Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico addressed questions this week about why he disappeared from public view for more than a week, telling NBC DFW reporter Phil Prazan that he was simply sick with the flu and denying a widely circulated claim that he had been receiving mental health treatment in Ohio.
Talarico had not made a public appearance since a Zoom call on September 30 until he showed up at the Austin City Limits Festival on Friday, October 9. During that gap, his campaign pushed back on a report that he had checked into the Lindner Center for Hope, a mental health facility in Ohio, insisting instead that he was home in Austin recovering from the flu.
The Lindner Center itself addressed the matter directly in a statement posted to X: “Representative James Talarico has never received treatment from Lindner Center of Hope.”
Shifting Accounts of Medical Care
In the interview with Prazan, Talarico said he did not seek hospital care and saw only his primary care physician, describing the illness as nothing worse than a bad case of the flu. Asked directly whether he went to a doctor or hospital, Talarico said no.
That account differs from what he said on September 30, when he told people he had gone to an urgent care facility in Dallas to explain his absence from an event that day. Talarico lives in Austin, raising questions about the discrepancy between an urgent care visit in Dallas and a later reference to seeing his primary care physician.
Prazan also asked Talarico about a claim that he had been treated for a “stress-induced episode.” Talarico rejected the characterization outright. “That’s not true. I just had the flu,” he said, adding, “it’s a good reminder you can’t believe everything you read on the internet.”
Talarico Turns to Paxton
Talarico used part of the exchange to go after his Republican opponent, Attorney General Ken Paxton, accusing him of avoiding scrutiny. “I hear he has a rare medical condition that causes clinical levels of cowardice,” Talarico said, adding that while Paxton had demanded “proof of life” from him, he was now asking Paxton for “proof of spine.”
Paxton, for his part, was not missing from public view during the period in question. Talarico has also faced criticism over missing more than 800 votes during his time in the Texas legislature, separate from the week-long absence that prompted this week’s questions.
