

Joe Rogan: Well, that's why people like you. I like to see more of in politics. And you're trying to get out.

James Talarico: I'm not leaving right away. I just—I do think there are other ways to make an impact outside of politics. You've shown that.

Joe Rogan: Yeah.

James Talarico: I can do that in the ministry. Like, I do think we're missing that moral clarity in our political conversation that really can only come from faith leaders.

Joe Rogan: I think the cynical perspective is that at the highest levels, it's all being controlled by money and that's not going to change. You know, like the people that were very hopeful for change when Trump got into office. One of the things that everyone was promised was you're going to find out the Epstein client list and you're going to find out who killed JFK and what the UFOs are all about. You haven't heard a fucking peep out of any of that shit. No one knows nothing. And today they just finally said there's no client list. There's no videos. I mean, I had Kash Patel. These people, you know, Kash came on the podcast and said there's nothing that you want to see. Nothing you need to see. Dan Bongino, who was always like shouting from the rooftops, we're going to get to the bottom of this and find out who these people are. Everyone's saying, no, no, Epstein killed himself. No, nothing to see here. And it's like, OK, well, that's why people are cynical. People are cynical because you had all this hope for change and then you realize like, oh, the same people that are pulling the strings are still pulling the strings.

James Talarico: Well, and it doesn't help when there are videos of the president hanging around with that student. And everybody else, including Nobel Prize winning scientists.

Joe Rogan: Yes.

James Talarico: Yeah.

Joe Rogan: It's not just limited.

James Talarico: Yeah, I mean, whatever that compromise organization was, whatever that thing was that they were running, whatever this game was that I'm sure they're running another version of it right now where they provide experiences to people that have a very difficult time getting out there and having their fun. And then they compromise them. I mean, I think this is a time-honored tactic of control. It's been around forever. And obviously it works.

Joe Rogan: Look, if you have so much interest in getting to the bottom of this, like universally on both sides of the aisle, and yet nothing gets done, that tends to give people this fear that cynicism is the correct perspective.

James Talarico: And I want to validate that—that there is reason and good reasons to be disillusioned. I guess all I'm pushing back on is that second step of "it's always going to be this way."

Joe Rogan: Right.

James Talarico: It doesn't have to be this way. That is the key step.

Joe Rogan: That's because you need to run for president. We need someone who's actually a good person.

James Talarico: Well, you know—

Joe Rogan: Because the Democrats have very few candidates that are.

James Talarico: Can I actually push back on that, please? Because we're talking about how religion, how politics has become a religion. This is one of the ways it does—people put all their faith in a politician.

Joe Rogan: No, because I saw that—I've seen it with Bernie.

James Talarico: Yeah.

Joe Rogan: I mean, people—and I like Bernie a whole lot. But some people treat him as if he's a messianic figure.

James Talarico: Well, because he's Trump on the right. People treat him as a messiah in some ways. Like this is a problem.

Joe Rogan: One of the only ones that's been remarkably consistent in his entire career.

James Talarico: I know, I know. But he's still a flawed human being, right? I mean, just like we all are.

Joe Rogan: That's so rare. It's so rare.

James Talarico: I know, but my point is—

Joe Rogan: And I think that should be praised.

James Talarico: But instead of—like, the change is going to come from your listeners.

Joe Rogan: Yes.

James Talarico: Not from me, right? I can be a part of that. But I mean, if there's any hope I can give people, it's that the people in power, including the billionaire mega donors who basically run this whole thing—and I can get more into that if you want.

Joe Rogan: Please do.

James Talarico: But they are very afraid of the power that the people have. That I know for sure.

Joe Rogan: How so?

Joe Rogan: Because they spend so much time. Let me just—so let's talk about the two billionaires that I think basically control state government here in Texas.

James Talarico: And you, I don't know if you or even your listeners necessarily know about them. It's two billionaires from West Texas. Their names are Tim Dunn and Ferris Wilkes. Dunn and Wilkes. They made their money in oil and gas.

Joe Rogan: I was just going to say, some people get them confused with Brooks and Dunn.

James Talarico: Wilkes and Dunn is the bad one. Brooks and Dunn, good one. But they made their money in oil and gas, but they are also Christian nationalist pastors. Which, you know, billionaire pastor, you would think that's an oxymoron. But on Sunday mornings, these two billionaires, they preach at these far-right churches, and they've got very extreme views.

Joe Rogan: Like what?

James Talarico: They don't think anybody who's not a Christian should serve an elected office.

Joe Rogan: Whoa.

James Talarico: In fact, you can look this up. Don't take my word for it. Do your own research. But they told the former Republican speaker of the Texas House, a guy named Joe Strauss from San Antonio, that he didn't have a right to be speaker because he's Jewish. And that's a Republican. So they are dominionists. They're Christian nationalists. This is the world that they have. But they basically, every single Republican state senator in Texas has taken their money, every single one. A majority of the Republicans in the state house have taken their money. And for some of those lawmakers, a majority of their total campaign contributions come from just these two guys. They increasingly run this whole government here in Texas. And you ask where the Ten Commandments bill comes from. You ask where that school counselor chaplain bill comes from, the voucher bill, the abortion ban. A lot of this is driven by these two billionaires.

Joe Rogan: That's wild.

James Talarico: And they give to politicians, but it's actually much bigger than that because they have this sprawling network of think tanks, advocacy organizations, media outlets—the Daily Wire, funded by them. So they are creating an empire to control every aspect of the state. I mean, I don't mean to sound alarmist, but that's what's happening. And again, your listeners should do their own research on this to learn about it. But there's been a lot of stories about these two billionaires and their control over state government.

Joe Rogan: But a big part of the Daily Wire is Ben Shapiro. And Ben Shapiro's very Jewish.

James Talarico: Well, and these two billionaires hosted a meeting with Nick Fuentes, who is a Holocaust denier, and got a lot of pushback.

Joe Rogan: He's a Holocaust denier? Nick Fuentes? He's a denier?

James Talarico: Yes.

Joe Rogan: Or does he debate the numbers?

James Talarico: Well, to be fair, I don't listen to a lot of Nick Fuentes, which is on me. Who funds it? Dunn and Wilkes. Daily Wire was launched in 2015. Billionaire petroleum industry brothers. And again, I think the important part about these two guys, it's maybe more important than the oil and gas stuff, is that they have this extreme religious worldview and they have the money to be able to actually implement that worldview on 30 million people in the state of Texas. And now they're trying to go national by trying to win a US Senate seat. So I mean, if your listeners haven't heard of Tim Dunn and Ferris Wilkes, they need to. One, because not only do they make policy increasingly for 30 million Texans, but now they're trying to go national. And a lot of their views and a lot of their politics are going to become nationalized.

Joe Rogan: I interrupted you when you were talking about Nick Fuentes?

James Talarico: Well, so my point was that Dunn and Wilkes—and I've probably become the most outspoken critic of these guys, because I do think people need to know their names, right? You open up your social media feed, you listen to the news and you hear about Greg Abbott and Dan Patrick or even James Talarico, but you don't actually hear about the two guys who run the whole thing. So, but my point is that they spend so much of their energy and their money and their time trying to create wedges between people. So let's just take schools, for instance. The centerpiece of their agenda was this school voucher bill, which you probably heard about, which is basically taking money that would go to neighborhood public schools and sending that money to religious private schools. Those who are around Dunn and Wilkes say that their ultimate vision is to replace public schooling with religious schooling for everyone. That's what they're trying to get.

Joe Rogan: Yes.

James Talarico: And so, but they know that Texans love their public schools. Right? Like, I mean, public education is enshrined in our state's constitution. Friday Night Lights in a lot of these small towns, the school is not just an academic institution. It is the community hub that brings people together. So if Dunn and Wilkes want to get rid of public education, which I think they do, and I think the journalism bears this out, they've got to drive a wedge between people in their public school community. And so they deliberately fund a lot of the book stuff, a lot of the cultural stuff, the craziness at school boards. A lot of that is kind of funded and organized through the Dunn and Wilkes empire. Of course, people should go to the school board if they have an authentic problem with the school district, which that happens a lot. But when you actually look into where—when you follow the money about who's getting the people to show up, who is distributing the information, who is riling people up about some of this stuff and undermining trust in public education, it's often Dunn and Wilkes. And it is in pursuit of this policy goal which is to defund and close neighborhood schools. We've already seen schools close all over the state of Texas because they're being systematically underfunded. So I use this as an example. There are valid critiques of public schools. Don't get me wrong. And I've made those critiques myself. But when you look at where the money is coming from and the fact that it is intentionally drawing a wedge or putting a wedge between people and undermining trust in education so that they can privatize it and profit off of it, I think that whole story needs to be recognized so people can understand how the left versus right stuff is actually not as important as the top versus bottom stuff. That these billionaires are going to—we're not going to have public schools. A lot of—there's no way I'd be on Joe Rogan right now if I hadn't had Texas public schools. Because my mom didn't go to college. The only way I got to college is because of public schools, free, high quality public schools, period. And I think there's a lot of people who would say the same thing. And these two guys are trying to get rid of them.

Joe Rogan: But you were saying they're terrified of...

James Talarico: Yes, because what they're worried about is—and I'll take the voucher fight in particular—we almost beat this voucher bill because it was a coalition of Democrats in urban and suburban areas and then rural small town Republicans coming together because we all benefit from public schools, right? We set aside our party differences, even some of our ideological differences, and we said, we all need well-funded public schools that can actually give our kids the opportunities they deserve. That coalition was not only a threat to Greg Abbott or Dan Patrick, it was a threat to Dunn and Wilkes. Because if we recognize that we have far more in common than the stuff that divides us, then that's a threat to their power. It's a threat to their wealth. That unity, that loving your enemy is not just morally good. It's not just idealistic. It is good strategic advice because when we're united, when we're together, then we make it a lot harder for those two guys to come in and dismantle these ladders of opportunity that we have. And we have fewer and fewer ladders of opportunity. Public schools are one of them. So I think this is a prime example of what I mean when I say a lot of the divisions, a lot of the platforms that are dividing us, that are run by billionaires, all of that is intentional so that we are fighting each other instead of asking hard questions about the wealthy special interests and what their agenda is. That is just the phenomenon that I have seen in my four terms. And I don't know if everyone is fully awake to that, that we're getting played.

Joe Rogan: I don't think people are. And I think you saying it is very important. I think most people are unaware of it.

James Talarico: Well, how would they know? How would they know? I mean, they're not—and this is a problem with media. The mainstream media, for some reason, will not name these two guys. Right? I think it's like this gentleman's agreement or like you have to talk about the elected officials. I'm like, it doesn't matter who the elected officials are if these billionaires buy whoever's elected. Right? I mean, this to me is the real story. And I honestly don't—there are some outlets that are covering it, but just most of them don't. I'll even bring them up in an interview, like on local news, it'll get taken out of the interview.

Joe Rogan: Brilliant.

James Talarico: Yeah. Because they don't want the lawsuits. I get it. They don't want the attention. I even put a video on TikTok explaining Dunn and Wilkes, and it was like the TikTok was getting a lot of engagement, then it stopped all of a sudden. And I think it was because the algorithm or the—I don't know how it works—but the platform itself had decided to stop the video from spreading.

Joe Rogan: Wow.

James Talarico: So, I mean, that is—I just do think people have to—your listeners, who maybe some of them are sick of politics. They think it's all corrupt. That is all true. I validate that. But until you educate yourself, until you do dig a little deeper, until you recognize the way this system is operating, you're not going to have the tools and the knowledge you need to upend that system, which it can absolutely be upended. We almost beat their voucher bill because we had that coalition of across the aisle and scattering the tribal dynamics of our politics. So ultimately, we didn't win, kind of came down to a photo finish. But it did, to me, provide a template for what happens if we actually loved our enemies, if we rebuilt these relationships. Like, who could we take on if we did it together? Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and progressives. Like, I don't know. Sometimes I sound a little Pollyanna.

Joe Rogan: No, no, I think you're onto something. I think what you're saying is absolutely true though, that it's not us versus them. It's the top versus the bottom. They have all the power.

James Talarico: Yeah.

Joe Rogan: And it seems like they enjoy wielding it for their own benefit. And what's their ultimate goal?

James Talarico: You know, I think if I'm taking the journalism that's been done on Dunn and Wilkes, I think their ultimate goal is a theocracy. And again, this is very personal, given how important my faith is to me, but I'm a Christian, and I think there is no more dangerous form of government than theocracy. Because the only thing worse than a tyrant is a tyrant who thinks they're on a mission from God.

Joe Rogan: We haven't had any good examples of that in the past.

James Talarico: No.

Joe Rogan: There's not one that you go, well, that one worked out.

James Talarico: Right. And so, again, this is people trying to use my religion to control people. Yeah. That's the name of the game. And we're seeing that here. I mean, Texas is—I'm an eighth-generation Texan. My family's been here since it was Mexico. I love this state. But I've just seen people like Dunn and Wilkes just take us in this far-right culture war direction at the expense of actual problems we need to solve. One of the bills that didn't pass last legislative session was a bill that would have provided funding for flood mitigation and emergency systems to get the word out when there's a flood. And we literally just saw the consequence of not passing that bill over the weekend.

Joe Rogan: Why would they not want that passed? That seems like—

James Talarico: You want to know? Okay. We're honestly here? Okay. That bill was passed by Representative Ken King, a Republican, someone I often have disagreements with, but he's a good man. He's from far north Panhandle, where they saw historic wildfires last year. So he put this bill that would have addressed wildfires, also flooding, and would have, I think, saved some of the lives in the Hill Country over the weekend during those catastrophic floods. That bill passed the state house, the lower chamber that I'm in, on a bipartisan basis. Overwhelmingly, Democrats and Republicans said this is good policy, let's pass it. Dan Patrick, the lieutenant governor who controls the state Senate which is the upper chamber, he held that bill hostage so that he could get his THC ban through. And again, I know this may be confusing people outside of Texas, we legalized hemp a few years ago. It's a booming industry. It's a product that's providing people a lot of relief. Dan Patrick decided to put this bill forward that would ban all THC products in the state of Texas. Basically close hundreds of businesses across the state, lay off thousands of people.

Joe Rogan: Why do you think he'd do that?

James Talarico: Let's go back, follow the money. Okay. What industry do you think was most invested in taking this new product off the market?

Joe Rogan: Pharmaceutical drugs? No. Alcohol?

James Talarico: Big alcohol. Big beer. And I guess—I love beer. It's not a critique of them. My point is they use their influence to take a competitor out of the market. By the way, a competitor that is, research suggests, is safer and less addictive than alcohol. Again, I'm not disparaging alcohol, but it has a lot of negative side effects and is very addictive. I have members of my family who struggle with addiction and struggle with alcoholism. THC can be, under the right circumstances, an alternative. I mean, there are seniors who use it for chronic pain, there are veterans who use it for PTSD, there are just Texans with anxiety who use it to chill out at the end of a long stressful day. And so the fact that the lieutenant governor, one, would do the bidding of one industry over the other, two, would hold up literally a life-saving bill that could have possibly saved lives over the weekend in those floods just to cater to wealthy special interests, to me is just an encapsulation of everything that's wrong with politics.

Joe Rogan: Right. Yeah, I would agree with that.

James Talarico: So that's the kind of—when I told you my second term, I started to feel discouraged. That's the stuff. Because you just walk—I mean, I'm still—politicians are still people. Like I walk out of that chamber just feeling totally and utterly defeated. Right? Like, I feel like I'm pushing against the ocean sometimes.

Joe Rogan: Yeah.

James Talarico: And people are going to suffer with this THC ban if it goes into place, needlessly. Needlessly.

Joe Rogan: It's foolish. It's really foolish. And it's not in the direction the country's going. The country's going towards legalization, which it should, and then also taxing. It would be a tremendous tax benefit to everybody, a tremendous revenue benefit to the state. And regulation.

James Talarico: I'm open. I actually voted for a regulation bill, right? We shouldn't have smoke shops right next to schools. Right. The packaging shouldn't look like kids' candy. I'm all for that. Pesticides or toxic chemicals being used on them. But to do a total draconian ban again—there's a thing with abortion. It's just for the alcohol industry.

Joe Rogan: That's fascinating.

James Talarico: Again, all I do is follow the money. I don't want to cast aspersions. It's not like the lieutenant governor said, I'm just doing this for the alcohol industry. Of course—I'm just reading the tea leaves, especially when a policy doesn't make sense.

Joe Rogan: Right.

James Talarico: That's when I ask questions. When you're just like—because they'll be like, well, you know, too many kids are getting these products. Well, okay, let's pass a reform bill where we keep it out of the hands of kids.

Joe Rogan: By the way, kids have been getting weed since the beginning of time.

James Talarico: That's also true.

Joe Rogan: It's stupid. It's not killing them.

James Talarico: Well, I mean, this is the whole thing about—I want to say this. I never thought when I got elected to the state legislature, I would talk so much about sex. I literally—there are so many weird bills about pornography. There was a bill about dildos, which I can't believe I even said that on this podcast.

Joe Rogan: What was the bill about dildos?

James Talarico: I think it was a bill regulating where dildos can be in like a store. Anyway, I've heard a lot of things from my constituents—healthcare, crime, education. I've literally never had a constituent reach out about dildos. But my colleagues feel the need to pass bills about this stuff. So I end up being in a weird position where I'm having to talk about some of these issues, like this issue of pornography, which has been used to do book banning. And it's an interesting discussion that we should get into. But the idea that teenagers are going to the school library for their pornography, again, just kind of—it's common sense that I feel like sometimes we're just completely lacking in places like the Capitol.

Joe Rogan: Well, listen, James, I really appreciate you coming on here because you're providing a perspective that I think is very difficult to acquire. I don't think most people have any idea how the system actually works. And the fact that you're willing to do this and to speak so frankly and so well about this and really explain it to us in a way that's digestible. I really appreciate it.

James Talarico: I appreciate it. This is a special platform you've created here, and it really is an opportunity, I think, to love our enemies again. So I just couldn't be prouder to be invited on. My pleasure.

Joe Rogan: So let's do it again sometime.

James Talarico: I'd love to.

Joe Rogan: Don't quit, okay? Stay in there.

James Talarico: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Joe Rogan: All right. Bye, everybody.