Wait, It Wasn’t Bad Bunny? Trump Weaponizes Christianity
Before we get into this one, let’s set the record straight on something the original piece got wrong — and it matters, because the actual story is just as powerful.
The extraordinary speech responding to Trump’s “offender of Jesus” attack was not delivered by Bad Bunny. It was delivered by James Talarico — a Texas Democratic state representative and U.S. Senate candidate — who responded directly after Trump called him out on Fox News Radio in March. The quotes are real. The moment was real. The speech was extraordinary. It just came from a Texas politician, not a music superstar. Both men have taken on Trump. Both deserve credit for the right things. So let’s give it accurately.
Here’s what actually happened — and why it matters.
How It Started
James Talarico is a Democratic state representative from Texas who won his party’s Senate primary in March. He is also a Christian — one who, back in 2021, stood on the Texas House floor and argued against a bill targeting transgender youth athletes by saying that God transcends human categories of gender, and that transgender children are also God’s children.
That statement recirculated in conservative media after his primary win. Trump, calling into Fox News Radio’s Brian Kilmeade show on March 13th, weighed in directly. He called Talarico a “fraud” and declared that his beliefs about transgender people constituted an insult to Jesus.
The President of the United States — the man who posted an AI image of himself as Jesus on Easter Sunday, who called the Pope “WEAK on Crime,” who is currently being investigated by congressional Democrats for cognitive decline, who threatened to destroy the civilian infrastructure of a nation of 90 million people — decided to appoint himself the arbiter of who does and does not offend Jesus Christ.
He picked the wrong person to start that conversation with.
The Response
Five days later, Talarico delivered a speech — posted to social media and watched by millions — that cut through every piece of political theater currently consuming Washington and got to something real.
“The President of the United States just said that I insulted Jesus,” he began. “You want to know what insults Jesus?”
And then he answered his own question.
“Kicking the sick off their health care while cutting taxes for billionaires. That insults Jesus.”
“Deporting the stranger and separating babies from their mothers. That insults Jesus.”
“Bombing innocent schoolchildren in Iran and sending our brave men and women off to die in another forever war. That insults Jesus.”
“Covering up the Epstein files and then refusing to prosecute a single person in them. That insults Jesus.”
Then he said something that stripped the entire culture war argument down to its bones:
“I am not a perfect Christian. There is only one perfect Christian — and He was crucified 2,000 years ago.”
And then the line that should be printed on billboards from Texas to Washington:
“Jesus taught us to love our neighbors as ourselves. Can we imagine war in Heaven? Can we imagine discrimination in Heaven? Can we imagine poverty in Heaven? Then why do we tolerate these things here on Earth?”
Why This Moment Matters
Trump has spent years weaponizing Christianity. Using it as a prop — the upside-down Bible photo op, the Easter Jesus image, the $60 branded Bible he sells for profit, the Pentagon prayer services quoting Quentin Tarantino, the framing of military operations as Christian holy war. He wears religion as a costume. He puts it on when it’s useful and takes it off when it isn’t.
What Talarico did was refuse to let him have the language. He didn’t retreat from faith. He didn’t accept the premise that supporting transgender human beings means abandoning Christianity. He walked directly into the accusation, picked up the scripture Trump was trying to use as a weapon, and turned it around.
You want to talk about what offends Jesus? Let’s talk about it. Let’s talk about the 13 Americans killed in a war that started without a congressional vote. Let’s talk about the children in Iran killed by U.S. strikes — documented by human rights organizations. Let’s talk about the millions of Americans who will lose Medicaid under the same “Big Beautiful Bill” that cuts taxes for people who will never need to worry about a medical bill in their lives. Let’s talk about the Epstein files that the administration of the self-declared Christian president is suppressing.
That’s the conversation Trump invited. Talarico had it. And Trump has nothing to say in response — because there is nothing to say. You cannot claim the moral high ground of Christian values while simultaneously doing every single thing those values condemn.
And Bad Bunny?
Bad Bunny’s history with Trump is its own story — and it’s worth telling separately.
The Puerto Rican superstar has been a consistent, vocal critic of Trump since 2017, when he wore a shirt mocking Trump’s response to Hurricane Maria. He won Album of the Year at the 2026 Grammys — the first Spanish-language album to do so in history — and opened his acceptance speech not with thanks to his label or his management, but with two words: “ICE out.”
Trump attacked him for his Super Bowl halftime selection, complaining about his politics and his refusal to perform in English. Bad Bunny performed anyway — in Spanish, in front of the largest television audience in American history — and said nothing further, because the performance said everything.
Two men. Two very different platforms. The same essential message: you do not get to claim the values you spend every waking hour violating.
The people Trump attacks keep making the same mistake in his view. They refuse to be intimidated. They refuse to accept his framing. They refuse to let him have the language of faith, patriotism, and decency without pointing out the gap between the words and the reality.
James Talarico stood at a podium in Texas and delivered a more effective theological argument against this administration than anything its critics have produced in months. Not with rage. Not with insults. With scripture. With questions. With the simple observation that the standards Trump claims to represent are the very standards his every action violates.
That’s not a political attack. That’s a mirror.
And apparently, the President of the United States doesn’t like what he sees in it.
