James Talarico

I'm here to have that conversation about how do we maintain safety and fairness in sports when it comes to trans athletes.

And there are going to be rules where sometimes it's not allowed.

That's actually how you solve a public policy problem with love for trans folks, but also for our athletes who need a fair shot at competition.

So what I was doing was speaking out against that kind of extremism because it wasn't actually trying to solve a problem.

But anyway, but outside of that issue, you know, I think my track record in Texas is pretty clear.

I won a district that no one thought was winnable.

I have done this before, building a coalition that includes new voters and includes voters from the other side of the aisle, which is the only way to win in Texas is doing both of those things.

Well, I'm very proud to be from a border state.

I'm an eighth-generation Texan, so my family has been in our state since it was Mexico.

My family's from South Texas.

My mom grew up in Laredo, right there on the U.S.-Mexico border.

She got her braces in Mexico because it was cheaper.

And that's in border communities, crossing back and forth on a daily basis is not unusual.

So we just understand this intimately in Texas.

I think both parties have failed us on this issue, and we need to be very honest about that.

The Biden administration's failures on our southern border, I remember talking to my border colleagues, telling me about the utter chaos in their communities because of some of those policies.

That is what opened the door to the extremism we're currently seeing on this issue.

From the other side, masked men in unmarked vehicles kidnapping people off our streets, tearing parents from their children, waiting in school pickup lines.

lurking in hospital waiting rooms.

And so you said this was a hard issue.