When James Talarico, the Democratic Senate nominee for Texas in November’s midterms, disappeared briefly from the campaign trail last week, right wing ‘journalists’ in the state reacted by inventing lurid lies about him being treated in a mental health hospital.
Benny Johnson and Nick Sortor, two hard right influencers with large online reaches (the former has a YouTube channel with more than six million subscribers, the latter an X account with more than 1.6 million followers) promoted a theory that Talarico had been at a mental health facility in Ohio – despite him having apparently never visited the state.
Sortor even shared an audio recording of a telephone call to the Lindner Center of Hope in Mason, Ohio, in which an unnamed woman appears to say “It looks like he was just discharged this evening” despite the fact that absolutely no employee of such an institution would ever give that information to a random influencer.
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In fact, Talarico was at home recovering from a nasty bout of the flu, of which there are a number of outbreaks across Texas.
Now the pair’s lie is falling apart. According to their account, the supposed hospital discharge occurred on October 10 – but Talarico had already returned to public campaigning in Austin, Texas, on October 9, greeting voters, shaking hands and taking photos at the Austin City Limits music festival.
And awkwardly, US federal law can impose penalties for knowingly obtaining protected health information under false pretences, leading to a potential case in which one of the influencers could be prosecuted for seeking to find out Talarico’s situation by phoning a facility.
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Meanwhile, the lies get global attention after being amplified – inevitably – by Elon Musk on X, who reposted one of Sortor’s posts with two exclamation points and separately accused Talarico’s campaign of dishonesty.
Talarico has now returned full-time to campaigning and has continued challenging Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton to a debate, which the latter has repeatedly dodged. “I’ve heard credible reports that Ken Paxton has a serious medical condition that causes clinical levels of cowardice,” he has joked. “He asked for proof of life from me. I’m asking for proof of spine from him.”
Neither of the men, or any of the many, many others who promoted the lie, has apologised, and indeed have doubled down, Sortor, who hilariously refers to Talarico as “Talafreako” posting just today: “More recordings from the Lindner Hope Center are about to drop in the morning.” Isn’t the modern-day social media ecosystem wonderful?
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