Herschel Walker, the US Senate candidate in Georgia, was desperate to change the subject on Monday as he appeared on Fox News to answer an accusation raised in a story from The Daily Beast reporting that he paid for a woman to seek an abortion in 2009.
Mr Walker’s appearance with Fox’s Sean Hannity came as a surprise to many campaign professionals on Twitter, who remarked about what a likely mistake it was to put him on TV immediately after the story released. Mr Hannity’s questions also seemed to come as a surprise to the candidate himself, who pivoted to talking about rising consumer prices and America’s immigration system when questioned about why an unnamed woman would have evidence that he sent her a $700 check around the same time she sought an abortion procedure.
“First question, do you know the woman that is making this allegation?” asked Mr Hannity.
“I have no idea. No idea, but it is a flat-out lie. And now you know how important this seat is. This seat is very important that they’ll do anything to win this seat – lie.
He then began his pivot away from the story: “[T]hey want to make it about everything else except what the true problems that we have in this country is. It’s inflation, the border wide open, crime. They don’t want to talk about that, so they’re making up lies because they need this Georgia seat.”
The candidate also released a lengthy denial in a statement on social media which also pledged that a lawsuit would be filed against the Beast today. That legal filing has yet to materialise.
The Independent has reached out to the Walker campaign for further comment.
Mr Walker’s race in Georgia is one of the most important, for both parties, in the entire country. A blue seat in the GOP stronghold of Georgia, Republicans see their best opportunity to take control of the upper chamber with a victory here, should their candidates also manage to defend seats in Ohio and Pennsylvania. But incumbent Senator Raphael Warnock has been buoyed by his overall popularity with voters in the state while running a strong campaign through the summer of 2022 that has seen him pull ahead of his challenger and maintain a small but steady lead for several months.
A political newcomer, Mr Walker is a former professional football player who won the state Senate primary thanks in part to his longstanding friendship with Donald Trump, who endorsed him after it was clear that Mr Walker was already the favourite to win. Since the primary ended, Mr Walker’s general election candidacy has been bogged down by a number of damaging revelations including the revelations of children he had not previously acknowledged publicly.
On abortion he has staked out an absolutist position and supported calls for the practice to be banned completely without exception.
His son Christian Walker, a social media influencer, unleashed a blistering series of tweets about his father into the night Monday and continuing on Tuesday; the 23-year-old accused his father of lying to voters and his own family, while calling his candidacy for Senate a mistake.
