Party of Personal Responsibility Blames Herschel Walker’s Son Amid Abortion Scandal

On Monday night, The Daily Beast broke the story that Georgia’s Republican Senate nominee Herschel Walker reportedly paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion with a check and sent her a “get well” card. Walker denied the report and threatened to sue for defamation. Somehow, the story only got more wild from there.

Walker’s son and conservative influencer, Christian Walker, claimed in a series of tweets on Monday that no one in the former NFL star’s family wanted him to run, since it would air the candidate’s “dirty laundry.” That laundry includes fathering three additional children he hasn’t publicly acknowledged. Christian also alleged that Walker threatened to kill him and his mother, Cindy DeAngelis Grossman. (Grossman was granted a protective order against Walker in 2005 and has alleged he held a gun to her head and said he would “blow [her] brains out.”)

The shocking tweets prompted this response from Walker:

But Christian kept going! On Tuesday morning, he shared two videos doubling down on criticism of his father’s Senate campaign. “Family values people: He has four kids, four different women, wasn’t in the house raising one of them. He was out having sex with other women. Do you care about family values? …Y’all should care about that, conservatives.”

He added that he and his mom “were told at the beginning of this he was going to get ahead of his past, hold himself accountable, all of these different things, and that would have been fine, go ahead. He didn’t do any of that. Everything’s been a lie.” Walker concluded the first video by saying, “Don’t put this on me. This is a candidate issue, not a me issue. I wouldn’t have spoken out if there weren’t all these lies every day.” (Ironically, Walker’s ex-girlfriend said she came forward about the abortion because of his campaign’s strong anti-abortion stance. “I just can’t with the hypocrisy anymore,” she said. “We all deserve better.”)

In the second video, Christian said he did one campaign event for his dad in 2021 and he’s been getting calls asking him to do more. He said people on the right have “been calling me saying, ‘Why aren’t you on the campaign trail with your dad? Why aren’t you helping him out? This looks weird.’ And I’ve said to you calmly ‘I’m not getting involved. You don’t know my family life.’”

It’s truly incredible to see Republicans scramble whenever a new bombshell comes out about one of their extremely flawed candidates. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) told reporters in August that he thought Republicans were less likely to win the Senate than the House because of “candidate quality,” a barely veiled dig at nominees like Walker and Mehmet Oz, and at former President Donald Trump, who endorsed them. (McConnell later walked back the comments after criticism from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.)

“I think there’s probably a greater likelihood the House flips than the Senate,” McConnell said. “Senate races are just different—they’re statewide, candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome.” Walker, in particular, has lied about being a cop and an FBI agent, donating business profits to charity, graduating from college, how many children he has, and now, apparently, about paying for an abortion.

The ass-covering we’re witnessing is hilarious. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Tuesday that a “GOP official close to Walker” tried to preemptively scapegoat Christian if the nominee eventually loses. “This is a deeply disturbed kid with obvious issues of his own…He’s a spoiled brat and is solely to blame if Herschel loses the race.” Uh, sure seems like the candidate is to blame.

Conservative commentator Erick Erickson—who initially contradicted Walker’s denial by saying, “I thought we all knew this”—is claiming Christian’s statements, not the underlying allegations, are the real problem for the nominee. Erickson said Christian’s tweets make this saga “brutal, probably a KO” and said Georgia GOP strategists were now “praying” for Oz to beat John Fetterman in Pennsylvania in order to have any chance of retaking the Senate.

So much for the party of personal responsibility.