New Attack Ad Targets Herschel Walker’s History of Domestic Abuse
Democrats are running a new ad in Georgia showing Republican candidate Herschel Walker admitting to putting a gun to his ex-wife’s head, and his ex-wife describing in detail abuse and threats she allegedly suffered at the hands of Walker.
The ad features a clip of Walker saying he put a gun to his then-wife Cindy Grossman’s head, and Grossman recounting the incident. “The first time he held a gun to my head, he held the gun to my temple, and said he was going to blow my brains out,” Grossman says in the clip, pulled from an interview she gave in 2008.
The 30-second ad, “Threatened,” also cites a 2008 CNN article about Walker’s memoir, in which he revealed he suffered from dissociative identity disorder. It was paid for by a PAC affiliated with Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer’s Senate Majority PAC and is part of a planned $33 million ad blitz from the group, according to NBC News, which first reported the ad.
Grossman filed for divorce in 2001 due to “physically abusive and extremely threatening behavior,” and filed a protective order against Walker four years after their divorce, the AP reported last year.
The new ad Wednesday followed a similar one released by the Republican Accountability Project, a group of anti-Trump conservatives, in early August. Walker said in a video at the time that he was “glad they did this ad.”
“They dug up an old video and took it out of context,” Walker said. “It gives me an opportunity to end the stigma around mental health.” Walker also said he and his ex-wife are now “good friends” and that he “came forward then in an effort to save lives.”
Walker, who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump, won the Republican primary in May with more than two-thirds of the vote.
The Georgia race between Walker, an ex-NFL and University of Georgia star running back, and incumbent Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, is one of the closest in the country and could determine control of the chamber next year. With a little more than two months until the election, polling indicates the race is effectively tied.
“While Herschel Walker has demonstrated a pattern of repeating lies and spreading falsehoods, he has never denied his ex-wife Cindy’s accusations of violence,” a spokesperson for the Senate Majority PAC said in a statement to NBC News. “We encourage voters to further research Herschel Walker’s publicly documented record of violence and decide for themselves whether he is ready to represent Georgia values in the United States Senate.”
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Paul Blest, Khareem Sudlow
