Herschel Walker fires back at Obama for calling him a ‘celebrity’

Georgia Senate hopeful Herschel Walker on Monday fired back at former President Barack Obama, who ridiculed the Republican‘s run at a Friday campaign rally in Atlanta. 

Obama had charged that Walker was nothing but a ‘celebrity’ who hadn’t ‘bothered to learn’ anything about public policy, suggesting while the Heisman winner played great football, you wouldn’t expect him to pilot a plane or perform surgery – so why elevate him to the U.S. Senate.  

‘Look at this border wide open, have they talked about that? Did Obama mention that when he was talking about Herschel flying a plane?’ Walker said at a campaign stop in Ringgold, Georgia. ‘I don’t got to fly a plane, I’m not a pilot. I’m a football player, I’m a politician. I’m a lover and I love everybody.’ 

‘That’s what I am,’ he continued. ‘I’m that warrior for God that he should have been when he was born, but he’s not.’ 

As for the celebrity jab, Walker shot back, ‘all he do is hang out with celebrities.’ 

‘Let me get off of him, because he’s not even running in this election here. So why am I talking about him? He got to go. Go back to wherever he live at. Where did he live at? I don’t even know. It don’t really matter. But it is a big house. It is a big house,’ Walker said. 

Walker also charged that Obama ‘never worked a day in his life’ because he, and Warnock, never ‘built a company.’ 

‘What have they done in their life?’ he asked.  

Georgia Senate hopeful Herschel Walker (pictured) on Monday fired back at former President Barack Obama, who ridiculed the Republican’s run at a Friday campaign rally in Atlanta

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Former President Barack Obama (center) made his first stop on the ’22 campaign trail to Atlanta, Georgia where he stumped for Democrats Stacey Abrams (left) and Sen. Raphael Warnock (right) 

Walker is engaged in a close race with incumbent Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, who is vying for a full six-year term after winning a special election and then a run-off to fill the Senate seat. 

Warnock is the senior pastor at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, while Walker played football for Georgia and later in the NFL. 

Walker’s campaign has been rattled by a series of scandals, including allegations of paying for ex-girlfriends’ abortions, but they haven’t hurt him in the polls. 

The race has been rated a ‘dead heat’ by FiveThirtyEight, which gives Walker a slightly better chance of winning than Warnock. 

Obama made his 2022 campaign trail debut Friday outside of Atlanta, stumping for both Warnock and Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Stacey Abrams.

Abrams is lagging behind in the polls against Republican rival, Gov. Brian Kemp. 

Obama pointed out to the crowd that for Walker there is ‘very little evidence that he has taken any interest, bothered to learn anything about, or displayed any kind of inclination toward public service, or volunteer work or helping people in any way.’ 

‘Seems to me he’s a celebrity who wants to be a politician,’ Obama remarked. ‘And we’ve seen how that goes. We’ve seen that before,’ he said, laughing.

Obama then noted how many young people were in the audience. 

‘Some of you may not remember, but Herschel Walker was a heck of a football player,’ he said. 

‘But here’s the question, does that make him the best person to represent you in the U.S. Senate? Does that make him equipped to weigh in on the critical decisions about our economy and our foreign policy and our future?’ 

Obama then asked the audience to do a ‘thought experiment’ with him. 

‘Let’s say you’re at the airport and you see Mr. Walker and you say, “Hey, there’s Herschel Walker, Heisman winner, let’s have him fly the plane!”‘ Obama said. ‘You probably wouldn’t say that. You’d probably want to know, “Does he know how to fly an airplane?”‘ 

Obama laid out the same idea, but at a hospital. ‘That Walker guy, he sure could tear him up at Sanford stadium, give him a scalpel,’ Obama said to laughs. 

‘And by the way the opposite is true too, you may have liked me as president, but you would not want me starting as tailback for the Dogs,’ Obama continued. ‘Can you imagine my slow, old, skinny behind getting hit by some 300-pound defensive tackle … you’d have to scrape me off the field.’ 

‘No I can’t,’ Obama said. 

Obama and Warnock also pointed to Walker’s memorable debate moment: when he pulled out a fake police badge onstage to show he was a supporter of law enforcement. 

To the question of which Senate candidate would keep Georgia families safe, Obama mused, ‘Is it someone who carries around a phony badge and says he’s law enforcement?’ 

‘Like he’s a kid playing cops and robbers,’ Obama said to laughs. 

‘He wears his lies, literally, as a badge of honor,’ Warnock said.