James Talarico Challenges Ken Paxton to TMZ-Hosted Senate Debate

James, hey, thank you for meeting with me, man. I appreciate it. Just had a great rally. I gotta say, though, I've been to now five rallies in the past three days. And this was your worst one yet. Oh, yeah, it was like a sauna in there. It was it's hot out here. It is. I know. But anyways, appreciate it. Well, thank you. You know, I was looking at you. I've been looking at you. I've been thinking, like, this guy was a freaking middle school teacher. And now he could be like a Jonas brother. just do you feel like there's some the stakes are so high right now yeah do you feel like sometimes like i'm gonna throw up right now because i'm so nervous i actually feel like this campaign has grown so much that it's a lot bigger than me at this point and so there are so many people who are doing this with me we have 60 000 volunteers 1.3 million people have donated to this campaign and so they're all helping me carry this burden and i'm just one part of it now totally but we're only human then like maybe you're stronger than me but i'd be peeing my pants i'd be like looking at the lines being like i can't do this well i mean you know i certainly feel a responsibility um to deliver for the people of this state but uh the pressure is a lot easier when you have people helping you carry that burden got a good team okay well that's good uh you know a lot of people come after you over your masculinity and me too you know next two of us. But I hear low-T Tallarico, tofu Tallarico. Do you feel like, to some extent, it's important for a candidate to be macho? Well, I mean, Ken Paxton has refused to debate, and that's pretty low-T behavior in my book. You know, I think y'all at TMZ, you guys talked with Ken Paxton earlier about his refusal to debate, and he said something about he doesn't want to do it on CNN. But I actually challenged him to do it on Fox News on his home turf in his safe space uh but maybe this is now just occurring to me maybe TMZ should host this debate you seem to you get a hold of Ken Paxton easier than most journalists do so I'm all the way all right so you're in you can be the moderator all right you go find Ken Paxton you get him to agree and we'll do it okay I was gonna leave tomorrow no you gotta stay now you gotta stay uh and we gotta see how you know Ken Paxton tells us constantly about his testosterone and and we're all ready to see it so in his defense in his defense like you're going on a tour right now so is he so like isn't it better if you're Ken to be meeting voters than to be screaming with you on TV like I kind of get where he's coming from to some extent well I don't know how many voters he's he's meeting because his crowds are pretty small um obviously we're getting to meet thousands of people out here on the campaign trail so I don't know if we could call his a tour but he is certainly driving around My colleague has been going to that. They were hitting the YMCA. They're having some fun. I think I saw that. Yeah. So, no, they're doing well. But, no, I get what you mean. You know what's interesting, though, just going back to the macho thing, it's like Abdul Syed, Wes Moore, they've made the calculus, like, I need to lean in to being a man. I want to post videos of me lifting. So even people in your party, though, they think, like, I got to lean in to being a man. Maybe so. I don't, I don't have that insecurity, I guess, but everybody's got to do their own thing. Yeah. You know, you got some shade thrown at you the other day by Matthew McConaughey. That does sting a little bit. Being an Austin guy yourself, from what I've gained, he's kind of like the mayor of Austin. So did that like hurt a little bit? And did he kind of have a point, like screw this two party system, like you should go independent? Well, I haven't had a chance to to watch the video but from what i understand he was talking about the need to get rid of this two-party system and i couldn't agree more i think having just two parties has done a lot of damage to our politics and i think we should have a strong third party strong fourth party strong fifth party i think that would make for a much stronger civic discourse but then why run as a democrat like you could have just ran as an independent because of this two-party system uh it's near impossible to be able to get elected as an independent candidate uh and if matthew mcconaughey feels strongly about it he should step up and run really i think he'd be a great candidate for what i don't know i don't know what he's qualified to run for but he should uh if he finds an office he's qualified you know i just feel like to your point everyone feels like oh i don't want to run as an independent because i have no chance but in order to get what you're explaining we need someone to do it well and someone with Matthew McConaughey's name ID and and the fact that he's you know beloved by all of us here in Texas you know he maybe could be uniquely positioned to break through that that two-party system and actually run as a third party all right so this is his invite right now yeah i think he'd be great i've been a fan of Matthew McConaughey since i was a kid so all right i'm headed out last thing i'll say because i was thinking in there halloween around the corner maybe merch like haunted James Tallafrico Tallafrico Tallafrico that's a great idea that well the Tallafricos were out here in force tonight yes in Tyler so we gotta get him some merch if you make that though okay yeah i'll give you all the credit all right thanks