Kari Lake pushes baseless ‘bottom surgery’ conspiracy about James Talarico
Kari Lake at the 2026 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner held at the Washington Hilton on April 25, 2026 in Washington, D.C. (Getty Images)
Senior adviser to the United States Agency for Global Media, Kari Lake, has fuelled a baseless conspiracy theory about Texas Senate candidate James Talarico. Lake shared a post on X suggesting the LGBTQ+ ally took time away from campaigning for gender-affirming surgery despite his campaign having already explained that he was recovering from the flu.
The former Arizona Senate candidate joined a wave of right-wing speculation about Talarico’s health by sharing a screenshot of an AI-generated answer about recovery from “bottom surgery”. The insinuation was unsupported, and the recovery timeline in the screenshot did not match the period Talarico had been away from public campaign events.
Lake posted the screenshot on 8 October, responding to online chatter about Talarico’s absence from the campaign trail. The AI-generated response suggested it could take six to eight weeks to return to normal work activities after the procedure.
Talarico’s campaign had already informed reporters that he was recovering from the flu, which had hit him particularly hard because he has type 1 diabetes.
According to The Texas Tribune, nine days separated Talarico’s public appearances. He participated virtually in a US Hispanic Business Council event on 30 September, in which he mentioned he had gotten the flu, before returning to public campaigning at the Austin City Limits music festival on 9 October.
Competing conspiracy theories spread
Lake’s suggestion was one of several unsupported stories circulating among right-wing commentators about Talarico’s health.
President Donald Trump had claimed Talarico was absent for 12 days in a Truth Social post, helping fuel speculation about why the candidate had temporarily stepped back from public appearances. Many conservative political figures, including Elon Musk, then amplified a separate claim that Talarico had checked himself into a mental health facility in Ohio.
The Lindner Center of HOPE, the Ohio clinic named in the rumour, explicitly denied the claim.
Some commentators later retracted their posts. Right-wing commentator Carmine Sabia issued an apology on X, writing: “I apologize for sharing the false report about James Talarico receiving mental health treatment. I relied on the reporting available then, but I got it wrong and retract it.”
The pro-Trump account Celtic Mission published a poll asking whether Talarico was depressed “because she had the top surgery” or “because he had the bottom surgery”. Another account, Tim the Tool Man, which promotes himself as a “Conservative network startup veteran” and the director of production for right-wing YouTuber Steven Crowder’s podcast, asserted that Talarico was “recovering from bottom surgery”.
None of these posts provided concrete evidence for the speculative claims about Talarico.
Talarico has already explained his absence
Talarico, a Democratic state representative running for the US Senate in Texas, has been a prominent supporter of the LGBTQ+ community and LGBTQ+ rights. The “bottom surgery” conspiracy being pushed by opponents of his appears to draw on hostility towards his politics and his support for transgender people, rather than any substantiated information about his health. In May, he was hit by a separate false claim when Stephen Miller falsely said that James Talarico was transgender.
Lake, who previously ran unsuccessfully for governor and the US Senate in Arizona, currently serves as a senior adviser at the US Agency for Global Media under the Trump administration. Trump also nominated her to be US ambassador to Jamaica, though her confirmation remains pending.
In March, a federal judge ruled that Lake’s separate service as acting CEO of the US Agency for Global Media violated federal law.
Lake has also previously raised an unsubstantiated claim against US Representative Greg Stanton when she accused of having a ‘gay lover’ during a congressional hearing last year.
