When Republicans start losing, they get desperate and spread lies. The best lies are created by Russian bots. Politifact rated a vile video attacking Talarico as a pedophile as an AI fake.
This video shows a former James Talarico student accusing him of misconduct.
2026 MIDTERMSARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCETEXASX POSTS
By Jeff Cercone
October 22, 2026
Russian disinformation group targets James Talarico with baseless claim in AI-generated video
IF YOUR TIME IS SHORT
- The Russian disinformation campaign known as Storm-1516 used artificial intelligence to create a video that impersonated a real man, and claimed it showed a former student accusing James Talarico of misconduct, researchers say.
- The account that initially shared the video was created in September and is based in Romania, NewsGuard reported.
See the sources for this fact-check
A social media video purporting to show a former student accusing Texas Democratic U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico of sexual misconduct is the latest example of how Russian groups are generating false information to influence U.S. elections, researchers say.
As of Oct. 22, X had suspended the account that originally posted the baseless claim, but other accounts have since shared it. NewsGuard, a company that tracks online misinformation, reported that X said the account was created in September with Romania as the signup country.
Talarico spokesperson JT Ennis issued an emailed statement to PolitiFact about the video.
“The most powerful people in the world know they can’t beat James Talarico with the truth, so they’re slandering him with AI deepfakes, foreign bots, and conspiracy theories to protect their broken, corrupt political system,” Ennis said.
What we know about the video’s origin
Darren Linvill, a Clemson University professor and head of its Media Forensic Hub, said the video is the work of Storm-1516, a Russian propaganda campaign he said made a similar baseless attack on Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz in 2024 when Walz ran for vice president. In 2024, the group used a paid actor from West Africa to attack Walz, Linvill said.
Linvill said this video was generated to look like a real man who has an account on another platform. The video shows a man claiming to have been a former student of Talarico at Rhodes Middle School in San Antonio, Texas, where Talarico taught Language Arts before his political career as a state representative.
Graphika, a social media analytics company, said in a blog post that the X account that originally shared the video “very likely” impersonated a Facebook user by the same name. That person lives in Texas and was a former student of Talarico. The man has praised Talarico on his Facebook page on several occasions, as recently as February, Graphika noted.
Fact-checkers at Lead Stories spoke with that man and he said the video is not of him, and denied accusing Talarico of misconduct. PolitiFact reached out to him via Facebook, but he didn’t immediately respond. PolitiFact’s review of the man’s Facebook page found no video of him accusing Talarico.
NewsGuard reported that the videos had many signs of AI generation, such as unnatural eye movements and stagnant facial expressions, and that an AI detection tool showed a 98% likelihood of being a deepfake. A deepfake is a machine generated image or video that changes faces, bodies or voices, making people appear to do and say things that they never did or said.
Graphika said social media accounts known to amplify Storm-1516 content and several accounts from U.S. conservatives shared the video. It said a prominent Storm-1516 amplifier, SGAnon, originally shared the video, then deleted it, writing on X that an analysis showed it was “artificially generated.”
The Russian disinformation playbook
Linvill said Storm-1516 typically uses the same influencers to spread false narratives into political conversations.
“If you examine the recent content of the influencers who first shared this narrative you can easily identify other Storm-1516 lies,” Linvill said. “We believe they are paid to do this. In the same way marketing companies pay influencers to share products, the Russians pay influencers to share lies.”
The New York Times recently reported that Russia and other foreign governments have stepped up efforts to influence U.S. elections, mostly targeting Democrats.
Linvill co-wrote a recent report about Storm-1516 and its work targeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and found such campaigns often are not aimed at changing people’s behavior or opinions, but seek to shape public discourse.
He said the study’s findings apply to this baseless Talarico narrative.
“By entrenching people in this view of Talarico, the Russians likely hope to exacerbate extreme partisanship and also encourage people to get off the couch and vote for Ken Paxton,” Linvill said. “People who already like Talarico are going to dismiss this claim as the obvious fake it is, but they aren’t the audience.”
We rate the claim that this video shows Talarico’s former student accusing him of misconduct Pants on Fire!
Our Sources
X post, Oct. 20, 2026
X post, Oct. 21, 2026
X post, Oct. 22, 2026
X post, Oct. 22, 2026
SGAnon, X post, Oct. 20, 2026
Facebook post, Feb. 14, 2026
Facebook post, May 25, 2021
NewsGuard, Russian Deepfake Accuses Talarico of Sexually Abusing Student, Oct. 21, 2026
Lead Stories, Fact Check: FAKE Video Shows Man Claiming to Be Ex-Student of Democratic Senate Nominee James Talarico — Real Zyon Lewis Says It Is Not Him, Oct. 21, 2026
Darren Linvill, Professor, Clemson University Media Forensics Hub, X posts, Oct. 21, 2026
Darren Linvill, Professor, Clemson University Media Forensics Hub, email interview, Oct. 22, 2026
PNAS, State- sponsored agenda setting: Measuring the impact of narrative laundering, Aug. 3, 2026
Graphika, research brief shared with PolitiFact, Oct. 22, 2026
Graphika, Storm-1516 Produces Very Likely Deepfake Videos of Student Accusing Democratic Senate Candidate of Sexual Assault, Oct. 21, 2026
Alethea spokesperson, email interview, Oct. 22, 2026
The Gnida Project, X post, Oct. 21, 2026
Agence France-Presse, Tim Walz targeted by unfounded sexual abuse claim, Oct. 21, 2024
The New York Times, Russia Appears to Step Up Efforts to Influence U.S. Voters, Oct. 16, 2026
