Where Is James Talarico? What His Disappearing Act Means for Pivotal Texas Senate Race

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Tim Rice (0:48)

Hey, everyone. I'm Tim Rice. Welcome back to another edition of Behind the Story. Today, I'm joined by my colleague, Daily Wire reporter, Jacob Wheeler. Jacob, thanks so much for coming on.

Jacob Wheeler (0:58)

Thanks for having me, Tim.

Tim Rice (1:00)

So, Jacob, usually on this show, we pick one story and we take that headline and then we ask the reporter to go behind the story. Thus the name of the show. But with you, I want to do something a little bit different because you are on a generational run, covering the run up to the midterms, specifically what's going on in Texas. So I'm just going to rattle off some of the headlines you've had in the past week. Exclusive, Trump to hold Saturday rally in Tennessee aims to supercharge base.

Four-week warning, the midterms enter their final stretch.

Black Democrat official says James Talarico has a big race problem. Talarico outreach event canceled as campaign schedule comes under fire. Meet the blue state Senate candidate giving Dems heartburn. Ken Paxton's estranged wife makes her choice in Texas Senate race. And I could go on and on and on. And that's not even including some of the pieces that you have of videos that have implicated the Talarico campaign, which we can get to in a minute. So I guess just to start off, what is what's your sense of what's going on with the midterms?

How are you feeling? What are you seeing? Talk to us.

Jacob Wheeler (2:11)

Yeah, so obviously we're less than a month away until the midterm elections. And I think at this point of the game, Republicans are really focused on juicing the Republican MAGA base. We see that with President Trump. He is blitzing the country basically on this 30 day midterm tour. He's going into deep red territory from Nebraska, Ohio, Texas. He's going to be in Tennessee this weekend, as you mentioned. And so I think Republicans right now are shifting away from some of the persuasion game and kind of now trying to juice the Republican base with some of these culture war items that we see. Obviously, immigration is a huge issue in the minds of Republican voters. And I think try to quell some of these economic concerns with gas prices and lingering inflation. And we'll see if it works. You know, right now, you know, we're doing this, as you mentioned, we're doing this weekly midterm update for our viewers with the Daily Wire and the polls do still paint, you know, a bleak picture for the GOP on the national level. But what I think is what interesting is, is you look at the macroeconomic level and it looks so bad for the for the GOP. But when you dive into these individual races in these states, it paints a much more optimistic picture, especially some of these blue leaning states like Minnesota, New Hampshire, Michigan, for example, you know. So when you dive into these individual races, I think there's some places for the GOP not only to defend their territory, but maybe even gain some seats as well.

Tim Rice (3:38)

Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. And I want to we'll go back to some of the actual races, but you mentioned Trump and the kind of Trump hitting the campaign trail in these last couple of weeks. We obviously cover this, but you know, as everyone knows, Trump's speeches are long and and the, you know, rambling at the weave, as he likes to say. So as someone who probably has watched more of the speeches than certainly than me and probably than many of our listeners, can you give us a sense of just what's the president been saying? What sort of notes is he hitting? Obviously, the headlines always tend to be when he goes off script, right? When he starts talking about the ballroom or Iran or something. But what has he actually been saying about the races, about the midterms?