Hershel Walker
During his time as co-chair of the President's Council on Sports, Fitness & Nutrition under Donald Trump, Herschel Walker repeatedly spread Trump's false claims that the 2020 election had been stolen from Trump and that he, and not Joe Biden, had won in Georgia. Now, as he runs for Senate in the Georgia Republican primary, Walker says he has no idea if those allegations were true.
In an interview posted on Gainesville, Georgia, website AccessWDUN on Wednesday, the former pro football player was asked, "Do you believe there were problems with the 2020 election in Georgia?"
"I don't know if there were problems with the 2020 election," he replied. "What I do know is that, right now, I'm gonna win this seat, and, you know, everyone has complained, even Stacey Abrams complained that her race wasn't fair. And I've heard a lot of people saying a lot of things. One thing that I gotta worry about right now, that I'm gonna have a fair election, that people can believe in our election when I run." Complimenting Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, whom Trump is famously working to defeat in his run for reelection, Walker said, "Because I think, one thing that, I give it to the governor, that he's done is just with S.B. 202, securing the drop boxes now, requiring ID. That's gonna be something that's gonna be great for everyone right now. And that's what I'm happy to see that's going on."
This is a far cry from what Walker was saying in the days after Biden's decisive victory in November 2020.
Three days after Biden won, Walker demanded a do-over. "Instead of us fighting and going to court, why don't we have Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin vote again?" he suggested. "We can have it done within a week, and maintain our democracy."
In a December 27, 2020, appearance on Fox News, he falsely told host Jeanine Pirro that Trump had been reelected and questioned the fairness of the results: "Whether this president got 74 million or 80 million people, but I can guarantee you Joe Biden didn't get 50 million people voting for him. But yet, people think that he won this election."
Biden actually received 81,284,666 votes; Trump got 74,224,319.
Days later, Walker tweeted, "After watching the Ga Senate Hearings, there is no doubt there is serious Election Fraud! The whole world is watching."
On January 6, 2021, he falsely claimed pro-Trump insurrectionists who stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to overturn Biden's win were actually "Trojan Horses." He tweeted at Trump, "I call on @realDonaldTrump to find out who these people are as they do not look like MAGA! You have the power right now to see who they really are and to get to the bottom of who stole this election! Prosecute these bad players."
But since announcing last August that he would run for the GOP nomination to challenge Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Walker has noticeably backed off of his conspiracy theory claims and conceded that he has no real knowledge of the matter.
"Everyone want to talk about whether there was voter integrity or not. Well, let's not worry about that right now. Leave that up to our elected officials who's the right people to get something done," he told WDUN on Oct. 21.
Asked by an interviewer with the right-wing website Daily Caller on Jan. 27 whether he stood by previous statements about fraud in the 2020 election, Walker responded, "There's a problem somewhere. Where is that problem at? I don't know. But I think the only way you solve it, whether one person feel that he didn't get to vote or whether two feel, you need to check it out. And I do stand by that no matter what."
Asked the same thing in February, he told podcaster Steve Beecham, "I don't think anyone really knows."
Claiming that different news outlets were conflicted on the matter, Walker admitted, "I don't know what to trust there, but I say this, is that when I go around the state meeting with people, this person may say that he felt that his vote didn't count, this person said he felt that it did. And for Herschel Walker, I don't know."
A Walker spokesperson did not immediately respond to an inquiry for this story. Walker has not yet explicitly acknowledged that his earlier accusations were baseless.
He also happily accepted an endorsement from Trump, who continues to push widely debunked claims that Biden did not really win; Walker said nothing when Trump pushed those lies at a joint appearance in December.
Walker once played for a team owned by Trump in the now-defunct United States Football League and was an unsuccessful contestant on his "Celebrity Apprentice" television show.
Since joining the race, he has also come under fire for exaggerations and flat-out lies about his tenure as a Trump appointee, his education, and his business record.
Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.
