James Talarico: Flipping Seats & Flipping Tables in the Lone Star State

Impolitic with John Heilemann

Audacy | Puck

News, Politics

4.8 • 4.2K Ratings

🗓️ 25 August 2025

⏱️ 67 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

John welcomes Democratic Texas state representative James Talarico to discuss the escalating war over redistricting kicked off by Lone Star State Republicans. In the wake of Texas's enactment of a new congressional map sought by Donald Trump and designed to deliver five House seats to the GOP in next year’s midterms, Talarico explains why the two-week walkout by him and 56 of his colleagues succeeded despite the map’s adoption—by spurring blue states such as California to strike back with gerrymanders of their own. Talarico, a 36-year-old pastor and former sixth-grade teacher, also discusses his star-making recent turn on Joe Rogan’s podcast, the possibility he’ll soon be running for Senate, and the need for Democrats to start “flipping tables” (like Jesus in the Temple) to save American democracy from Trump and MAGA. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:57.4	Aloha and namaste, everyone, and welcome to Impolitic with John Heilman,
1:01.5	a puck and Odyssey joint featuring lively, in-depth conversations with the people who cruise
1:05.9	the corridors of power in America, sculpting and shaping the ebb and flow of our politics and culture.
1:13.5	Last week, the Texas House of Representatives passed the Republican-sponsored bill to redraw
1:19.1	the Lone Star State's new congressional map, a rare exercise in mid-decade redistricting, undertaken
1:25.7	at the behest of Donald Trump, who leaned on the Republican
1:28.9	governor down there, Greg Abbott, to engage in a brazen, naked act of partisan gerrymandering
1:36.1	that will, in theory, give the GOP five new seats in the U.S. House of Representatives after
1:42.5	next year's midterms, which Trump desperately
1:45.3	hopes will help save his party from the fate it currently seems destined for, losing control
1:50.2	of Congress due to its lockstep support for Trump's wildly unpopular domestic agenda.
1:56.0	As any paid up in politic listener already knows, The Texas redistricting plan unleashed a national
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