CNN
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Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker supports pulling out sheriff’s badge A closely watched debate on Friday In Georgia, I say NBC In an interview that aired Sunday, he said it was “legitimate,” but a badge of honor from his hometown sheriff’s department.
Walker pulled out the badge during a debate about supporting the police — a move that was admonished by debate moderators and led to widespread jeers from Democrats.
“This is from my hometown. It’s a legitimate badge from Johnson County, from the sheriff in Johnson County,” Walker told NBC’s Kristen Welker in a clip of the interview.
A CNN reality check Walker never had a job in law enforcement. He has advertised a card that shows he was named “honorary agent” and “special deputy sheriff” in Cobb County, Georgia at some point after 2004 — titles that do not confer arrest powers.
The race is between Walker and Democrat Sen. Raphael Warnock One of the most important Senate races Nationally, Democrats representing a key state must have any chance of keeping control of the Senate next year. The race has recently been rocked by allegations that Walker paid for one woman’s abortion and encouraged her to have another — a claim the Republican has repeatedly denied and CNN has not independently confirmed.
A study Published earlier this month, which was conducted after the allegations emerged, Warnock may have 52% support to Walker’s 45%, similar to a poll in mid-September.
During Friday’s debate, Warnock accused Walker of calling officers “names” and causing a drop in “morale,” but Democrats cited Walker’s false claim that he previously worked in law enforcement.
“The one thing I didn’t do was I didn’t pretend to be a police officer, and I never, ever threatened to get into a shootout with the police,” Warnock said, referring to more than two decades of police reporting. Republicans discussed exchanging gunfire with police.
“Everybody can make fun,” Walker said in an NBC interview, arguing that the badge “entitles him to work with the police in doing things.”
However, Walker later admitted it was a “badge of honor” and pushed back against the idea, which NBC’s Welker read from a report from the National Sheriffs Association, that such badges should be left in a “trophy case.”
