With the Texas Senate race heating up, MAGA influencers have found a new way to attack Democratic candidate James Talarico: spreading a false claim that he lied about having the flu and was secretly receiving treatment at an Ohio mental health facility.
And Elon Musk is helping spread it.
The bizarre allegation exploded across social media Sunday after far-right influencer Nick Sortor claimed he had evidence that Talarico had been admitted to the Lindner Center of Hope, a mental health facility in Ohio, and then discharged earlier this week.
“BREAKING EXCLUSIVE: Ohio mental hospital CONFIRMS James Talarico was discharged from the facility earlier this week,” Sortor wrote on X on Oct. 11. “The ‘flu’ thing was a BIG FAT LIE.”
Musk reposted the claim writing: “The Talarico campaign is hiding something big that voters ought to know about.”
There’s just one enormous problem with that story: The hospital says Talarico has never been a patient there.
“Representative James Talarico has never received treatment from Lindner Center of Hope,” the facility said in a statement Sunday evening.
Talarico’s campaign also flatly rejected the allegation, calling it a conspiracy theory designed to smear the Texas Democrat.
“This is a lie designed to promote a pathetic conspiracy theory,” campaign spokesperson J.T. Ennis said in a social media post. “Last week James Talarico was home in Austin, Texas, recovering from the flu.”
Despite the hospital’s denial, the claim has continued circulating online, with Musk helping amplify the allegations.
The ‘exclusive’ claim falls apart under scrutiny.
Sortor said he obtained a recording of a phone call with a hospital employee who supposedly confirmed that Talarico had been treated at the facility.
In the audio posted on X, a man claiming to be a family member asks a woman who answers the phone whether the Texas candidate was a patient. The woman appears hesitant and says she cannot find his record because he had been discharged the night before.
Sortor presented the exchange as confirmation of his claim. But the recording does not establish that Talarico was ever a patient, and the hospital has explicitly denied treating him.
But the timeline raises further questions.
According to Sortor’s account, Talarico was supposedly discharged from the Ohio facility on Friday, Oct. 9, or Saturday, Oct. 10. Yet Talarico was seen at a recording of Austin City Limits on Friday morning, appeared publicly in Austin on Saturday morning, and attended a Kacey Musgraves concert in Dallas that night.
The episode goes beyond the usual partisan mudslinging. Some people spreading the allegation have circulated fake images depicting Talarico in a straitjacket or strapped to a hospital bed, using mental health treatment as a punchline.
Critics fire back at the people pushing the claim
The backlash against Sortor was swift, with critics accusing him and others amplifying the allegation of spreading a politically motivated smear without credible evidence.
Christopher Hale took aim at the people behind the story, revealing that Sortor had a troubling criminal history and questioning his credibility.
Other commenters were less restrained.
“So a typical MAGA piece of shit,” user Jackson Hole wrote.
Another commenter, @andreagail_k, accused Republicans of making scandal-mongering a political strategy, writing that they had “no ideas or policies to help people” and instead treated politics like a “WWE-style tournament.”
“Sortor is scum,” wrote user Robin_Hood11.
User @EscaleraCat compared the episode to past claims about Hillary Clinton’s health, recalling how Rudy Giuliani repeatedly suggested Clinton was seriously ill before she was seen experiencing a medical episode at a 9/11 memorial event.
Talarico himself also weighed in, dismissing the allegation with a short response on social media.
“I’ve never even been to Ohio 😂,” he wrote.
The reactions reflect the anger the allegation has provoked online. But the central facts remain more important than the insults: the hospital has denied treating Talarico, his campaign says he was home recovering from the flu, and the recording circulated by Sortor has not established that the alleged hospitalization occurred.
That is an ugly way to attack a political opponent — particularly when the underlying allegation has been denied by the institution at the center of the story.
