Democratic Texas Senate candidate James Talarico said during an interview posted Tuesday that the national party was “condescending” to people, and sometimes is “hostile” toward cultural issues in red states, specifically religion.

“I’m not an expert on the national Democratic Party, but I will say, just from my observations, being in a red state, someone who flipped a Trump district and was able to build this kind of coalition: Our national party is pretty condescending to people,” Talarico told The New York Times’ Ezra Klein, who asked the Senate candidate how the national party could appeal more to Texans.

Talarico, a state representative who is running against Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, in the Senate race, is a former middle school teacher and Presbyterian seminarian.

“You always hear this, especially if you are out on the coasts: Why do all these people vote against their material interests? You’ve heard that before, I’m sure. Such a condescending thing to say to somebody. It’s acting like they don’t know how to make decisions for their own lives, and they don’t know what they need,” he said.

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Talarico said people have interests outside their material interests, citing cultural, personal and spiritual interests.

“And the Democratic Party culturally, in many ways, has become hostile to some of these cultural values in red states and red communities — faith maybe being foremost among them,” he continued.

“I don’t agree with everyone who shares my faith. I don’t agree with every member of the body of Christ, but I am part of that body, and we share something deeper than partisanship. We share something deeper than public policy. We share a commitment, a witness, a practice, a tradition, and that is an opportunity for connection,” the candidate said.

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Podcast host Joe Rogan urged Talarico to run for president during an interview on Rogan’s show in July.

The Democratic state representative said shared faith can open doors for other conversations and said the party should focus on building relationships with people who aren’t necessarily supportive of the party.

“So I would just advocate for our party to think about how to actually build real relationships at scale with people who aren’t with us yet. Not only will that, I think, lead to winning, and we have a moral imperative to win in a democracy. Because if you don’t win, you don’t get power. And if you don’t get power, you can’t make people’s lives better,” he said.

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Crockett, Talarico’s chief opponent for the nomination, announced her Senate candidacy in December. 

Her campaign announcement included a video playing several soundbites of President Donald Trump attacking her. Crockett is one of the most outspoken members of Congress against Trump, who has carried Texas easily in all three of his White House races.

She has argued that she doesn’t need to win over supporters of Trump to win in Texas, which hasn’t elected a Democrat to statewide office in decades.

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“Our goal is to definitely talk to people. No, we don’t, we don’t need to. Our goal is to make sure that we can engage people that historically have not been talked to, because there’s so many people that get ignored, specifically in the state of Texas. Listen, the state of Texas is 61% people of color. We have a lot of good folks that we can talk to,” the lawmaker said in December.

Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons argued on Tuesday that federal immigration agents are facing “constant impediments” and “constant attacks” after video showed a suspected illegal migrant in San Antonio ramming cars in an attempt to flee.

The video shows the migrant in a car ramming into vehicles that were blocking them in from the front and the back, as the individual attempted to evade arrest.

During an appearance on Fox News’ “Hannity,” Lyons was asked if rhetoric from Democrats criticizing ICE can be tied to incidents like these.

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“When we hear elected officials calling upon individuals to impede or obstruct ICE law enforcement operations nationwide, you’re going to see incidents like this,” Lyons responded. “You saw the officers and agents attempting to apprehend a criminally illegal alien, and there they are using their car as a weapon.”

Lyons said one of the agents went to a hospital with neck injuries after their vehicle was struck in the incident.

“Every day, this is what the men and women of ICE are facing,” he claimed. “It’s constant impediments, constant attacks like this. And it’s not safe for my folks, it’s not safe for the public. It really needs to stop.”

He also purported that “criminal gangs” are organizing groups to impede or obstruct immigration enforcement operations.

“It’s a constitutional right to go out there and protest. But when you have organized criminal gangs, which these are, that are organizing these groups to, again, impede or obstruct law enforcement operations … that’s a criminal act. I will tell you that Homeland Security investigations, my folks, the FBI, we’re investigating these and people can be held accountable because you can’t organize groups to go out and impede law enforcement. It’s a criminal act, and we have to act swiftly to prevent this from spreading,” he said.

Lyons was also asked about recent comments from Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, who vowed to prosecute any ICE agent who commits unlawful acts during operations in the city while stressing that his threat does not apply to “honest, decent, moral” agents.

“The men and women of ICE, the men and women of HSI, they’re not committing any crimes,” Lyons argued. “So he doesn’t have to worry about arresting any of my folks, because what we’re doing is we’re enforcing the law. We are out there every day making this nation and his city safe again. So he shouldn’t worry about the men and women of ICE. What he should worry about is the sanctuary policies that have these criminal aliens go back to his neighborhoods and commit heinous crimes like fentanyl trafficking, human trafficking, rape of a child. He should focus on those and let law enforcement do law enforcement work.”

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This comes on the heels of a recent incident in Minnesota, where Renee Nicole Good, a U.S. citizen, was fatally shot by masked ICE agent Jonathan Ross, who fired into the driver’s windshield and open window from the side of the vehicle and subsequently exclaimed “f—ing b—-” as the car crashed into another parked vehicle.

Democrats and local residents have condemned the shooting as a murder and called for Ross’ prosecution, while the Trump administration and Republican lawmakers have defended the incident by arguing that it was a justified shooting.

Horse-mounted Texas Department of Public Safety officers captured a previously deported illegal alien child predator close to the border.

In a statement Tuesday, the state agency said officers from its Border Mounted Patrol Unit made “multiple” illegal immigrant apprehensions on New Year’s Day as part of an effort called Operation Lone Star.

The agency said the operation took place in Maverick County along the U.S. border with Mexico, just south of the town of Del Rio, Texas.

Among those arrested by Texas DPS officers was Marcio Steven Izaguirre, a 41-year-old Honduran illegal alien and child predator, according to the agency. DPS shared body camera video of the arrest in which horse-riding troopers discovered Izaguirre hiding in thick desert brush.

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The video shows two mounted troopers riding quickly through rocky desert terrain and eventually discovering Izaguirre. The officers shouted commands for Izaguirre to exit the brush and handcuffed him and led him away in front of their horses.

The agency said it was alerted to the illegal’s presence by a drawbridge camera set off on a private ranch around 10:30 a.m. New Year’s Day.

DPS said, through further investigation, troopers learned that Izaguirre was a previously deported felon with multiple deportations dating back to 2004. The agency said Izaguirre also has a lengthy criminal history, including convictions from 2008 for furnishing alcohol to a minor, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and child molestation out of Cobb County, Georgia.

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The agency said it has since referred Izaguirre to U.S. Border Patrol.

Lt. Chris Olivarez, a Texas DPS spokesperson, said in an X post Jan. 1 that mounted officers, along with Border Patrol and aided by K-9 “Bona,” apprehended five illegal immigrants on New Year’s Day.

Olivarez said the operation prevented gotaways and was a way of “keeping Texas safe.”

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Texas makes up well over half of the U.S. border with Mexico, around 1,254 miles. It is the only southern border state to explicitly ban sanctuary jurisdictions. Texas also requires state and local law enforcement to cooperate with federal immigration authorities.

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Texas law also mandates that local sheriffs cooperate with federal immigration enforcement by seeking to enter federal 287(g) agreements under the federal Immigration and Nationality Act.