Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico discussed his recent absence from the campaign trail for the first time in exclusive interviews on Sunday.
The Texas state representative was spotted in public on Friday at the Austin City Limits Music Festival after not campaigning for almost two weeks. He attended the Kacey Musgrove concert in Dallas on Saturday night before addressing speculation about his lengthy disappearance in interviews released on Sunday afternoon.
“I was at home sick in bed with the flu,” he told the Dallas Morning News in an exclusive interview with its editorial board, in which he says he’s “running as a moderate” and discusses his views on religion, healthcare, and education. Talarico, who suffers from Type 1 diabetes, added that he took a break from campaigning to ensure the sickness wasn’t prolonged.
“I had the flu. This is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard,” he said separately in an interview with MS Now, referencing widespread speculation that this explanation for his absence wasn’t sound. “It’s wild that someone can just post something on the internet and people just run with it.”
Talarico’s Republican opponent, Texas State Attorney General Ken Paxton, spent much of the latter half of last week arguing that Talarico’s disappearance renders him unfit for office. He started a “Where is James Talarico?” chant at a campaign rally on Wednesday and said on Saturday, “He owes Texans answers.”
“James Talarico will not face up to his actual record and tell the people the truth, so I don’t know whether to believe him about the flu or not,” he said on Sunday night in an interview with Fox News. “I just know that everything that he says, almost everything that he says, has been false since the beginning of this campaign.”
President Donald Trump also slammed Talarico last week for not interacting with voters this close to the midterm elections. He referenced the controversy at a rally in Tennessee on Saturday night, saying “he has the longest flu ever recorded.” Talarico holds a slight lead over Paxton, according to public polling, despite Texas’s history as a Republican stronghold.
Paxton also said his campaign has been “working with him on that for months” when asked about the possibility of debating Talarico. The Democratic candidate referenced the pair’s inability to find a time to debate in a Saturday night social media post largely responding to the online discussion.
TALARICO SPOTTED IN PUBLIC AFTER 13-DAY ABSENCE FROM CAMPAIGN TRAIL
“And of course we can never quite work out the details because he always wants something we can’t do,” Paxton continued. “So the reality is the big story is the fact that he was missing from the campaign trail, and I know he’d love to change the topic to debates, but the big story is two weeks is a very long time to be away with the flu, and it’s just a very strange time to disappear.” Early voting in Texas begins next Monday, while the midterm elections will be held on Nov. 3.
Talarico’s last public event was a Sept. 26 press conference, followed by a private fundraiser in New York City on the 28th, according to CNN. He told the United States Hispanic Business Council on the 30th that he had been diagnosed with the flu and had visited an urgent care facility in Dallas. He also told NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth on Sunday his symptoms were “nothing worse than a nasty case of the flu.”
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
