Republican apologists rushed to claim Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico lied by saying he was off the campaign trail last week due to the flu. He was instead, they insisted, receiving out-of-state mental health care for an emotional breakdown.
In a campaign already riddled with accusations about who is a true Christian, Elon Musk on Sunday amplified the claims of far-right provocateurs who claimed they had evidence that Talarico was admitted to Lindner Center of Hope in Ohio, a mental health facility.
Influencer Nick Sortor posted on social media Sunday, Oct. 11: “BREAKING EXCLUSIVE: Ohio mental hospital CONFIRMS James Talarico was discharged from the facility earlier this week. The ‘flu’ thing was a BIG FAT LIE.”
Sortor claimed to have a recording of a hospital employee confirming that Talarico had been a patient there but had been discharged. The audio of the call, which Sortor shared on X, involves a male allegedly calling the hospital, claiming to be a family member, and asking a woman who answered the phone if Talarico was a patient there. The woman stammers and stutters and cannot answer the question, then offers that she can’t find his record because he had been discharged the night before, apparently meaning Saturday, Oct. 10.
Sortor’s story, although picked up and spread all over social media, quickly ran into four problems.
First, the hospital issued a statement denying Talarico ever had been a patient there. On Sunday evening, the hospital stated plainly: “Representative James Talarico has never received treatment from Lindner Center of Hope.”
Still, the true believers on social media pounced on all manner of loopholes, from claiming the hospital is controlled by Democrats and therefore forced to lie to looking for devious meanings of words in the 12-word statement.
Second, the Talarico campaign unequivocally denied the story.
“This is a lie designed to promote a pathetic conspiracy theory,” spokesperson J.T. Ennis said in a social media post. “Last week James Talarico was home in Austin, Texas, recovering from the flu.”
Third, the dates don’t line up. According to Sortor’s account, Talarico was released from the Ohio hospital either on Friday night, Oct. 9, or Saturday night, Oct. 10. However, Talarico was seen publicly at a recording of Austin City Limits on Friday night and then made appearances in Austin Saturday morning before going to a Kacey Musgraves concert in Dallas Saturday evening.
Politician James Talarico attends the 2026 Austin City Limits Music Festival – Weekend Two at Zilker Park on October 9, 2026, in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Gary Miller/Getty Images)
Fourth, for any hospital employee to provide confidential information about a patient to a phone caller would be a violation of HIPPA regulations and would result in massive legal ramifications for the hospital.
“The recording making the rounds easily could have been created with AI using a totally different phone call,” noted Brad Bull, a licensed therapist and BNG columnist. “But if the recording is accurate, the current debacle shows why confidentiality is sacrosanct. My undergraduate counseling professor at a Baptist college said he would go to jail rather break a client’s legally protected confidentiality.
“HIPPA regulations promote our safety by helping people feel safe to get help,” he continued. “If that recording is accurate and no release document was signed, the person who released the information committed a gross violation. I’m no lawyer, but I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to secretly record someone and use it for non-personal records. If the person who made and released the recording isn’t guilty of a HIPPA violation they should be, because they have made the world a dangerous place by contributing to fear of confidentiality being broken.”
Others commenting online said similar things, including suggesting the hospital should file suit against Sortor and his accomplices for defamation.
From Bull’s perspective, though, there is a much larger problem with this whole episode, and that is the stigmatization of mental health. Multiple people who were spreading the story on social media added fake images of Talarico in a straitjacket or strapped to a hospital bed.
“We need to affirm healthy self-care,” Bull said, noting if the story is true, Talarico should be given space to attend to his health needs and if it’s not true, those spreading it should be ashamed of making up a story believing mental health issues will scare voters away.
“The reaction to the alleged hospital admission says much whether the admission happened or not. If his staff said Talerico had the flu when he was actually admitted in a mental health facility, given how many folks treated Simone Biles when she claimed space for her mental health, the temptation to withhold that information is understandable. The reality is that folks cope with stress many ways — some unhealthy ways through substance abuse, infidelity and the like.”
Making mental health a political issue harms those who genuinely need care, he added. “The 20-year-old contemplating suicide is harmed by those who stigmatize healthy choices of self-care. That’s the case whether the story about Talerico’s admission is true or not. We need to affirm healthy self-care.”
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Talarico pledges support for church-state separation
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