Christian Walker, the estranged son of Herschel Walker, unleashed a string of fiery tweets late Tuesday after his father, a Republican, was defeated in Georgia’s Senate race. He lashed out at both his father and Republican leadership, accusing them of betraying him and the party.
A right-wing influencer with half a million followers on Instagram and another 250,000 on TikTok, Mr. Walker called his father a “backstabber” and claimed the Republican Party cynically made him their candidate mainly “because he was the same skin color as his opponent.” He also wrote that former President Donald J. Trump courted the elder Mr. Walker for months, “DEMANDING that he run.”
The first tweet was posted just four minutes before The Associated Press called the runoff for Senator Raphael Warnock, the elder Mr. Walker’s Democratic opponent. In all, the younger Mr. Walker posted eight times, ending with a tribute to his mother, saying he was “so happy she can rest now, and this bull crap is over with.”
The younger Mr. Walker rose to national prominence in October, after being critical of his father following a series of scandals — including that he had three children that he had not previously mentioned publicly and that he’d paid for an abortion for a former girlfriend and encouraged her to have a second abortion, despite being staunchly pro-life (a second unnamed woman later said he paid for her to have an abortion, too).
Mr. Walker denied the abortion allegations and, after his son’s October outburst, tweeted: “I LOVE my son no matter what.”
But he has been largely quiet since then, a silence he attributed on Tuesday night to his desire not to “swing voters to Warnock.”
In an impromptu session Tuesday night on Twitter Spaces, the social media site’s live audio platform, the younger Mr. Walker said that with the Georgia contest decided, he could speak freely.
The wide-ranging monologue was delivered to more than 1,300 listeners, with Mr. Walker repeatedly saying he was a longtime supporter of Mr. Trump. But he accused the former president of incorrectly assuming that his father would win because “he’s Georgia royalty” without realizing “he’s not a good candidate.” He said that his preferred candidate for the 2024 presidential race would be Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.
Mr. Walker attacked Senator Lindsey Graham, saying that both Democrats and Republicans disliked him and that his father should not have campaigned with him, which he did multiple times throughout the race. He also recounted his own surreal experience of learning that he has three half-siblings through reports in the national media and feeling outraged at his father’s dishonesty.
“He would lie to the campaign and then the journalists would come out and find the story,” said Mr. Walker, who lives in Miami. “It was just absurd.”
Chase Oliver, the Libertarian candidate whose losing bid in the Senate race in November helped push the contest into a runoff, called in to wish the younger Mr. Walker the best and said: “I’m glad this is over for you.” He also proposed ranked-choice voting in Georgia and said that if Herschel Walker had reached out to him directly, he might have been able to encourage his supporters — he earned about 80,000 general election votes — to vote for him.
In a bizarre moment, a person identifying himself as Chi Ossé, a sitting member of the New York City Council, called into the audio platform to tell Mr. Walker he was a “huge fan” despite being a “radical leftist.”
In response to a question about his own political ambitions, the younger Mr. Walker laughed, saying he would “never” run for office.
Source: Elections - nytimes.com
