The GOP’s Herschel Walker dilemma is Sean Hannity’s fault – By Matt Gertz (Media Matters) / Oct 7, 2022
Who is to blame for the Republican Party’s predicament, as Herschel Walker’s U.S. Senate campaign in Georgia reels from the firestorm kicked off by a report that the vocal abortion opponent once paid for one? Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan (R-GA) told CNN that Donald Trump, an early Walker endorser, is responsible for his nomination. Others point fingers at Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who shed his reported misgivings and supported the volatile first-time candidate, or the GOP at large. While there’s some truth to all of those analyses, they miss a key figure in the Peach State plight.
Sean Hannity, the Republican kingmaker, Trump confidante, and Fox News host, is the one who put Walker on the political map and set the stage for his nomination — and the GOP’s current political dilemma. Walker owes his position to the patronage of a Fox prime-time host, just like the Republican Senate nominees in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Arizona.
Walker — like Trump before him — changed his reputation from celebrity to plausible GOP candidate through frequent visits to Fox. And no one gave him a more potent platform than Hannity. Walker has made at least 24 appearances on Hannity since June 2020. Nine of those interviews came before Walker launched his run on August 25, 2021; 10 occurred between that date and the May 24, 2022, primary election; and five have come during the general election campaign.
But Hannity has done more than simply put Walker in front of his audience. In early 2021, he repeatedly urged Walker to run for office as a Republican, pledging his support to the former NFL star. “The GOP hype man and sometime Trump adviser seems to be trying to will Walker’s potential candidacy into existence,” I noted that April.
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