In 2020, Herschel Walker called absentee fathers "a major, major problem" in the Black community. He brought up the issue again last year in an interview, per the New York Times, comparing the problem to forced family separations during slavery and saying, "If you have a child with a woman, even if you have to leave that woman ... you don't leave that child." On Tuesday, news broke that Walker has a previously undisclosed 10-year-old son and that the Georgia GOP Senate nominee doesn't play an active parenting role in the child's life. In a statement, Walker's campaign said that he has "supported the child and continues to do so ... (and) to suggest that Herschel is 'hiding' the child because he hasn't used him in his political campaign is offensive and absurd."
However, court documents uncovered by the Daily Beast show the child's mother was forced to take Walker to court "in order to secure a declaration of paternity and child support." And a family friend says Walker sends birthday and Christmas cards, but the child lives 1,500 miles away and has never met or spoken to his half-brother, Christian Walker, 22. Critics pounced with claims of hypocrisy, much in the vein of this tweet cited by the Times by former South Carolina lawmaker Bakari Sellers: Walker "out here lecturing black men on fatherhood and ain't seen his kid since Obama's first term."
Walker is trying to unseat Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock in the November election in one of the Senate's most high-profile races. The Washington Post notes that Walker also has been dogged by allegations of falsehoods and exaggerations in regard to his claims about his background. For example, Walker has said he was an FBI agent and a cop in Cobb County, Georgia, claims debunked by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The Georgia race is neck and neck in the polls, per the Hill. (More Herschel Walker stories.)