Republican strategist Caroline Wren says Texas Senate Democrat James Talarico needs to explain where he was and why before voters decide whether to send him to Washington.
Talarico, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Texas, resurfaced Friday at the Austin City Limits music festival after a stretch out of public view. His campaign says he was down with the flu. But the timeline doesn’t sit well with Wren, who laid out the gaps on Breitbart News Saturday in an interview with Washington bureau chief Matthew Boyle.
“If you can’t handle the campaign trail, you sure as hell can’t handle the U.S. Senate. And that is the important point here,” Wren said.
The public record shows nine days between Talarico’s September 30 virtual appearance with the U.S. Hispanic Business Council and his return to the trail Friday, according to the Texas Tribune. Wren pointed to an even longer gap in his in-person Texas campaigning, dating his last stop to a September 26 football game.
For a candidate in the final stretch of a major Senate race, Wren says that kind of absence doesn’t track with how campaigns actually run.
“I’ve worked on a lot of campaigns, presidential campaigns, Senate campaigns. And the last two months, six weeks of a major national race like this, you are doing multiple campaign stops a day, like sick or not sick, rain, sleet, hurricane, anything. That’s just the reality.”
Then there’s the fundraiser question. Wren says Talarico had fundraisers scheduled in New York on September 28 and 29 — including one in downtown Manhattan at 5:30 p.m. on the 29th. His campaign has said he visited urgent care in Dallas that same night.
“I thought that was weird because I knew he had a fundraiser in New York on the 29th at 5:30 p.m. This is where I first started looking at this. I’m confused how you could be at a 5:30 New York City, downtown New York City fundraiser, but also be at a Dallas emergency care facility.”
Talarico spokesman JT Ennis told the New York Post the candidate got sick after a grueling stretch — more than 100 public events and tens of thousands of handshakes — and would be back campaigning over the weekend. After Talarico showed up at ACL Friday, Ennis posted on social media: “Hate to disappoint the conspiracy theorists, but James is still alive and meeting with voters at ACL today.”
Wren isn’t satisfied that one festival appearance closes the book. She says voters are owed a straight answer, whatever the cause of the absence turns out to be.
“If you’re hiding a health issue, whether or not it’s a medical issue or a mental health issue, then it’s something that the voters of Texas deserve to know about before they make the decision on sending a U.S. senator to represent the state of Texas in Washington, D.C.”
Wren also used the moment to needle reporters covering the race, arguing they let Talarico’s return pass without pressing him on the timeline discrepancies she raised.
Breitbart News Saturday, where Wren made her remarks, airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Eastern.
