Paxton Backers Take Bait on Fake Ohio Call
as Dem in Dallas at AAC Trump Failed to Fill
Paxton Tipline for James Talarico Sightings
Capitol Inside
October 11, 2026
Republican Ken Paxton's hotline for James Talarico sightings could be flooded with calls after the Democrat appeared at three separate events during the weekend including a sold-out Kacey Musgraves concert in Dallas on Saturday night at the American Airlines Center.
Paxton's camp has spread stories for which it has no actual evidence on the Democratic U.S. Senate contender being in a mental hospital in Ohio before answered the state attorney general's demand for proof of life with an appearance at the ACL music festival in Austin before getting the red carpet treatment from Mus graves at the AAC.
Paxton and the Republicans thought they'd found the holy grail on Sunday when an activist posted an ostensible telephone call to the Lindner Center where a female voice that answers is glad to confirm that Talarico was a patient there and discharged on the same evening as the call. The psychiatry facility in the city of Mason in the Buckeye State.
Officials at the Ohio medical center adamantly denied on Sunday that anyone on its staff gave out information to a random caller in what would be a serious violation of federal privacy laws. After several days to search for evidence to confirm the conspiracy on which Paxton is pinning his credibility, the AG's team appears to have found nothing to support the wild tale beyond rumors and baseless innuendo.
The Paxton follower's audio will be widely regarded as a hoax until he can prove otherwise. The call was placed on Friday or Saturday when the person who answers the phone and dishes out confidential information says Talarico was discharged from the facility that night.
But some people who want badly for Paxton to win are buying the bait with posts that assume the stories on Talarico's mental health are true even though no one has proved them. Rookie Republican State Rep. Shelley Luther - a Talarico colleague from North Texas - appeared as though she took the bait hook, line and sinker without regard for whether the story had been fabricated and subsequently discredited as a fraud.
"I just prayed for @jamestalarico. I'm serious," Luther said. "Politics are important, but not more important than someone's soul. I pray he turns to God to get out of this mental disaster, and he dedicates his life to spreading the word of God's love. Politics is hard, but God is bigger than all of this."
Luther offered no proof of the alleged Talarico mental problems that have inspired her to seek help from the heavens for the Democratic political opponent who she wants badly for Paxton to beat as badly as possible at the polls in three weeks.
Paxton and his allies also have accused outgoing Senator John Cornyn from being mean to the Republican Senate hopeful by taking pot shots on social media and doing nothing to help the AG. Paxton gave Cornyn the boot from the job he's held for almost two dozen years in a primary runoff election a week after an endorsement from President Donald Trump.
A top Cornyn advisor called out Paxton's senior advisor Michelle Smith pushing the Talarico conspiracy without the slightest regard for the truth.
"Michelle Smith is a disgrace to our state and the fact she works in a senior capacity for a statewide official is not just absurd, it is an abject embarrassment," Mack Mackowiak wrote today on X. "She is unhinged, unwell, crude, and has no integrity whatsoever. This is a widely known thing at the highest levels of politics here.
She’s been swearing at elected officials for years in public forums like X.
If @KenPaxtonTX has a shred of integrity he wishes to display for the electorate, he will fire her today for this outrageous incident."
Paxton has been undaunted and unbowed by the fact that Trump has been dragging down his campaign for the Senate by his own account - with the most apparent damage at Trump's midterm convention in Dallas a month ago. The president showered Paxton with praise and insults at the gathering at the AAC - and the Senate nominee admitted in a private meeting with Washington lobbyists that Trump had hurt his bid.
The arena that's home to the Dallas Mavericks had seas of empty seats in the upper deck at Trump's convention. That wasn't the case on Saturday night when Musgraves, who's from the East Texas city of Mineola, filled the AAC to maximum capacity two nights in a row this weekend. The Grammy-winning artist found Talarico in the audience and posed for pictures with him backstage.
Talarico continued to mock the Republicans' conspiracy theories and Paxton in particular on Sunday for refusing to debate him almost three months after the Democrat challenged him to do so.
"I’ve heard credible reports that Ken Paxton has a medical condition that causes clinical levels of cowardice," Talarico said in an interview. "It’s why I haven’t heard from him after 85 days when I first challenged him to a debate publicly. I think people are concerned."
more to come ...
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