Talarico conspiracy theory is the latest to blow up in MAGA’s face

Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP

Two weeks ago, GOP Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri saw his conspiracy theory about former special counsel Jack Smith implode spectacularly at a congressional hearing for all to see.

Rather than seemingly learning a lesson from that episode, the MAGA movement in recent days embraced another sketchy theory that quickly fell apart — that Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico was missing from the campaign trail because of a mental health episode.

There have been plenty of such episodes this year. And it’s hardly just random social media accounts.

The Talarico example is especially astounding for its reach. The idea that Talarico’s lengthy absence from the campaign trail was not due to the flu (as his campaign said), but rather a mental health episode quickly spread far and wide.

Over just a few days, it went from an admitted rumor ; to some like former Los Angeles GOP mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt claiming they had actual sources ; to winks and nods from Talarico’s GOP opponent Ken Paxton and President Donald Trump ; to right-wing sites covering the still - baseless claims ; to some attempted independent journalism that has been repeatedly promoted by Elon Musk .

By Sunday afternoon, a pair of right-wing influencers shared audio of what they said was a call with a mental health center in Ohio seemingly confirming that Talarico had just been released from its facility.

“Looks like he was just discharged this evening,” a voice is heard saying. “That’s why I don’t have it.”

The story then exploded on the right. But it just as quickly fell apart:

The Bulwark and others obtained the full phone call showing the apparent employee had previously and repeatedly flatly denied any record of Talarico being at the facility. She only said the above quote after being unable to locate any records for a person who told her Talarico was her cousin and had been staying there.

The timeline didn’t even match up. The influencer said the call was placed on Saturday evening, so that would mean Talarico would have been discharged Saturday evening. But Talarico had already appeared publicly in Texas the night before and did so again on Saturday night.

The mental health center, called the Lindner Center of Hope, has now denied Talarico was ever there: “Representative James Talarico has never received treatment from Lindner Center of Hope.”

Talarico says he has never even been to Ohio.

Some on the right are now deleting their posts about the false claim . Others like former Trump adviser Caroline Wren are walking back the significance of the claim.

One of the two right-wing influencers who shared the audio, Nick Sortor, appeared at the White House last year during a roundtable on antifa.

For what it’s worth, as CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski has noted , Talarico did a virtual event on September 30 where he said he had the flu and looked physically unwell. He was then off the campaign trail for nine days — not the two weeks that many on the right have claimed — before reemerging publicly on October 9. Talarico also has type 1 diabetes, which can make flu symptoms worse .

But for the MAGA movement, this is merely the latest conspiratorial episode.

Two weeks ago, it was Schmitt presenting what he seemed to view as smoking-gun evidence that Smith had been at an Atlanta Hawks game in February 2024 and — the theory seemed to go — might have been coordinating with local prosecutors who had indicted Trump in Fulton County, Georgia.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Except it turned out Smith was actually at a basketball game in Maryland that night. And even if he was in Atlanta, it would have proven basically nothing .

Back in July, MAGA figures led the charge in embracing rumors and even flat-out claiming that GOP Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky — an unpopular figure among Trump supporters since he declared the president lost the 2020 election — was brain dead, amid his much-longer absence from public view. GOP Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin even cited a claim that a photo of McConnell was AI-generated , before later backing off. A GOP House member even said he didn’t know whether McConnell was alive .

McConnell later returned to the Senate.

Over the summer, many on the right embraced Trump’s baseless conspiracy theory that vandals had sabotaged the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. A conservative reporter posted supposed video proof . Trump’s Justice Department even indicted a former Olympian. But the Justice Department later acknowledged that the damage “ was the result of a botched installation and not vandalism .”

Aaron Schwartz/Reuters

In June, Republicans far and wide — including elected officials — suddenly promoted theories suggesting voter fraud was to blame for Pratt failing to make the runoff in the Los Angeles mayor’s race.

Except the theory rested on a complete misreading of the data and was debunked even by Trump’s DOJ and a top local GOP official. Pratt’s showing was also very much in line with how Republicans usually perform there. And, strategically, it would have made no sense for incumbent Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass to rig the system to promote a fellow Democrat, who would have a better chance at beating her in the runoff than Pratt.

And in February, many on the right shared supposedly damning evidence from right-wing influencer Nick Shirley citing 30 allegedly illegal voter registrations at a UPS Store in San Diego. Those promoting the story included Donald Trump Jr. , who accused the media of ignoring it.

But fact-checkers noted that the UPS Store was actually on the ground floor of a mixed-use building with residential units above it. California elections officials said none of the registrations used the UPS Store’s suite number.

Of course, it’s entirely possible that the people promoting these theories don’t necessarily believe them — and that they just see value in promoting them, regardless of how true they are. Some MAGA influencers, after all, continued to promote Schmitt’s theory even after it fell apart .

It would seem especially expedient to promote such rumors about Talarico, given he has continued to lead Paxton in some Texas Senate polls and could give Democrats a crucial win in their quest for a Senate majority.

Or, as one participant on an X Spaces event about the Talarico story put it on Sunday: “Whether it’s true or not, people deserve to know the potential of this.”

Regardless of whether these people have a gullibility problem, the MAGA echo chamber now has a well-established credibility problem.

朱莉娅·德马雷·尼金森/美联社

两周前，密苏里州共和党参议员埃里克·施密特关于前特别检察官杰克·史密斯的阴谋论在国会听证会上彻底破灭，所有人都亲眼目睹了这一惨败。

近来，MAGA运动似乎并没有从那次事件中吸取教训，反而接受了另一个很快就站不住脚的可疑理论——德克萨斯州民主党参议员候选人詹姆斯·塔拉里科因精神健康问题而缺席竞选活动。

今年这类事件层出不穷。而且，涉事账号绝不仅仅是随机的社交媒体账号。

塔拉里科的例子尤其令人震惊，因为它影响范围极广。塔拉里科长期缺席竞选活动并非如其竞选团队所言是由于流感，而是精神健康问题，这种说法迅速传播开来。

短短几天内，这件事就从最初的传闻，发展到像前洛杉矶共和党市长候选人斯宾塞·普拉特这样的人声称他们有实际消息来源，再到塔拉里科的共和党对手肯·帕克斯顿和唐纳德·特朗普总统的默许，以及右翼网站对这些仍然毫无根据的说法进行报道，甚至出现了一些由埃隆·马斯克反复推广的独立新闻报道。

到了周日下午，两名右翼网红分享了一段录音，他们称这段录音是与俄亥俄州一家精神健康中心的通话，似乎证实了塔拉里科刚刚从该中心获释。

“看来他今晚刚出院，”一个声音说道，“所以我才没有他的信息。”

随后，右翼人士对此事反应激烈。但这种反应也很快瓦解：

《堡垒报》和其他媒体获得了完整的通话录音，录音显示，这位疑似员工此前曾多次断然否认塔拉里科曾到访过该机构。她之所以说出上述话，是因为找不到任何记录显示塔拉里科是她的表亲，并且一直住在那里。

时间线根本对不上。这位网红说电话是周六晚上打的，那意味着塔拉里科应该在周六晚上出院。但塔拉里科前一天晚上已经在德克萨斯州公开露面，周六晚上又再次露面。

这家名为“林德纳希望中心”的心理健康中心现在否认塔拉里科曾到访过那里：“众议员詹姆斯·塔拉里科从未在林德纳希望中心接受过治疗。”

塔拉里科说他甚至从未去过俄亥俄州。

一些右翼人士正在删除他们关于这一虚假声明的帖子。另一些人，例如前特朗普顾问卡罗琳·雷恩，则在淡化这一声明的重要性。

分享这段音频的两名右翼影响者之一尼克·索托尔去年曾出席白宫举办的反法西斯主义圆桌会议。

正如CNN记者安德鲁·卡钦斯基（Andrew Kaczynski）指出的那样，塔拉里科（Talarico）在9月30日参加了一场线上活动，他在会上表示自己得了流感，看起来身体不适。之后他暂停了竞选活动九天——并非许多右翼人士声称的两周——直到10月9日才重新公开露面。塔拉里科还患有1型糖尿病，这会加重流感症状。

但对于“让美国再次伟大”（MAGA）运动来说，这只不过是又一起阴谋论事件而已。

两周前，施密特提出了他似乎认为确凿的证据，证明史密斯在 2024 年 2 月曾出现在亚特兰大老鹰队的比赛现场，而且——根据他的理论——他可能与在佐治亚州富尔顿县起诉特朗普的地方检察官进行了协调。

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

但事实证明，史密斯当晚其实在马里兰州观看一场篮球比赛。即便他当时在亚特兰大，也基本说明不了什么。

早在7月份，“让美国再次伟大”（MAGA）运动的支持者们就带头散布谣言，甚至直接声称共和党参议员、肯塔基州的米奇·麦康奈尔——自从他宣布特朗普在2020年大选中落败后，就一直不受特朗普支持者欢迎——已经脑死亡，尽管他已经很久没有公开露面了。共和党参议员、威斯康星州的罗恩·约翰逊甚至引用了一张麦康奈尔的照片是人工智能生成的这一说法，但后来又收回了这一说法。一位共和党众议员甚至表示，他不知道麦康奈尔是否还活着。

麦康奈尔后来重返参议院。

今年夏天，许多右翼人士接受了特朗普毫无根据的阴谋论，声称林肯纪念堂倒影池遭到破坏。一位保守派记者甚至发布了所谓的视频证据。特朗普的司法部甚至起诉了一位前奥运选手。但司法部后来承认，损坏“是安装失误造成的，而非人为破坏”。

Aaron Schwartz/路透社

6 月，包括民选官员在内的共和党人突然开始散布各种理论，暗示选民舞弊是导致普拉特在洛杉矶市长竞选中未能进入决选的原因。

然而，这一理论完全基于对数据的误读，甚至连特朗普的司法部和一位当地共和党高层官员都已驳斥了它。普拉特的表现也与共和党在该地区通常的表现非常吻合。而且，从策略上讲，现任洛杉矶市长凯伦·巴斯操纵选举制度来扶持一位更有可能在决选中击败她的民主党同僚，是完全不合理的。

今年二月，许多右翼人士分享了据称来自右翼意见领袖尼克·雪莉的“铁证”，称圣地亚哥一家UPS商店存在30起涉嫌非法选民登记。小唐纳德·特朗普也参与了此事的宣传，并指责媒体对此视而不见。

但事实核查人员指出，这家UPS商店实际上位于一栋多功能建筑的一楼，楼上是住宅单元。加州选举官员表示，所有选民登记均未使用UPS商店的门牌号。

当然，推广这些理论的人未必真的相信它们，他们可能只是觉得推广这些理论有利可图，而不管这些理论是否正确。毕竟，一些“让美国再次伟大”（MAGA）运动的意见领袖，即便施密特的理论早已被推翻，仍然继续推广它。

鉴于塔拉里科在一些德克萨斯州参议院民调中继续领先于帕克斯顿，并且可能为民主党争取参议院多数席位带来关键性胜利，因此，散布有关塔拉里科的此类谣言似乎特别有利。

或者，正如一位参加 X Spaces 活动并谈及 Talarico 事件的参与者周日所说：“无论真假，人们都应该了解这件事的潜力。”

无论这些人是否容易轻信他人，MAGA 回音室如今都已存在严重的信誉问题。