Talarico Named Christian Nationalism. CBS Pulled the Plug.
The counter-theology to the "Sin of Empathy" doctrine finally got a national platform — because CBS tried to stop it.
On Monday, CBS told Stephen Colbert he couldn’t air his interview with James Talarico — a Texas state representative, ordained minister, and candidate for U.S. Senate. The stated reason was the FCC’s equal time rule. The actual reason was the administration’s threat to weaponize it against talk shows — something no administration has attempted in decades.
Colbert put it on YouTube instead. Watch it here.
In the interview, Talarico names what he’s running against:
“There is nothing Christian about Christian Nationalism. It is the worship of power in the name of Christ. And it is a betrayal of Jesus of Nazareth.”
Crockett is a fighter too — I have no stake in who wins the Texas Senate seat. What I care about is that Talarico’s message not be silenced. The counter-theology to Christian Nationalism is more important than any single race. CBS tried to ensure it didn’t get airtime.
This matters beyond Texas because it connects directly to what I’ve been documenting in the Minneapolis coverage.
In my story on Pete Hegesth, I traced the “Sin of Empathy” theology running from Doug Wilson’s network to Cities Church in St. Paul to the ICE field office director who sits in those pews on Sundays. The doctrine teaches that feeling the suffering of others is spiritual weakness — temptation to be resisted. To be righteous is to harden your heart.
Gregory Bovino’s Isaiah 6:8 recruitment video wasn’t an accident — it was a call to holy war, explicitly instructing agents to harden their hearts.
When an agent says “I don’t care” while a woman bleeds out, that’s not a lapse. It’s the doctrine working as designed.
Talarico is preaching the inverse: that Christian Nationalism turns Jesus “into a gun-toting, gay-bashing, science-denying, money-loving, fear-mongering fascist.” That power-worship is idolatry. That neighbor means specifically someone different from you. He laid this out fully in a sermon that’s now over a million views on YouTube.
He’s one of the few politicians willing to name this out loud — and CBS tried to keep him off broadcast television for it.
$2.5 million in 24 hours suggests the suppression worked about as well as it did in Minneapolis.
Read more:
The Meme Doctrine — how the Sin of Empathy theology reached federal law enforcement
Here Am I, Send Me — Bovino’s Isaiah 6:8 recruitment video
Jesus Wept — the two competing visions of Jesus at the heart of this fight