We all remember that one kid from high school who was allowed to sit with the most popular clique, but only so long as they stayed quiet and laughed when everybody did. That kid was socially acceptable enough—smart, maybe even charismatic or athletic—but also just weird enough that if they talked too much, the awkwardness would reveal itself and their social status would implode on its own shaky foundation.
To his credit, if Herschel Walker ever fretted over what anybody else thought about the things he says in public, he got over it before his lunchroom days ended. At age 60, the Republican nominee for a U.S. Senate seat from Georgia, is unbothered by the prospect of public embarrassment and has little room for shame about what he says in his bid to knock of Democratic incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock. The problem is Walker’s not back at Johnson County High school campaigning for better school lunches and a later end to football pep rallies; the job he seeks carries responsibility for confirming judges to federal courts, members of cabinet and passing laws about things like climate change, which Walker demonstrated last weekend he has little to no grasp of.
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In a speech to Hall County, Ga., Republicans—to which no media was allowed but from which video leaked out anyway—Walker took some time to give his thoughts about that whole Earth-is-warming-at-an-extremely-dangerous-rate thing. If I’m getting this right, those thoughts amount to, ‘there’s no point in cleaning up the atmosphere because dirty air from China will just float over here anyways.’
In his own words:
Again, this isn’t just about what Walker says, because even his own staff knows it’s better to either ignore, or triple-check his facts before swallowing too hard and trying to digest their boss’ words. How’d Walker’s campaign respond after being called out over his latest comments? By trying to pivot like LeBron being double-teamed with the ball in his hands.
From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
Campaign manager Scott Paradise spun the comments to assert that Walker meant to say China was “primarily responsible for causing Covid and polluting the air.”
“Please ask Reverend Warnock if he disagrees,” Paradise texted us.
The idea, of course, was to put Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock in a position of defending China. Here’s how Warnock spokeswoman Meredith Brasher responded instead:
“Georgia voters will have a clear choice this fall between Reverend Warnock’s extensive record of fighting to lower costs for hardworking Georgia families and Herschel Walker’s pattern of lies, exaggerations, and completely bizarre claims, all of which show he is not ready to represent Georgians in the U.S. Senate.”
How many more days until this race is over?
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