As the story about Herschel Walker paying for a former girlfriend’s abortion gets harder and harder to deny, the Georgia Senate candidate’s denials are getting more and more absurd.
After The Daily Beast reported Wednesday night that the anonymous woman who says Walker paid for her abortion in 2009 is also the mother of one of his children, Walker appeared on The Hugh Hewitt Show, where the conservative radio host tried to help him clean up some of the lingering details about the bombshell that has rocked his campaign. It didn’t go well for Walker.
Confronted by the new details, Walker initially repeated his denial, saying, “I know this is untrue, and they keep telling me things like that, and it’s totally, totally untrue. And I’m not sure why that would be told. I know nothing about any woman having an abortion, and they can keep coming at me like that.”
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“And they’re doing it because they want to distract people,” he continued. “I know that, because I’ve already been forgiven. And if I’ve been forgiven, why in the world would I not be forgiven of something like that?”
That line about forgiveness seemed to catch the host off-guard and he quickly jumped in with an obvious question: “Is there anything you need to be forgiven for vis-à-vis a woman whose name we do not know? Do you know who this woman is? And do you need to be forgiven?”
Walker said he was referring to being “forgiven” for “all the things” he did with his ex-wife, apparently referring to the threats against her life and alleged domestic violence.
“I wasn’t perfect. I had my problem with mental health,” Walker continued. “I hate to say I’ve been born again, but I have a new life and I’ve been moving forward.”
Then came the most unexpected statement from the supposedly “pro-life” candidate. “If that had happened, I would have said, you know, nothing to be ashamed of there,” he said of paying for the woman’s abortion. “You know, people have done that, but I know nothing about it. And if I knew about it, I would be honest and talk about it, but I know nothing about that.”
While not an admission of guilt, Walker’s statement did amount to an acknowledgement that there is “nothing to be ashamed of” when it comes to abortion, a medical procedure that both he and many prominent members of his political party equate with murder.
