Georgia Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker falsely claimed that he used to be an FBI agent and told a crowd about how he once came close to killing a man in a newly-resurfaced footage.
Mr Walker has repeatedly mentioned having a varied past in law enforcement over the course of his campaign, despite reporting showing that the assertion is untrue.
This week, a video timestamped from the fall of 2019 re-emerged online, showing Mr Walker saying he worked for law enforcement and “spent time at Quantico” – the FBI Academy in Virginia.
“Ya’ll didn’t know I was an agent,” Mr Walker said. “I probably shouldn’t tell you that. Y’all don’t care.”
“But anyway, I’ve been in law enforcement before,” he continued in the video shared on Twitter on Monday by the Republican Accountability Project.
“So I grab my gun,” Mr Walker then said, recounting a story. “I say ‘I will kill him’.”
“Herschel Walker, won the Heisman Trophy, I’m going to kill him,” he added.
Mr Walker said he still “remembers the voices”.
“Herschel, people are disrespecting you all the time”, he said, quoting the “voices”.
“People are always doing stuff that you’ve never done,” he added.
“And all of a sudden this other voice – ‘Herschel your parents didn’t raise you like that’”, Mr Walker said in front of an audience.
“Yes they did – No they didn’t”, he said, describing the back and forth. “I thought I was losing my mind.”
“As I got closer and closer to where I was going to be meeting this guy, I started to pray. I said ‘Lord, I need some help right now ... I’m about to do something stupid’”, he added.
“I got out of my car and put my hand on my gun as I was walking to this truck. Before I could see the guy, I saw the sign on the back of his truck that said ‘honk if you love Jesus’”, Mr Walker said. “And that’s what calmed me down.”
“Seriously though, this guy is such a moron that it is unbelievable that he’s the GOP nominee for senate,” the Republicans against Trumpism Twitter account wrote.
“When a country no longer cares if candidates are stable, minimally responsible adults and cares only about ‘owning’ their political opponents”, columnist Mona Charen added.
Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks wrote that “it’s hard to tell what’s crazier - if this story is true or untrue. Either way, if Republicans vote for this guy after knowing this, they’re voting for a crazy person on purpose. Not figuratively, literally. What does that tell you about Republican voters?”
“If Herschel Walker is an FBI agent, I’m a leprechaun who lives on rainbows and fairy dust,” Kimberly Johnson added.
Several people noted that Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell endorsed Mr Walker in October.
“Herschel is the only one who can unite the party, defeat Senator Warnock, and help us take back the Senate. I look forward to working with Herschel in Washington to get the job done,” Mr McConnell said at the time.
The Independent has reached out to the Walker campaign for comment.
