James Talarico torches Biden border policies in stunning attack ad as progressive tries to flip Texas blue

Texas Democrat candidate for U.S. Senate James Talarico appears to be further moderating his previous left-wing stances as he slammed former President Joe Biden for failing us on border security in a new campaign advertisement released Monday.

Despite spewing a seemingly hawkish and downright right-leaning border stance in the recent ad, Talarico previously called to slash Texas entire border-security budget in an unearthed interview.

"I called out Joe Biden for failing us on the border," Talarico says in the opening of the ad released this week.

But Talaricos campaign couldnt give Fox News Digital an example of him ever publicly criticizing Biden during his presidency. And the Texas Democrat explicitly made a call to put Texas entire $800 million two-year border security budget toward public education in a 2019 interview with The Austin Chronicle.

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

The two-year deal allocating $400 million per year toward border security in the state of Texas was the states entire budget toward warding off illegal immigration at the time Talarico made the call to replace that funding.

"I'd rather take that money and put it back into public education and help increase the basic allotment, for instance," he said in the interview.

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

"Putting a bunch of boats, planes and border patrol agents on the physical border is expensive and also does not solve the problem," he said in the interview.

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

"Everyone will admit it's just political grandstanding," Talarico said in the interview. "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."

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

A former member of the Texas legislature and a former school teacher,