Right-wing media personalities have begun walking back the debunked claim that U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico disappeared from the campaign trail because he was being treated in an Ohio mental hospital.
“I apologize for sharing the false report about James Talarico receiving mental health treatment,” GOP influencer Carmine Sabia said in a Tuesday post on X. “I relied on the reporting available then, but I got it wrong and retract it.”
The so-called “reporting available then” was audio of a phone call featuring a person claiming to work at an Ohio mental health facility.
However, that same facility posted a statement on X Sunday saying that Talarico had never been treated there.
“The claim that James Talarico received treatment at an Ohio mental health facility was false,” Sabia continued in a personalized graphic that accompanied his tweet. “The Lindner Center of Hope says he has never received treatment there. His documented public appearances in Texas also contradict this timeline.”
In the recording, which was posted Saturday, the purported employee said she couldn’t find Talarico in the system and said it was possible he could have been released that evening.
However, Talarico had already been spotted back on the campaign trail that weekend — first at Austin City Limits, then at a Kacey Musgraves concert in Dallas.
Furthermore, security footage released by the New York Times shows James Talarico in his home Oct. 1-9, the period online detractors alleged he was seeking mental health treatment.
“I support Ken Paxton, but the truth matters more than winning on a lie,” Sabia added in his tweet.
Texas conservative blog Current Revolt also walked back its prior reporting on the unfounded claim.
“Timelines didn’t add up, and the fact that a story this potentially huge was released via an influencer raised red flags for me,” Current Revolt founder and blogger Tony Ortiz wrote of its earlier report.
In a Monday retraction, Ortiz blamed the two conservative influencers who originally released the audio, Nick Sortor and Rhein Amacher, who had warned Talarico that they would release “something juicy” by 1 p.m. Saturday if he didn’t explain his whereabouts.
Talarico actually had — by stating that he was dealing with a nasty bout of the flu, compounded by type 1 Diabetes. But that explanation didn’t appear to be sufficient for Sortor, Amacher, Ortiz or the 100,000 others who retweeted the alleged bombshell audio.
“I was later able to obtain the full 6:40 audio that Sortor and Amacher didn’t release. I also heard from several sources that Amacher had shopped the story around to large media outlets who passed on it over legal review (or lack thereof) reasons,” wrote Ortiz in his retraction.
The mental breakdown rumor was originally circulated by an X account called Tickle Texts, which Rhein Amacher credited for prompting him to look into the possibility. However, Sortor has since distanced himself from Tickle Texts, stating, “I have zero association with this lady’s claims.”
On an X Space hosted on Saturday by Tom Slocum, Amacher stated that “influencers have lower standards than journalists” — to which Ortiz wrote “TRUE” in his retraction — as an explanation why journalists at conservative outlets the Daily Mail and TheBlaze wouldn’t touch the story that Amacher and Sortor eventually published themselves.
In a blog post calling the episode a “disaster story,” Ortiz also noted that another X user pointed out that there are multiple Ohio residents named James Talarico, “revealing the possibility the hospital could have had a James Talarico but not the Representative James Talarico.”
While the X Space was being hosted, the Lindner Center tweeted a statement that Talarico had never been treated at the facility. Talarico, in turn, responded by stating that he’d never even been to Ohio.
But among the participants, the truth didn’t seem to matter that much.
“Ryan, thank you for breaking this story,” equity manager Grant Cardone said on the call. “Whether it’s true or not, people deserve to know the potential of this.”
Ortiz reports that Tickle Texts later locked her account after her purported true identity — and an alleged Houston felony conviction — came to light.
Instead of apologizing, Sortor has doubled down on the conspiracy theory that Talarico didn’t have the flu, amplifying rhetoric by President Donald Trump at recent campaign rallies. The influencer also stood by his choice to publish the audio, accusing the Lindner Center of lying.
“THE CALL WAS REAL, and they’re doing DAMAGE CONTROL now,” Sortor insisted in a Monday tweet. “The legacy media should be asking the HOPE CENTER why they said ‘James Talarico’ was ‘discharged,’ rather than being focused on attacking ME for publishing the fact the center SAID Talarico was discharged.”
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