Ted Cruz Challenges James Talarico's Faith With His Own Pastor's Words on Jesus

Senator Ted Cruz used Friday's episode of his Verdict podcast to argue that Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico's Christian identity is not what it seems, playing undercover audio of a minister at Talarico's Austin church questioning the virgin birth and whether Jesus existed at all.

The Texas Republican is not on the ballot this year. Talarico, a state representative and seminary graduate, is running for the seat held by Senator John Cornyn, who lost the Republican nomination to Attorney General Ken Paxton in a May 26 runoff that The Texas Tribune reported made him the first Texas senator to lose to a member of his own party since 1970. The Nov. 3 general election between Talarico and Paxton is close: PolitiKool's polling average gives Talarico a narrow lead, 46.2 percent to 42.9 percent, and every recent public poll has put the gap inside its margin of error.

Cruz told co-host Ben Ferguson that Talarico and Michigan Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed are "the two most dangerous and the most radical and extreme candidates in the country," and said Talarico "tries very hard to claim that he's a moderate and the big thing he tries to do is by saying that he is a Christian minister."

What the Pastor Said in the Undercover Audio

The audio Cruz played came from footage The Daily Wire published on Wednesday of Rev. Babs Miller, minister to the parish at St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Austin, speaking with an undercover journalist. Cruz described the speaker as "one of the senior pastors there" and said the church "is more radical than any church I have ever seen."

In the clip, Miller said, "Mary and the virgin birth comes out of the pagan belief that the gods came down and impregnated people, that people were still hanging on to during that time."

We have no way of knowing if Jesus really existed any more than we have of knowing that the original Buddha ever existed.

Miller continued: "And whether or not Jesus existed doesn't really matter to me, the fact remains that that message that was delivered by someone named Jesus supposedly, and it could have all been made up for all I know." The minister said "the God in the Old Testament is not a loving God" but "a vengeful, killing people kind of God," adding, "This is a lot of mythology." She then offered a political reading of the crucifixion. "Jesus was political, Jesus was put on that cross, not to save us," she said, but because Roman authorities "thought he was a threat to their domination of that area." That account, she said, "makes a whole lot more sense to me than to say that some God would kill his son for us."

The Daily Wire reported that it contacted Talarico's campaign and St. Andrew's before publication and did not receive a response. Miller is not the church's lead pastor. The Daily Wire identified that role as belonging to Rev. Jim Rigby, who baptized Talarico and whom Talarico has called "one of the biggest influences on me as a Christian, as a human being."

Cruz's Argument: 'That Is Not Christianity'

Cruz prefaced the clip with a disclaimer. "I am reluctant to question someone else's faith, that is not for me to do, that is a question for God to judge," he said, before citing John 3:16 as "the absolute heart of what it means to be a Christian."

After the audio, he said: "So look, that is a whole lot of things, but that is not Christianity."

"You may be a left wing philosopher, you may be a left wing radical activist, but what you are not is a Christian," Cruz said. "And that is the world from which James Talarico comes. And we have every reason to believe that that reflects his belief as well."

Ferguson urged listeners to share the audio. "This is what he believes. This is his pastor. This is the church he's at," he said.

What Talarico Has Said About His Own Faith

Cruz did not play any clip of Talarico himself discussing the virgin birth, the crucifixion or the existence of Jesus. His inference that Miller's views reflect the candidate's rests on Talarico's membership in the church, not on anything Talarico has said.

Talarico has spoken about his Christianity throughout the campaign. He earned a master of arts in theological studies from Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary in May 2025 and remains in good standing to finish a master of divinity, the Presbyterian Outlook reported. The Texas Observer reported in June that he is on leave from his ministry training and that Presbyterian pastor Josh Robinson called his theological grounding "in most meaningful respects, consistent with PC(USA) teaching."

Cruz also ran through other Talarico statements he said were coming to light, citing "his saying God is non-binary" and "his saying he wants to dismantle capitalism," and said Talarico is "on video" calling himself a "Christian who hates Christianity." Cruz did not say when or where any of those remarks were made. On the first of them, the Texas Observer reported in the same June article that Talarico clarified he meant God is "beyond gender," a common theological notion.

A Dead-Heat Texas Senate Race

The attack lands in a race that every recent public poll has placed within the margin of error. A Texas Southern University poll of 1,800 likely voters taken Sept. 15 to 19 found Talarico at 47 percent and Paxton at 46 percent, with a margin of error of 2.31 points. It also found that 84 percent of Republicans backed Paxton, compared with 99 percent of Democrats backing Talarico.

An Emerson College poll taken Sept. 12 to 14 produced the same 47 to 46 split. A Mason-Dixon poll for NBC 5 and Telemundo taken Sept. 8 to 10 put Talarico ahead 46 percent to 43 percent, inside its 4-point margin of error.

Cruz spent the first half of the episode on President Donald Trump's state dinner for Xi Jinping and on streamer Hasan Piker, whom he tied to El-Sayed. He closed on Talarico, saying that "every week more facts about his record" emerge. Whether the church audio moves a race this close is the open question heading into early voting.