Report: Talarico Defended 'Defund the Police' Debate in 2020 Call

Texas Democrat U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico told progressive activists in 2020 that it was “rich” that “defund the police” was treated as off-limits in political debate, according to a CNN KFile report published Monday. The remarks came on a call with Texas Rising, a progressive group that at the time was explicitly calling for police departments to be defunded, as protests over the death of George Floyd spread across the country, CNN reported. Talarico, then a state representative, cast the slogan’s taboo status as hypocritical given Texas spending cuts elsewhere, saying: As an educator, it’s always rich to me that “defund the police” is considered off-limits in our political debate, when defunding health services, defunding public education has been the stated policy of our state government for decades now. The Texas Democrat acknowledged the hashtag was “getting people all riled up” in his swing district but argued voters understood armed officers should not respond to minor traffic accidents or mental-health crises. WATCH — Democrat James Talarico Says the New Testament Mandates Obamacare: His campaign called it a “flat-out lie” that he ever backed defunding and pointed to votes sending billions to local law enforcement. “James did not call for and does not support defunding the police, and he strongly supports Texas law enforcement and first responders,” spokesperson JT Ennis said. CNN reported that the Senate candidate’s record from 2019 through at least 2022 is more complicated than the denial suggests, citing repeated calls to limit police power and invest in community-based alternatives. In 2020, after footage emerged surrounding the death of Javier Ambler II in Austin, Texas, Talarico said the policing system was “deeply broken” and must be replaced “with something new and something better.” His campaign told CNN the quote was “taken out of context” and referred to reality television shows on policing. WATCH — “In Your Many Names We Pray” — James Talarico’s Pagan Prayer to “Jesus”: That same month, the Austin-area lawmaker’s campaign donated $2,500 to the Austin Justice Coalition, a group advocating cuts to the city’s police budget. At a 2022 graduation ceremony for incarcerated students, Talarico tied reduced police and prison spending to social programs. “If we took just half of what we spent on wars, prisons, and policing, and spent it on education, health care, and jobs, we could make prisons obsolete,” he said. The report follows a stretch in which the Senate hopeful has moderated his image, saying many of his 2020 comments “missed the mark” as he pledged in an undercover video last month to use a Senate seat to fight for transgender children. Talarico faces Republican Ken Paxton (R-TX) in a race polling at a dead heat.