Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico's viral hospital rumor has been debunked by time-stamped security footage reviewed by The New York Times — but the bigger story may be why his campaign sat on the evidence while the conspiracy theory exploded across social media for days. Talarico disappeared from the campaign trail for nine days in early October, fueling rampant speculation that he had secretly traveled to an Ohio behavioral health center. His campaign maintained he was home with the flu, and security camera images from his Austin home now back that up. But GOP strategists and journalists are torching the campaign's response as "mind-numbing malpractice" for not releasing the footage sooner. With Election Day just weeks away in one of the biggest Senate races in the country, the question has shifted from where Talarico was to why his team let the narrative spiral unchecked when they had the receipts the entire time. Full story here foxnews.com/politics/new-evi…