James Talarico sat down with Jimmy Kimmel Thursday night. He just didn’t make it onto ABC.
As promised, Kimmel instead posted his 21-minute interview with the Texas Democratic Senate candidate to the Jimmy Kimmel Live! YouTube channel, one night after explaining that the show was keeping Talarico off the broadcast out of concern for local affiliates amid FCC scrutiny of candidate appearances.
“This is not the first time you’ve been demoted to YouTube,” Kimmel noted at the start of the interview.
He was referring to Talarico’s February appearance with Stephen Colbert, which CBS similarly kept off The Late Show broadcast amid equal-time concerns. That interview went on to become one of Colbert’s most-watched on YouTube, while Talarico reported a record fundraising haul in its aftermath.
Six months later, Talarico returned to late-night YouTube under rather different circumstances: He’s now the Democratic nominee for Senate, running against Republican Ken Paxton.
Their wide-ranging conversation touched on Talarico’s Christian faith, voting access in Texas, Paxton’s record, and the attention Talarico has been getting from President Trump.
Kimmel played a clip of Trump questioning Talarico’s religious beliefs and calling him “freaky.” Talarico responded by touting “I’m A Talafreako” T-shirts inspired by Trump’s nickname for him, which he said had become the fastest-selling item in his campaign store.
There was merch for Paxton, too.
Kimmel brought up the story of Paxton being caught on security video taking an expensive pen that another attorney had left at a courthouse checkpoint—an incident the Talarico campaign recently turned into an ad.
Talarico then presented Kimmel with a campaign-branded “Not Ken Paxton’s Pen.”
Later, while discussing Paxton’s finances and Talarico’s claim that the Republican owns 15 homes, Kimmel reiterated the invitation he’d extended to Paxton during his monologue earlier in the taping.
“I would love to have Ken Paxton on to explain,” Kimmel said.
The interview ended with one final nod to its YouTube-only status.
“Will you mind telling people to like and subscribe?” Kimmel asked.
“Please like and subscribe,” Talarico replied.
Watch Kimmel’s complete interview with Talarico at the top of this post.
