Q: Claims about James Talarico being hospitalized in a mental health facility. Is this true?
A: No. An Ohio mental health center rebutted false online rumors that Talarico, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Texas, had been there as a patient. Talarico said he was off the campaign trail for several days in early October while recovering from the flu at his Texas home.
FULL ANSWER
The conspiracy theory that James Talarico, the Democratic candidate for a U.S. Senate seat in Texas, recently went to Ohio to receive treatment for mental health issues began after he stopped making campaign appearances at the beginning of October. Several readers asked us about these claims, which they saw on social media.
Talarico and a campaign spokesperson have said that he was at his Austin, Texas, home, recuperating from the flu at the time. And the New York Times said it verified that Talarico was at his house by reviewing time-stamped camera images from Talarico’s home security system that was provided by his campaign.
“The images showed Mr. Talarico around the exterior of the home and at its entrances between Oct. 1 and Oct. 8,” the Times reported on Oct. 12.
The Texas state representative had mentioned his flu diagnosis in a Sept. 30 Hispanic Business Council forum that he attended virtually.
However, on Oct. 11, conservative influencers Nick Sortor and Rhein Amacher said in separate posts on X that they had called the Lindner Center of Hope, a mental health center and hospital in Mason, Ohio, and were told that Talarico had just been there as a patient.
“During my recorded call, an individual identifying themselves as a female facility employee reportedly stated that Talarico was no longer a patient and had been discharged within the previous 24–48 hours,” Amacher wrote in his post. He also posted audio from the conversations that he said took place on Oct. 10.
Amacher’s and Sortor’s claims were then amplified in posts by other conservatives, as well as X owner Elon Musk, who has spent millions of dollars supporting Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Talarico’s Republican opponent in the Senate race.
But in its own post later the same day, the facility at the center of the rumor denied that Talarico had been there as a patient. “Representative James Talarico has never received treatment from Lindner Center of Hope,” the center said in an Oct. 11 X post.
Talarico then shared the center’s statement in an X post that included a laughing emoji and said, “I’ve never even been to Ohio.” And in a response to a post by Sortor, Talarico campaign spokesperson JT Ennis called the claims a “lie designed to promote a pathetic conspiracy theory.”
Talarico was back in public on Oct. 9, when he attended the Austin City Limits music festival. He also went to a Kacey Musgraves concert in Dallas on Oct. 10.
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