‘Truly Beyond Parody’: Critics Nuke Fox News Post Blaming Talarico For MAGA Conspiracies
AP Photo/LM Otero
Fox News Digital sparked an outcry on social media this week with a post arguing that James Talarico’s Texas U.S. Senate campaign is to blame for recent conspiracy theories regarding his campaign trail absence while having the flu, claiming they “let the narrative spiral unchecked.”
Earlier in the week, MAGA influencers like Spencer Pratt spread a wild, now fully debunked conspiracy theory that the Texas Democrat had checked into a mental health facility. “The Talarico campaign is hiding something big that voters ought to know about,” Elon Musk wrote on Sunday in response to a post claiming that Talarico had checked into a mental health facility outside of Cincinnati. Musk amplifying the rumor ensured it spread like wildfire across MAGA world.
The three-paragraph post from the Fox News Politics account linked to a Tuesday article titled, “New evidence debunks Talarico psych hospital rumor after ‘mind-numbing malpractice’ fuels firestorm.”
“Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico’s viral hospital rumor has been debunked by time-stamped security footage reviewed by The New York Times — but the bigger story may be why his campaign sat on the evidence while the conspiracy theory exploded across social media for days,” began the post, adding:
Talarico disappeared from the campaign trail for nine days in early October, fueling rampant speculation that he had secretly traveled to an Ohio behavioral health center. His campaign maintained he was home with the flu, and security camera images from his Austin home now back that up. But GOP strategists and journalists are torching the campaign’s response as “mind-numbing malpractice” for not releasing the footage sooner.
With Election Day just weeks away in one of the biggest Senate races in the country, the question has shifted from where Talarico was to why his team let the narrative spiral unchecked when they had the receipts the entire time.
Without question, Talarico’s absence from the trail did raise questions. Still, the Fox article’s framing was called out by numerous prominent critics.
The Dispatch’s Stephen Hayes shared the post and replied, “‘The bigger story may be…’ This is truly beyond parody.”
Tangle News’s Isaac Saul reacted, “Woof. The bigger story is not ‘why his campaign sat on the evidence.’ The answer is obvious: They thought it was really stupid until it gained enough purchase to respond to. The bigger story is that Nick Sortor, Elon, and GOP operatives collaborated to spread a stupid lie.”
Below are some more reactions:
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