Texas Senate Democrat James Talarico rolled out a campaign ad claiming he called out Joe Biden for failing on the border, even as his 2019 record pushed to strip border security cash for schools.
James Talarico’s campaign released a new advertisement Monday in which the Democratic U.S. Senate hopeful tells voters he stood up to former President Joe Biden on the southern border. Fox News Digital reported the spot and the sharp contrast with Talarico’s own earlier words.
In the ad, Talarico says he did not stay quiet.
"I called out Joe Biden for failing us on the border,"
Yet when Fox News Digital asked the campaign for any example of Talarico publicly criticizing Biden on the border during Biden’s presidency, the campaign could not provide one. The progressive former Texas lawmaker and schoolteacher is running hard to flip a Senate seat blue against Republican Ken Paxton as the November midterms near, and the race has stayed close.
That timing matters. Texas voters have watched years of chaos at the border, and Talarico is now labeling himself a “border security” Democrat. The record he left behind tells a different story.
More than seven years ago, Talarico sat for an interview with The Austin Chronicle and laid out a clear priority. He pointed to Texas sending about $800 million per biennium to the border with Mexico for “increased border security.” At the time, that two-year deal of roughly $400 million a year was the state’s entire budget aimed at stopping illegal immigration.
He did not want the money left there.
"I'd rather take that money and put it back into public education and help increase the basic allotment, for instance,"
Talarico went further. Physical enforcement, in his view then, was both costly and useless.
"Putting a bunch of boats, planes and border patrol agents on the physical border is expensive and also does not solve the problem,"
He called the spending political theater.
"Everyone will admit it's just political grandstanding,"
And he accused fellow lawmakers of chasing their base:
"Certain lawmakers want to appease extreme parts of their base. And they do it by pumping money we don't have down to the border."
Those lines are not ancient gossip. They are Talarico’s own words from 2019, now sitting beside a 2025 campaign ad that attacks Biden’s border failures. The pivot tracks a broader effort to sound more moderate after critics said he is too progressive to win statewide in Texas. Earlier resurfaced comments have already forced him to defend other left-leaning positions before the same voters.
Pressed on the shift, campaign spokesperson JT Ennis offered a new framing. He told Fox News Digital that Talarico is proud to be the only candidate in the race who has unveiled a border security agenda endorsed by Republican and Democratic border county sheriffs.
Ennis added that the candidate backs stronger tools.
"James supports stronger border security and immigration enforcement, it’s why he’s called for more border patrol agents and has said we should be arresting and deporting violent criminals and human traffickers, not moms and babies."
That last distinction is classic progressive language: enforcement for the worst offenders only, while soft-pedaling the broader illegal flow. It sits uneasily next to Talarico’s past call to dismantle Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He once said it was “time to tear down this secret police force.” He has also referred to illegal immigrants as his “constituents,” labeled Gov. Greg Abbott’s border policies “atrocities,” accused the governor of “hunting” illegal immigrants, and said he taught many undocumented students who were more patriotic than Americans.
None of that history vanished because a new ad dropped on a Monday. It simply collides with the moderate pitch now required to compete with Paxton. Recent polling chatter has already put the matchup under a national microscope.
Talarico also left the trail briefly this month. Viral rumors claimed he was at a behavioral health center. He reappeared Friday, rejected the rumors, and said he had been recovering from the flu. The campaign kept moving. He is still the progressive Democrat trying to convince Texas that yesterday’s open-border instincts are gone.
Paxton’s team has treated the race as a straight fight over law, order, and results. Rivalry moments have already turned personal and pointed. Meanwhile Talarico has kept one eye on big-money circuits outside the state. Hollywood fundraising trips remain part of the operation even as he sells border toughness at home.
The contrast with national results is hard to miss. Border crossings under the Trump administration fell to a new record low in 55 years in 2025, according to the Department of Homeland Security. After years of Biden-era surges, the numbers finally moved the other way. Talarico’s ad now tries to claim credit for noticing the earlier failure. His 2019 interview shows he once wanted the money pulled from the very enforcement that finally started working.
Scripture-and-policy arguments have also followed him on the trail, including claims that faith requires expansive government programs. Church-town-hall remarks fit the same pattern: progressive ends wrapped in moral language, then sanded down for a general-election audience.
One screen shows a candidate in a fresh ad scolding Biden for failing the border. The other screen shows the same man in 2019 calling border security spending expensive grandstanding and begging to move every dollar into education. The campaign insists he supports more agents and deportations of violent criminals. It still could not point to a single public rebuke of Biden while Biden held the White House.
That is the choice now in front of Texas. A progressive who once treated border enforcement as political theater wants a promotion to the U.S. Senate. He is running against a Republican attorney general in a state that has lived with the consequences of open-border policy. The ad is loud. The older quotes are louder.
Voters who want secure borders do not need another conversion narrative. They need a record that matches the rhetoric before Election Day, not after the cameras roll.
