Resurfaced: Talarico Brags About Hiding Illegal Aliens, Calls Texas Christians ‘Christo-Fascists’

James Talarico wants Texas voters to see him as a soft-spoken Sunday school teacher who just happens to be running for Senate. Fine. But the video Fox News dug up isn't some gotcha about his tone. It's him, on camera, describing his own church as a place that sheltered people from deportation and calling fellow Christians "Christo-fascists" for disagreeing with him. That's not a smear. That's his own mouth.

There's a difference between charity and defying immigration law, and Talarico's telling on himself by treating those as the same thing. Churches can feed people, clothe people, pray with people. What they can't do is decide federal immigration enforcement doesn't apply on their property, and then brag about it later like it's a badge of honor. If a Republican candidate had bragged about a church hiding someone from the law, the coverage would not be gentle.

The "Christo-fascist" line is the tell, honestly. It's one thing to have a live-and-let-live view on gay marriage or church membership rules, that's between him and his congregation. It's another to sneer at ordinary Christians in Texas, the same voters he needs, as fascists for holding views he used to hold too by his own account. That's not humility. That's contempt wearing a clergy collar.

Voters can decide for themselves whether a candidate who describes lawbreaking as ministry belongs in the Senate. We'd just ask that they watch the tape themselves instead of taking his campaign's word for what he meant.