Ted Cruz, conservatives respond after Talarico criticizes Bible-related education in schools as 'propaganda'

Texas state representative and Democratic U.S.

Senate candidate James Talarico’s campaign responded after a resurfaced video of his comments on the Bible and education sparked outrage.

A clip resurfaced this week of Talarico, a Christian seminarian, speaking in a video hosted by the Center for American Progress Action Fund in 2025.

In the clip, the host asked Talarico about his legislative battles with "Christian Nationalists," meaning people who consider America to be an inherently Christian nation.

The portion that went viral recently when Talarico blasted the "most insidious" legislation he fought to stop while serving in Texas government, claiming one bill required schools in the state to teach Bible stories as historical fact.

He argued that this amounted to pushing "propaganda" on children and was not just bad for state schools, but for society overall.

"It was a new state curriculum that would teach Christian Bible stories as historical fact, as the only truth to our youngest students, and I mean kindergarten, first graders," he said.

"These are kids who aren’t able to think for themselves yet.

They haven’t formed their own worldviews." TEXAS DEM NOMINEE JAMES TALARICO INVOKES FAITH TO DEFEND ABORTION RIGHTS, ‘THE BIBLE IS SILENT ON ABORTION' He further warned that the alleged effort to "push propaganda, to push indoctrination on those youngest students is deeply immoral and should trouble all of us." Sen.

Ted Cruz.

R-Texas, retweeted the clip, asking a brief, "Um, wut?" alongside numerous other commentators.

"The claim made by Representative Talarico is misleading," Mary Elizabeth Castle, director of government relations for Texas Values told Fox News Digital.

"The curriculum he was referring to in the video from 2025 is the Bluebonnet curriculum, which was an English Language Arts curriculum adopted in the winter of 2024 that helped students understand the copious amounts of Bible references made in historical speeches and common stories like Dr.

Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech." "The references to the Bible in the Bluebonnet curriculum help students understand the thousands of everyday idioms that people use every day that have some context to Scripture," she continued.