At about 9 a.m. Sunday, a Republican operative began sending me urgent messages and making frantic calls. He claimed to possess evidence that James Talarico, the Democratic Senate candidate whose campaign could help turn Texas blue for the first time in decades, had entered a psychiatric facility.
The alleged evidence was a six-minute recording of a call to the Lindner Center of Hope, a hospital in Mason, Ohio, located more than 1,000 miles from Talarico’s hometown of Austin.
An edited version of the call was later posted on social media, where it spread rapidly before the claim was debunked.
During the recording, a staff member repeatedly says she cannot locate a patient under Talarico’s name. At first, she says the facility has no record of him being there during the previous four days. Later, she appears to contradict herself, saying he had been “discharged this evening… that’s why I don’t have it.”
The health center has since said Talarico “never received treatment” there. Talarico, meanwhile, dismissed the recording and said he has never even visited Ohio.
Like reporters across Texas and around the country, I had been examining the mystery surrounding Talarico’s 10-day absence during a historic election and one of the most closely watched campaigns in America.
His time away included the cancellation of public appearances and private fundraisers—an unusual decision in a contest carrying such high stakes.
Talarico, 37, resurfaced Friday at an Austin music festival. Since September 30, his campaign had maintained that the diabetic candidate was dealing with a severe bout of flu. At the same time, baseless rumors were circulating among Republicans that the pressure of the campaign had affected his mental health and that he had traveled to Ohio for treatment.
When the recording was brought to me Sunday, I was told the Daily Mail needed to publish it “immediately.”
We declined to do so.
During his last public appearance on September 30, Talarico addressed Hispanic voters on Zoom, explaining that the flu had prevented him from attending in person
Democrat James Talarico pushed back against false claims that he had been admitted to an Ohio mental health facility
The recording raised significant questions—not only about its authenticity, but also about how it had been obtained and whether Talarico’s medical privacy had been breached.
After that refusal, the caller—Rhein Amacher, whose real name is Ryan and who describes himself as a former Trump staffer—passed the recording to paid Republican influencer Nick Sortor.
Sortor posted an edited clip of the call to X on Sunday afternoon. It accumulated millions of views within hours and drew the attention of Elon Musk, who amplified it with the comment: “!!”
Within hours, the Ohio health center rejected the story, saying the young politician had “never received treatment from Lindner Center of Hope.”
In the complete recording provided to the Daily Mail, Amacher claims to be a man named “Tim” who wants to send a care package to his cousin, Talarico.
It was his second call to the facility. During the first, staff told him they could not release information without a code supplied by the patient.
On the second call, Amacher offered a fabricated code, which the staff member struggled to connect to any patient record.
“He must have checked out then,” Amacher suggested.
‘I do not see that name here, so maybe he’s been discharged,’ says the staff member, who appears to be an elderly woman.
Amacher presses her on when he left. After a long pause, she comes back on the line: ‘I do not find anyone by that name for the last four days, that’s been discharged, and they’re not here in the building.’
Talarico was seen at the music festival in Austin, Texas on Friday after a prolonged absence
Talarico canceled an October 5 event with black voters in Austin
Only when Amacher keeps pushing does she contradict herself: ‘What is today… looks like he was just discharged this evening. That’s why I don’t have it.’
That line was the one featured in the shortened clip that went viral. But the timeline does not add up.
Amacher admits he made the call on Saturday night, when Talarico and his girlfriend were in the front row at a Kacey Musgraves concert in Austin.
When I asked Amacher to explain the discrepancy on Monday morning, he said: ‘You can basically discharge without paperwork, and you know, the paperwork usually follows.
‘It’s not all at once, but she confirmed that he was there. The dates might not line up perfectly.’
Amacher, a Republican who wants Ken Paxton to win the election, says he came up with the idea of calling the Ohio facility after it was circulated online as the place Talarico had spent his time off.
‘[Talarico] … doesn’t get called out enough,’ he told the Daily Mail.
While Republicans claimed Texas Senate candidate James Talarico was being discharged from a mental health hospital in Ohio, he was actually at a Kacey Musgraves concert in the Lone Star State Saturday night
Talarico, 37, finally resurfaced at Austin City Limits Music Festival after a 13-day absence from the campaign trail
US President Donald Trump shakes hands with Republican candidate for US Senate Ken Paxton (R) during a campaign rally at the Freeman Coliseum in San Antonio, Texas, on October 7, 2026
Ryan Amacher, 36, admitted to making the phone call at the center of a conspiracy theory about James Talarico. Amacher told Daily Mail this photo of him used as Twitter profile pic is AI generated
‘I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty. I want the public to know what he’s been doing.’
He denies being paid by Paxton, Talarico’s opponent in the Senate race.
Paxton’s team helped fuel the speculation last week by tipping off reporters about potential mental health issues. His campaign alleged, without proof, that Talarico, was not recovering from flu but had suffered a mental breakdown and checked into a mental health facility.
Legal experts said Talarico likely has grounds to sue Amacher for trying to obtain his private health information, which is protected under federal law.
Asked whether he was afraid of being sued, Amacher said he had yet to hear anything directly from Talarico or his campaign.
‘I didn’t do anything wrong. All I said was I want to send him a care package. They can confirm or deny that was a patient there. I just asked to send a care package. I could say I was Santa Claus for all I care.’
Friends have advised him to keep a low profile, he said, but he will appear on a cable TV network tonight to defend his work.
It comes as polls suggest Talarico, a former schoolteacher, could pull off a stunning Midterms upset in a state Donald Trump won by nearly 14 points in 2024.
A victory for Talarico on November 3 would make him the first Democrat elected to the US Senate from Texas since 1988.