We may now know where James Talarico really was when he disappeared for two weeks from the campaign trail.
His excuse was that he was suffering from the flu, but it appears he was suffering from a breakdown of sorts.
Talarico just vanished out of thin air after a September 28 fundraiser with TDS-infected actor Robert DeNiro and allies of NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani in New York. He was also raising money from the gay Human Rights Campaign in New York.
Talarico finally resurfaced on Friday, October 9, at the ACL music festival in Austin, Texas, the Gateway Pundit reported. His team tried to gaslight the country. “Hate to disappoint the conspiracy theorists, but James is still alive and meeting with voters at ACL today,” a Talarico spokesperson said as if it’s totally normal to disappear for two weeks in the heat of an election.
Trump called BS on his so-called flu last night while speaking at a rally in Clarksville, Tennessee.
Trump previously said that “bad rumors are coming out” as Talarico remained in hiding. Many speculated a mental health crisis or that he had fallen ill with a disease much worse than the flu.
It turns out he had a mental health crisis and was allegedly holed up at the Lindner Center of HOPE, an inpatient mental health treatment facility and psychiatric hospital in Mason, Ohio.
In a phone call placed by political strategist Rhein Amacher and independent journalist Nick Sortor to the Lindner Center, an employee allegedly confirms that Talarico had been "just discharged" from the facility on Saturday. He emerged in public the day before, on Friday, but his discharge was seemingly not processed or finalized immediately, Amacher claims. She did, however, appear to say that he was at the facility.
LISTEN:
Nick Sortor broke the news on X after he and Amacher called the facility.
BREAKING EXCLUSIVE: Ohio mental hospital CONFIRMS James Talarico was discharged from the facility earlier this week
The “flu” thing was a BIG FAT LIE
Following reporting by @SaraGonzalesTX and @CarolineWren, a hospital employee told @RheinAmacher and I that Talarico had in fact been a patient at the Lindner Center of Hope near Cincinnati, Ohio, which specializes in around-the-clock mental health treatment.
While I sympathize with those dealing with mental health crises, this man is CLEARLY not suited to become a US Senator representing over 30 MILLION TEXANS.
The job doesn’t get easier after being elected — it only gets MORE stressful.
And Talarico clearly can’t handle it.
I pray he gets the help he needs, but Texans need a real representative they can rely on.
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) October 11, 2026
Amacher also shared receipts from his phone logs, showing his phone calls to the facility.
: My independent investigation into @JamesTalarico follows the initial reporting by @SaraGonzales and @CarolineWren concerning a reported private aircraft charter traveling from Hamilton, Ohio, to Austin, TX ➡️ Dallas, TX ➡️ Austin, TX.
I personally… pic.twitter.com/33Sk4Kq2RV
— Rhein Amacher (@RheinAmacher) October 11, 2026
Due to HIPAA privacy laws, it is unclear whether the employee's disclosure of Talarico's name being in the Lindner Center system was legal.
As previously noted by GOP fundraiser Caroline Wren on Saturday, Talarico appeared to have taken a private plane from Hamilton, Ohio, back to Austin, Texas, on Friday morning, just before he emerged at the music festival. Wren also pointed out that this is the same facility where Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo stayed for nearly two months during an episode back in 2023.
And the facility hosts drag shows, which is an added bonus for Talarico. Maybe his favorite drag queen was there.
What are the chances that a private plane took off from Austin and flew to tiny Hamilton airport in Ohio which is 20 mins from the Lindner Center, a private inpatient mental health treatment facility, and then turned around and flew back to Austin landing yesterday morning at… pic.twitter.com/ICSqp9sIG6
— Caroline Wren (@CarolineWren) October 10, 2026
Former Los Angeles Mayoral Candidate Spencer Pratt also sounded the alarm on Friday, noting that while Talarico deserves "empathy," he also deserves people to "savagely mock his smug, awful campaign advisors" for lying to the people of Texas and trying to hide this.
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"Campaigns are brutal, and not everybody is cut out for it. You need very thick skin. As much as I don't want Talarico anywhere near government, I also don't want wish him harm, and no political office is worth having a breakdown. His awful advisors are at fault for this. They pushed him to be something he isn't, and it didn't work," Pratt wrote.
My sources are telling me Talarico is in a mental health facility. His campaign has stopped actively planning events in the vital homestretch of the campaign.
If this is true, this is actually a time to pray for Talarico. We should, of course, savagely mock his smug, awful campaign advisors, by all means...and while yes, of course, this would be disqualifying for Talarico's aspirations to be a Texas Senator, we must hold empathy for anyone undergoing crisis. Campaigns are brutal, and not everybody is cut out for it. You need very thick skin. As much as I don't want Talarico anywhere near government, I also don't want wish him harm, and no political office is worth having a breakdown. His awful advisors are at fault for this. They pushed him to be something he isn't, and it didn't work.
I'm praying that this isn't true, and he's OK. You want to win these fights on the battlefield of ideas, not the minefield of poor health.
— Spencer Pratt (@spencerpratt) October 9, 2026
We have contacted the Talarico campaign to ask for confirmation of this story and a statement. We will update this story when we hear back.
UPDATE:
Talarico campaign spokesman JT Ennis doubled down on the flu story, calling the story a "pathetic conspiracy theory."
"Last week James Talarico was home in Austin, Texas recovering from the flu," he said.
This is a lie designed to promote a pathetic conspiracy theory. Last week James Talarico was home in Austin, Texas recovering from the flu. https://t.co/CsAUEBASQK
— JT Ennis (@jt_ennis) October 11, 2026
This is a developing story.
UPDATE: Since our initial reporting on this topic, the New York Times has said the claims were "debunked" after reviewing time-stamped security camera images provided by Talarico's campaign. The Times claims these images show Talarico at his home in Austin, Texas, between October 1 and October 8, the day before Talarico surfaced at the ACL festival in Austin. However, The Times did not publish the images at the request of the Talarico campaign for security reasons.
The Lindner Center has also denied that Talarico ever "received treatment from Lindner Center of Hope," as reported by The Gateway Pundit.
Rhein Amacher, who broke the story, has acknowledged, "I have no independently verified evidence establishing that Talarico was ever a patient there." Still, he stands by his original reporting on the Lindner Center employee saying that Talarico was at the facility.
My final statement regarding the @JamesTalarico and @LindnerCtrHope situation:
I’ve made all the recordings publicly available on my account so everyone can listen and draw their own conclusions.
Frankly, this entire situation has been blown completely out of proportion.
Here are the facts: I contacted the medical facility after receiving a tip suggesting that Talarico might have been a patient there.
During that conversation, I pressed an employee for information, and the employee ultimately stated that Talarico had been discharged from the facility within the previous 24 hours.
Approximately 12 hours later, the Lindner Center issued an official statement contradicting what its employee had told me, denying that Talarico had ever been a patient at the facility.
That’s where the facts stand.
I reported what I was told, released the recordings in full, and acknowledged the facility’s subsequent denial.
I have no independently verified evidence establishing that Talarico was ever a patient there.
I’m not going to speculate beyond the information available or continue fueling a controversy based on an unverified claim.
As far as I’m concerned, this matter is closed.
It’s time to move on to more substantive issues facing voters.
From now until Election Day, my goal remains clear: to do everything within my ability, in whatever capacity possible, to help elect @KenPaxtonTX as the next United States Senator from the great state of Texas.
— Rhein Amacher (@RheinAmacher) October 15, 2026
