Herschel Walker flashes honorary badge again for nationally televised interview

For the second time in a week, Georgia senate candidate Herschel Walker flashed a badge and boasted about working with law enforcement, this time during an NBC News interview that aired Monday morning.

“This badge is from um… this badge. I have badges from all over the… all over Georgia, even from Chatham County,” the Republican contender replied in the NBC interview when asked who gave him the bronze star he carries in a black wallet.

The 60-year-old former NFL player flashed what appeared to be the same badge during a debate with Democratic candidate Raphael Warnock last Friday. He was admonished for using a “prop” during that event.

According to Walker, the badge he flashed Monday is from Johnson County, which he calls his hometown. He also claimed to have an honorary badge from Chatham County, where Warnock was raised.

“I have an honorary Sheriff badge for that county with limited rights,” Walker claimed.

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When an NBC News reporter asked Walker in the interview that aired Monday whether his badges authorize him to make arrests or are simply tokens of recognition, the conservative candidate said, “It is an honorary badge, but they can call me whenever they want me and I have the authority to do things for them to work with them all day.”

The National Sheriffs’ Association has said badges like Walker’s are strictly symbolic. The athlete-turned-businessman, who has the support of former president Donald Trump, repeatedly expresses support for law enforcement at political rallies. Walker has also suggested to supporters, “I was an (FBI) agent,” though there’s no evidence that’s true.

Warnock, who leads Walker by 3.3% in a Real Clear Politics aggregate of polls, has made his opponent’s tenuous relationship with facts an issue in the weeks leading to November’s election. He charged during their debate Friday, “One thing I’ve not done… I’ve never pretended to be a police officer.”

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Walker has largely campaigned through private events in Georgia and friendly Fox News appearances. In addition to being asked about his badge collection, Walker was challenged during his sit-down with NBC News to explain a $700 check he wrote to the mother of one of his children, who said she used the money to abort a 2009 pregnancy caused by Walker.

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“It’s a lie,” Walker bluntly said of that accusation. “Prove that I did that. Just to show me things like that does nothing for me.”

The Daily Beast reported earlier this month that it had seen a check from a Walker and a receipt from an abortion clinic to support that unidentified woman’s claims that she terminated that pregnancy.

Walker is an adamant anti-abortion candidate. He has four children — only one of whom was publicly known about prior to the start of Walker’s campaign. The Daily Beast also broke news of his other offspring.

Walker did not attend a Sunday night debate where Senator Warnock, a Democrat, faulted the GOP contender for “not showing up tonight for the job interview.” Warnock and Libertarian candidate Chase Oliver shared a stage with an unused podium that had been reserved for Walker.

NBC News reports the Johnson County sheriff who awarded a badge to Walker has no issue with the former University of Georgia Bulldogs and Dallas Cowboys star running back using the honorary keepsake on the campaign trail. Walker broadly repeated during the interview out Monday “he’d been working with” law enforcement for years and insisted his support of sheriffs throughout Georgia is mutual.

With News Wire Services