Herschel Walker, the retired NFL running back and failed GOP Senate candidate, stumbled over his words in his first political appearance of the 2024 election cycle, asking voters to cast their ballots for Donald Trump Jr. before quickly realizing his error and urging voters to vote for Trump Jr.’s father instead.
“Let us not let Donald Trump down, because he’s not going to let us down,” Walker implored supporters in in Macon, Georgia–his home state–in a brief speech that lasted just under six minutes on Sunday night.
“It is time for it to stop, and it stop[s] on Tuesday when we get to the polls and we vote for my friend and your friend Donald Trump Jr.,” Walker said, before seemingly correcting himself and saying “Donald J. Trump.”
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Throughout his speech, Walker touted his long friendship with Trump. Trump was the former owner of the New Jersey Generals, the USFL team where Walker began his professional football career in the 1980s.
“I can tell you 40 years ago—President Trump hasn’t changed. He still loves his family, loves his country, and we’re still friends,” Walker said.
“Our founding fathers risked everything when they stood up to the king, and men and women in our military sacrificed their life to help protect what our founding fathers gave us,” Walker told the cheering crowd of supporters. “And you know Donald Trump is cut from the same cloth. He has sacrificed a lot for this country, and in so many ways. And it really disgusts me when I hear them insult him with all these names.”
“Donald Trump is not just my friend, he’s your friend, and it is time for us to step up to the plate. It is not time for us to sit on the sideline anymore,” the former Heisman Trophy winner said, mixing his sports metaphors.
During his own speech, Trump thanked Walker for his endorsement and later made a bizarre promise to put the ex-NFL star in charge of a “missile defense shield” he planned to build.
“We’ll put Herschel Walker in charge of that little sucker,” he said.
Alongside Walker, the rally featured two former Republican senators from the Peach State—David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, both of whom lost to Democratic challengers in 2020 as President Joe Biden won the southern state by just 11,779 votes.
Walker’s disastrous senate campaign was dogged by allegations that he fathered secret children and paid a woman to get an abortion after an affair. The social conservative frequently criticized fatherless homes in the Black community. He eventually lost to Democratic incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock in 2022.
Walker has mostly stayed out of the political limelight since his electoral defeat, and recently re-enrolled in college classes to finish his bachelor’s degree at his alma mater, the University of Georgia, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. In a brief interview before the rally, Walker told the newspaper that he was finishing his last class before graduating in December—but agreed to come to the rally because “this election is so, so important.”
Walker also resurfaced last month as a guest on Maria Bartiromo’s Fox Business Network show, where he criticized Democratic nominees Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.
