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FIRST ON FOX: Republican Senate nominee Herschel Walker of Georgia says he’s “glad” that a group of Republican operatives opposed to Donald Trump and some the candidates the former president’s backing this election cycle went up with a new ad on Monday that includes graphic comments from Walker’s ex-wife describing him choking her and threatening to shoot her during their marriage.
“My opponents launched a dirty attack ad. They dug up an old video and took it out of context,” Walker argues in a new video released Wednesday and shared first with Fox News. “My opponents think they’re hurting me — but I am glad they did this ad.”
The spot by the Republican Accountability PAC includes a clip of an old interview with Walker’s ex-wife Cindy DeAngelis Grossman saying that “he held the gun to my temple and said he was going to blow my brains out.”
The college and professional football star noted numerous times that he struggled with mental health during his marriage to Grossman, which lasted from 1983 to 2002, and that he did not remember the incidents due to his illness.
WALKER, WARNOCK, TRADE FIRE IN BATTLE OVER DEBATES IN GEORGIA SENATE SHOWDOWN
Walker wrote a book in 2008 which highlighted his diagnosis and struggles with Dissociative Personality Disorder. And he’s long said that he’s “accountable” for his past violence towards his ex-wife. He’s also detailed that he used to have violent thoughts about harming himself and others, and also said he had up to a dozen alternative identities.
FIRST ON FOX: WALKER SAYS HE CAN ‘TAKE THE HITS’ FROM WARNOCK AND DEMOCRATS
In his video, Walker emphasizes that ‘my ex-wife Cindy and I are good friends — along with her husband and my wife. And I am grateful for all the support Cindy gave me during the hardest time of my life. I came forward back then in an effort to save lives, save marriages – to help other people.”
And Walker appears to take aim in his video at his opponent in November’s election, Democratic incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock.
Even though there don’t appear to be any ties between Warnock’s campaign and the new ad, Walker charged that “my opponents don’t care about the truth. The fact is Sen. Warnock can’t talk about accomplishments. He’s failed Georgia. So he and his friends will lie and deceive.”
WARNOCK AIMS TO MAKE WALKER HIS OWN WORST ENEMY
Republican Accountability PAC said it’ll spend $1 million to target Walker in Georgia and that they plan to spend eight-figures across six crucial battleground states to defeat Republican candidates backed by the former president who support Trump’s unproven claims that his 2020 election loss to President Biden was due massive voter fraud.
“Herschel Walker might have been a great football player, but he clearly doesn’t deserve to be a senator,” Sarah Longwell, the group’s treasurer, said. “That’s why our campaign is built around the voices of Georgia Republicans who know that he’s unfit for office.”
Herschel Walker, the Republican Senate nominee in Georgia, speaks during a campaign rally in Macon, Georgia, on Wednesday, May 18, 2022. Photographer: Elijah Nouvelage/Bloomberg via Getty Images (Photographer: Elijah Nouvelage/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Walker, who won a Heisman Trophy and helped steer the University of Georgia to a college football national championship four decades ago, jumped into the GOP race to face off against Warnock last summer after months of support and encouragement to run for the Senate by former President Donald Trump, his longtime friend.
WARNOCK AIMS TO MAKE WALKER HIS OWN WORST ENEMY
Thanks to his legendary status among many in Georgia and his immense, favorable name recognition in the Peach State, Walker instantly became the overwhelming front-runner for the GOP Senate nomination and basically ignored the field of lesser-known primary rivals, declining to take part in debates as he focused his campaign on Warnock.
Walker ended up trouncing his rivals in the May primary. But Republican strategists remain concerned that Walker is unprepared for the incoming fire that he’s now receiving during the general election campaign.
Walker has faced attacks from the Warnock campaign and allied Democratic groups over what they call his “bizarre or false statements.” And he’s also been targeted over numerous reports that he overinflated the success of his businesses and academic record and has been playing defense regarding a number of personal controversies — from the allegations of past abuse and threats against his first wife to allegations of violence claimed by two other women — which he’s denied — to acknowledging children he fathered out of wedlock that he hadn’t previously publicly mentioned, despite criticizing absent fathers for decades.
Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., questions Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen during the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee hearing, in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, on May 10, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Tom Williams-Pool/Getty Images) (Tom Williams-Pool/Getty Images)
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Republicans see Warnock — the senior pastor at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King Jr. used to preach, and who defeated GOP Sen. Kelly Loeffler by a razor-thin margin to capture the seat a year and a half ago — as very vulnerable as he runs for re-election to a full six-year term.
But Warnock has dramatically outraised Walker to date and holds a mid-single digit edge over his GOP challenger in the latest public opinion surveys, including a four-point advantage in a recent Fox News poll. The showdown is one of a handful of races in battleground states that will determine if the GOP wins back the majority in the chamber in November’s midterms.
