Former President Donald Trump and leaders of top GOP political organizations leapt to the defense of Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker on Tuesday, after a bombshell report accused the anti-abortion Republican of allegedly paying for a woman’s abortion years earlier.
“Herschel has properly denied the charges against him, and I have no doubt he is correct,” Trump said in a statement on his Twitter-like platform Truth Social.
The post from Trump, who has endorsed Walker and campaigned with him in Georgia, aligned with statements of support from the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Senatorial Committee and a PAC closely tied to Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Multiple anti-abortion groups also defended Walker on Tuesday.
Walker called the report “a flat-out lie” and vowed to file a defamation lawsuit against the news outlet by Tuesday morning. Spokespeople for Walker’s campaign have not responded to repeated questions about whether that lawsuit has been filed.
Scott Paradise, a spokesman for Walker’s campaign, tweeted that the candidate had a major fundraising boost in the wake of the publication of the Daily Beast story. Paradise did not share any specific fundraising data in those tweets.
The Daily Beast’s article Monday night marked the latest, and possibly largest, blow to the former NFL star’s scandal-plagued Senate bid, just weeks before the Nov. 8 midterm elections.
It comes as Walker and his Democratic rival, incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock, appear to be neck and neck in polls in the key swing state. The Senate fight in Georgia, a purple state that President Joe Biden narrowly won over Trump in 2020, is one of several key races that could determine which party controls the Senate after the elections.
The Daily Beast quoted an anonymous woman who said she became pregnant when she and Walker were dating in 2009, when he was not married, and that he “urged her to get an abortion.” The report said the woman supported her claims with a receipt from the abortion clinic, a “get well” card from Walker and an image of a personal check signed by him.
The article spurred Walker’s own adult son Christian to speak out against him in a series of furious social media posts.
“You’re not a ‘family man’ when you left us to bang a bunch of women, threatened to kill us, and had us move over 6 times in 6 months running from your violence,” Christian Walker wrote.
But while Christian Walker appears to have disavowed his father’s Senate bid, the Republican Party’s leaders and institutions are standing by his campaign.
“Herschel Walker is being slandered and maligned by the Fake News Media and obviously, the Democrats,” Trump said in his statement. The former president, whose 2016 campaign was also marred by personal scandals, said of Walker, “They are trying to destroy a man who has true greatness in his future, just as he had athletic greatness in his past.”
“It’s very important for our Country and the Great State of Georgia…
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