Jon Lovett, an ex-speechwriter for former President Barack Obama, called on Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) to resign on Tuesday amid her lengthy health-related absence from the Senate.
Feinstein, the oldest serving member of the Senate, revealed on March 2 that she was hospitalized for shingles treatment after being diagnosed with an infection in February.
Lovett, who is also the co-founder of progressive media company Crooked Media, argued that Feinstein’s current absence from the upper chamber is keeping the Senate from confirming justices – and that more people should be demanding her immediate resignation.
“There’s been a lot of reporting about Dianne Feinstein no longer being fit to serve in the Senate representing the biggest state in this country. She is currently out for shingles. That is sad. That is obviously not her fault,” Lovett said on his podcast, “Pod Save America,” according to the Hill.
“But because she is not in the Judiciary Committee, [Democratic Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin] has said that it has made it basically impossible to move a lot of these lower court nominees to the Senate for a vote, which means that Dianne Feinstein, who should not be in the Senate, is now preventing us from being able to confirm judges,” Lovett said.
“I think what the people around Dianne Feinstein are doing, allowing, being part of this farce of having a lack of a senator in such an important job is really wrong,” he continued. “And Dianne Feinstein should no longer be in the Senate. She has to resign and more people should be calling on her to resign.”
Feinstein said after her release from the hospital that she is “recovering at home,” where she continues to receive treatment for shingles and that she looks forward to “returning to the Senate as soon as possible.”
For the last several weeks, Democrats in the Senate have been limited to only 49 members, equaling Republicans, due to the absence of Feinstein and Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), who was hospitalized for treatment for clinical depression.
Durbin told The Hill earlier this month that Democrats in the Senate hope to be “back to full strength” after Easter.
When asked by reporters that day about the announcement, the California Democrat appeared confused that it was made.
“You put out the statement?” asked an incredulous-sounding Feinstein, before telling the press: “I didn’t know they put it out.”
“It is what it is,” the senator added. “I think the time has come. I have a whole other year. I have things that are underway. I expect to achieve them, I hope, and so we’ll see.”
Unnamed Senate colleagues and former staffers had claimed in April of last year that Feinstein’s memory was rapidly deteriorating and that her staff did much of her work.
Reps. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) and Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) have both announced that they will run for her vacant seat in 2024.
Arizon’s ex-Democrat Sen. Kyrsten Sinema will reportedly run for Senate in 2024 as an independent — setting the stage for a potential three-way race in the Grand Canyon state.
The report was based on pictures of a slideshow mapping a moderate 2024 run — apparently taken at a shared workspace in Phoenix, where the Senator and her team met to discuss the next steps.
According to pictures of two slides obtained by The Post, Sinema may not have yet discussed her plan with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) or the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, leaving both scrambling to back another candidate in a tight race.
“A three-way race in Arizona is a nightmare scenario for Democrats. Schumer’s hold on a slim majority is getting weaker every day,” one national Republican strategist told The Post.
Sinema, 46, plans to have a baseline poll, opposition research and focus group feedback finished by Sept. 30.
Her full campaign staff and 2024 polling schedule are set to be completed by Dec. 31.
Another slide presents Sinema’s campaign message as the “independent voice for Arizona.”
“As Arizona’s senior senator, she’s committed to ignoring partisan politics, shutting out the noise and delivering real results helping everyday Arizonans build better lives for themselves and their families,” the slide states.
The centrist senator’s decision could open the way for both Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) and failed Arizona GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake to enter the race unopposed.
Offices for Sinema and Schumer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The DSCC also didn’t immediately comment.
Sinema has apparently cozied up to GOP donors at events in the past year by mocking her former colleagues as a bunch of “old dudes … eating Jell-O.”
“Old dudes are eating Jell-O, everyone is talking about how great they are,” she said at one reception in Washington, DC, according to Politico.
“I don’t really need to be there for that. That’s an hour and a half twice a week that I can get back.
“I spend my days doing productive work, which is why I’ve been able to lead every bipartisan vote that’s happened the last two years.”
Sinema still caucuses with Democrats and often casts deciding votes to pass legislation with the party’s razor-thin 51-49 majority in the Senate.
She has also been a staunch defender of the Senate filibuster, which both Biden and Schumer have called to be abolished.
“It’s our job to keep that pressure so that we stay right in the middle of public policy, protect the critical middle part of our country,” Sinema said at a farm bureau event with the Arizona Chamber of Commerce on Thursday, according to The Journal.
A February poll by OH Predictive Insights found Gallego ahead of Sinema and other Republicans in at least eight potential match-ups — four of which showed Sinema running as an independent.
The DSCC hasn’t yet endorsed Rep.Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), though its chairman, Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) told The Journal the lack of an endorsement is standard practice at this point in the year.
“It’s early, we haven’t been endorsing in races,” he said.
Lake, a former TV anchor and far-right candidate who lost the 2022 Arizona governor’s race, is the likely Republican frontrunner if she enters the race, despite embracing allegations of election fraud in her race and the 2020 presidential election.
To get on the ballot, Sinema must gather more than 40,000 signatures from nonaffiliated voters by the end of April.
Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott “put it down in black and white” that he doesn’t support sunsetting Social Security and Medicare as part of his ambitious plan to slash federal spending.
Scott amended his Rescue America plan on Friday to exclude Social Security, Medicare, national security, veterans’ benefits, and other essential services from his proposal to sunset federal programs every five years and force Congress to pass legislation to reauthorize them.
“That plank of my Rescue America plan was obviously not intended to include entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security — programs that hard-working people have paid into their entire lives — or the funds dedicated to our national security,” Scott wrote in an op-ed published by the Washington Examiner on Friday.
“So, since the folks up here are clearly too confused and disingenuous to get it, I’ll put it down in black and white so they can read it, or have someone read it to them,” Scott added.
“I believe that all federal legislation should sunset in five years, with specific exceptions for Social Security, Medicare, national security, veterans’ benefits, and other essential services. If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again,” he clarified.
Scott’s original plan never directly called for an end to Social Security and Medicare, but it did specifically exempt those programs until the changes he made on Friday, reflected on a website dedicated to his Rescue America proposal.
President Biden appeared to call out Scott’s plan during his State of the Union address earlier this month, outraging Republicans who either believed Biden was misrepresenting the proposal or unfairly accusing Republicans of supporting Scott’s plan.
“Instead of making the wealthy pay their fair share, some Republicans, some Republicans want Medicare and Social Security to sunset,” Biden claimed amid an uproar from the GOP side of the House chamber.
“I’m not saying it’s a majority,” Biden added as GOP members heckled him.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) suggested after the State of the Union this month that Scott’s plan was in fact looking to sunset popular entitlement programs, and he disavowed it.
“It’s just a bad idea. I think it will be a challenge for him [Scott] to deal with this in his own re-election in Florida, a state with more elderly people than any other state in America,” McConnell added.
In his op-ed, Scott took aim at McConnell for apparently misunderstanding his Rescue America agenda.
“I have never supported cutting Social Security or Medicare, ever. To say otherwise is a disingenuous Democrat lie from a very confused president. And Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is also well aware of that. It’s shallow gotcha politics, which is what Washington does,” Scott said.
If Gigi Sohn gets confirmed to join the Federal Communications Commission, the Biden administration may install the ultra-progressive telecom maven as chair of the powerful panel, insiders told On The Money.
In a Tuesday Senate hearing, Sohn claimed that any rumor she wants to be chair is “false.” However, sources say Sohn has privately told friends that the only reason she has weathered her year-and-a-half candidacy is because she has been assured by White House officials that they plan to make her chair.
“It would be incredibly embarrassing to pull her now,” one source noted.
Specifically, people close to Sohn say the administration believes it will be easier to get Senate approval for her nomination as a commissioner and then appoint her as chair to replace Jessica Rosenworcel, a Democratic Obama appointee. Indeed, Biden officials followed a similar playbook when they installed Lina Khan – a left-leaning, anti-tech trustbuster – as chair of the Federal Trade Commission in 2021.
Sohn did not respond to a request for comment; the White House did not respond to a request for comment.
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It’s unclear if Sohn will win the Senate nomination, with Democrat Joe Manchin reportedly still on the fence. If people say Democrats are hopeful she’ll pull it off — and eventually replace current FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel as chair, insiders told On The Money.
Conservatives fret that Sohn — who has previously slammed Fox as “dangerous to our democracy” and encouraged the FCC to examine if conservative-leaning Sinclair Broadcast Group is “qualified” to keep its broadcast license — would move as FCC chair to revoke the license of right-leaning talk radio stations and even cable channels.
“If your license gets pulled your program is yanked immediately,” a source added.Most recently, Sohn worked at Locast — a startup that captured and retransmitted broadcast signals online without permission from cable companies.
Locast was slapped with a $32 million lawsuit that ultimately cost just $1 million to settle after it became clear Sohn would be nominated for the FCC, The Post reported.
Legislation banning the use of TikTok on government devices passed the Senate on Wednesday amid concerns data obtained by the popular social-media app may fall into the hands of the Chinese Communist Party.
The “No TikTok on Government Devices Act,” sponsored by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), would prohibit individuals from downloading or using TikTok on phones, tablets, and computers issued by the US government or government corporations.
The bill passed after no senators objected to the measure. It must still pass the House before heading to President Biden’s desk.
“TikTok is a Trojan Horse for the Chinese Communist Party. It’s a major security risk to the United States, and until it is forced to sever ties with China completely, it has no place on government devices,” Hawley said in a statement. “States across the U.S. are banning TikTok on government devices. It’s time for Joe Biden and the Democrats to help do the same.”
At least five states — Maryland, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota and Texas — have banned government agencies from using TikTok over security concerns.
New York lawmakers also introduced a bill this week that would ban state employees and contractors from downloading the app onto government-issued electronics.
At the federal level, another anti-TikTok bill was introduced in Congress this week that seeks to ban the social media platform from the US altogether.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) introduced the Averting the National Threat of Internet Surveillance, Oppressive Censorship and Influence and Algorithmic Learning by the Chinese Communist Party (ANTI-SOCIAL CCP) Act on Tuesday .
Rubio and Gallagher’s bill would ban “all transactions from any social media company in, or under the influence of, China, Russia and several other foreign countries of concern,” such as Iran, North Korea and Venezuela.
TikTok’s parent company, Beijing-based ByteDance LTD, is required under Chinese law to disclose its data to the Chinese Communist Party, according to Rubio.
“This isn’t about creative videos — this is about an app that is collecting data on tens of millions of American children and adults every day,” Rubio said in a statement. “We know it’s used to manipulate feeds and influence elections. We know it answers to the People’s Republic of China.”
TikTok claims it has never shared U.S. user data with the CCP and wouldn’t if asked.
A TikTok spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal that Hawley’s legislation “does nothing to advance U.S. national security interests. We hope that rather than continuing down that road, he will urge the administration to move forward on an agreement that would actually address his concerns.”
WASHINGTON – Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) is asking Elon Musk to stop Twitter from becoming the “Wild West of social media” after the billionaire changed his newly acquired social media site’s verification process to allow anyone with $8 to obtain the sought-after blue check mark.
“Your Twitter takeover, rapid and haphazard imposition of platform changes, removal of safeguards against disinformation and firing of large numbers of Twitter employees have accelerated Twitter’s descent into the Wild West of social media,” Markey told Musk in an official letter Friday.
Twitter, under Musk’s direction, began Nov. 5 to dole out check marks – which used to be reserved for accounts of notable companies, celebrities, politicians, journalists and others – to those who pay for the Twitter Blue service.
The monthly subscription plan also came with other benefits, such as an “edit” button for already posted tweets and fewer advertisements, but Musk highlighted the elusive checkmark to the package with his takeover.
“Blue checkmark: Power to the people. Your account will get a blue checkmark, just like the celebrities, companies and politicians you follow,” the company wrote in an announcement earlier this month.
Some have been taking advantage of the new system, creating false accounts for companies and individuals. Last week, a Washington Post reporter set up an account under the handle “@realedmarkey” for a story showing how easily the system can be abused.
“The [Washington] Post reporter was able to accomplish this impersonation despite Twitter having previously verified my actual Twitter account under the handle ‘@SenMarkey,’” the senator said. “Safeguards such as Twitter’s blue checkmark once allowed users to be smart, critical consumers of news and information in Twitter’s global town square.”
Markey accused Musk of “putting profits over people and his debt over stopping disinformation,” posting his letter to Twitter over the weekend.
On Sunday, Musk snapped back: “Perhaps it is because your real account sounds like a parody?”
In response, the senator pointed out bigger issues Musk’s companies are facing, including the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s investigations into multiple Tesla crashes and the Federal Trade Commission’s investigation into a possible violation involving an obligation Twitter must comply with whenever it experiences a structural change, such as mergers and sales.
“One of your companies is under an FTC consent decree. Auto safety watchdog NHTSA is investigating another for killing people. And you’re spending your time picking fights online,” Markey said. “Fix your companies. Or Congress will.”
As Republican Adam Laxalt’s lead in the Nevada Senate race dwindles with 93% of the vote counted, his campaign is reportedly “bracing for a loss” and weighing asking for a recount.
Laxalt is ahead of incumbent Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto by just 800 votes after 23,000 mail-in ballots were tabulated in Clark County on Friday. The results from the mail-in ballots are favoring Cortez Masto at a 2-1 rate. Clark County, home to Las Vegas, reportedly has about 27,000 mail-in ballots left to be counted.
“The mood is not great,” a Laxalt campaign adviser told the Daily Mail, adding that staffers are looking for someone to blame.
“I’ll say this, internally, the knives are out,” the person said, explaining that publicly the campaign is projecting confidence while behind the scenes staffers are “bracing for a loss.”
The Laxalt campaign is apparently weighing whether or not to seek a recount in the event of a loss, which would require Laxalt’s team to cover the costs involved.
“There is an internal discussion right now on whether or not to ask for a statewide recount,” the adviser told the Daily Mail. “And that would obviously entail fundraising … so they are working at identifying fundraisers.”
In a tweet on Friday, Laxalt denied claims that his campaign is anticipating a loss.
“This is totally and completely false,” the former Nevada attorney general wrote in a tweet, linking to the report.
“Absolutely nothing has changed since our Tucker interview or my tweet last night. We are waiting on results tonight and expect her percentages to continue to remain under what [Cortez Masto] needs. We still remain confident,” Laxalt concluded.
However, the Daily Mail also reports that text messages purportedly between a Laxalt campaign staffer and someone linked to the campaign further corroborate the grim internal outlook.
“Clark and Washoe [counties] mail-in votes will overwhelm [the Laxalt campaign’s] small lead,” one message read. “They thought there were far fewer votes remaining.”
“Trump world wants them to declare fraud before they keep ‘finding votes,’” another message said, suggesting that the campaign employ Trump’s frequently used rhetoric about stolen elections.
Herschel Walker says he’s still racing at full speed.
“I’m like Ricky Bobby – I don’t come to lose,” he said, referencing the 2006 Will Ferrell comedy movie “Talladega Nights” at his suburban Atlanta watch party.
The former football hero pulled a line from a famous movie in another sport to show supporters he’s not giving up his chase of Georgia Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock, as their election contest heads to a likely runoff.
With 94% of the vote in, Warnock has 49.3% of the vote compared to Walker’s 48.6%. Libertarian candidate Chase Oliver scored 2.1% of the vote.
Walker or Warnock need to get 50% or more of the vote to avoid a Dec. 6 run-off that looks increasingly likely.
Warnock told supporters late Tuesday that he is monitoring results in a race he expected to be close.
“That’s where we are, so y’all just hang in there,” the Senator said. “I’m feeling good.”
The runoff would be a familiar territory for Warnock, who was elected via runoff in a 2020 special election to fill the reminder of Sen. Johnny Isakson’s term. He defeated Kelly Loeffler, who had been appointed to the Senate and served for one year, with 51% of the vote.
SPRINGFIELD TOWNSHIP, PA — This past June, Dr. Mehmet Oz was declared the winner of Pennsylvania’s Republican primary for US Senate by just 951 votes. Even so, he was not in a good position. And things were about to get a whole lot worse.
His bitter primary contest against businessman David McCormick had left him battered. His Democratic opponent, Pennsylvania’s Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, had gone on the attack — portraying Oz as an elite carpetbagger from New Jersey. Polls showed Oz had slid into a double-digit deficit in the race.
The money had dried up, and establishment Republicans were within an inch on giving up on him. The heart surgeon-turned-celebrity doctor was left with two choices: Go big or go home.
Oz went big — taking turns driving with his staff in his navy Denali — to meet voters in almost every county in the state. He held 90-minute town hall meetings and didn’t leave until he fielded every single question. He hosted business round tables, visited parents groups, maneuvered around cow pies at farm shows. With each visit, he gave interviews to local radio, print and television outlets, addressing the specific concerns of those communities.
Recently, his months on the road have started to pay off. With just one month to go before Election Day on Nov. 8, in one of the most important seats in the country, this race is now a squeaker. The most recent RealClearPolitics polling average shows Fetterman’s once-massive lead over Oz has shrunk to a statistical tie, and the Cook Political Report is now calling the race a toss-up.
Sitting on a worn couch in a Philadelphia banquet hall, Oz is dressed in a navy suit and appears to be calm under pressure. He insists that his trip from the bottom of the polls to a near tie hasn’t rattled him.
“It really humbles you,” he said, “when you meet people in their backyards, or on their farms, or in their neighborhoods and hear them talk about the things their communities need and how deeply it concerns them when those needs aren’t met. And it also has energized me. These conversations remind me how important it is to serve people’s needs, to really listen, and stay connected to them — and not Washington — if I am elected to the Senate.”
While Oz was busy building relationships with voters, Fetterman built his following on Twitter. He mocked Oz for where he used to live (New Jersey), for what kind of shoes he supposedly wears (Gucci loafers), for calling a veggie tray “crudité.” Snooki from MTV’s “Jersey Shore” was even enlisted to tease Oz.
But Oz said he didn’t let Fetterman’s stunt tactics get to him.
“There was an epiphany for me after seeing a series of memes [Fetterman] sent out that made me pause and say, ‘You know, I didn’t give up everything I was doing in my life in an effort to help the country, to try to heal the country, try to fix some of the challenges that we’re facing, in order to talk about mundane topics that have no real benefit to the voter.’ ”
Even so, Fetterman’s jokes initially seemed to land with the voters. A cult fan base cheered on his online antics, while the media celebrated his progressive populist bona fides.
Never mind that his parents supported him financially until he was 49, or that he had failed to improve Braddock, the industrial town where he served as mayor from 2006 to 2019. Despite his claims that he “actually made his community safer,” data between 2005 and 2018 shows violent crime went up under his leadership, not down.
But none of this seemed to matter. Not even a stroke Fetterman suffered in May, leaving him unable to process verbal questions, could derail his campaign.
And then, as Fetterman started giving short speeches at campaign rallies, his halting, slurred, sometimes confused remarks forced reporters to start asking harder questions about the true impact of his stroke.
Oz said he has deep compassion for Fetterman’s health issues. But he has a problem with his lack of transparency. So far, his opponent has not disclosed his medical records despite calls for him to be more upfront about his ability to serve in Congress.
“You owe voters that courtesy, it is as simple as that,” Oz said.
When Fetterman made his first public appearance since his stroke on Aug. 12, Oz immediately challenged him to a debate. He asked for five debates from Sept. 6 to Oct. 5 — all sponsored by local television affiliates across the state.
Fetterman called his requests “an act of desperation,” but he eventually conceded to a single face-off on Oct. 25 — more than one month after early voting began on Sept. 19 and just two weeks before Election Day.
Oz said voters deserve answers before the ballots are cast.
“The absentee ballots are out, they are circulating. Not only has Fetterman not done any interviews with reporters to address tough questions, he won’t do a debate [so] voters [can] make a decision after hearing what his positions and solutions are on important issues, like crime, or the drug crisis or inflation,” he said.
Oz — who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump — has known him for years before either man ran for office. Although he says he was excited about Trump’s support and acknowledges it helped him in the primary, he hasn’t pushed their allegiance too hard during his campaign.
At an event in the Philadelphia suburbs of Delaware County, where residents chose Biden over Trump in 2020 by just over 80,000 votes, crowds started showing up hours before Oz was set to speak. Of the several hundred in attendance, it was interesting to note that only three wore red “Make America Great Again” hats.
Chris Burkett 67, a recently retired civil engineer from West Chester, said Trump is the last thing he is thinking about right now, even though he voted for him in both presidential elections.
“They really underestimate the voter. Democrats and reporters that is,” Burkett said. “They also don’t listen or understand what our concerns are. We aren’t voting for president, we are voting for Senate. That shadow of Trump they try to create only exists in their minds.
“Everyone wants to [put] Trump on the ballot,” he continued. “They’re doing everything they can with Mar-a-Lago to get everybody’s attention away from those major issues like inflation, crime, the border, the disaster we had in Afghanistan.”
Several people around Burkett nodded their heads in agreement.
“I’m looking at voting for somebody who I trust to make the decisions that are going to need to be made in the future and about the future,” Burkett added, saying he supported Oz long before Trump endorsed him in the primary.
Winning this race in Pennsylvania is critical for both parties in their efforts to grab control of the Senate. Currently the upper chamber is split 50-50, with the Democrats enjoying nominal control thanks to Vice President Kamala Harris serving as the tie-breaker. While 34 of the 100 seats in the Senate are up for grabs, just seven of them — in Georgia, Nevada, Wisconsin, Arizona, Wisconsin, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania — are toss-ups that will decide who wins the majority.
Most voters know Oz as a regular contributor to the “Oprah Winfrey Show,” followed by his own 13-year-long eponymous television show, and his many New York Times bestselling books.
But Oz’s story is also that of a successful first-generation American. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, to parents who immigrated from Turkey, the 61-year-old Oz attended Harvard for his undergraduate degree in business, then Penn for his medical schooling. He and his wife, Lisa, have been married 37 years, have four adult children and four grandchildren. They own several investment properties including a cattle farm and commercial real estate, and now live in the house they were married in, in Bryn Athyn, Pa., while they renovate their new home down the street.
And yet, despite Fetterman’s attempts to paint Oz as an elitist, the doctor has had great success connecting with people who aren’t as financially fortunate.
In Erie last week, Oz spent the day with local black entrepreneurs like Michael Hook to discuss how to turn the area into a more prominent, safer place for locals.
Hook told Oz how he came out of prison 23 years ago and now runs Making Lives Better, a non-profit that focuses on mentoring young men. After a long chat with Oz about fixing the drug problem plaguing the city, Hook said he was backing the doctor for Senate.
“I appreciate that he took the time to listen but also spent real time in the neighborhood. When you show up, people respect that. I respect that,” Hook told me.
In September, Oz spontaneously stopped by the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia — a minority neighborhood struggling with open air drug markets and dogged by some of the highest rates of gun violence in the city. When several drug addicts asked Oz for his help, he took them to a detox center.
“I provided my contact information to all of them and I heard back from one of them that evening,” Oz told me. “I hope to hear from them again.”
David Urban, a Washington, DC-based Republican political consultant who served as former Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter’s chief of staff, said the arc of Oz’s campaign has been nothing short of remarkable.
“Not many people expected much, then you look at what happened in Kensington with him putting people in his truck and taking them to rehab, it really showed his humanity,” Urban said. “It showed him hitting his stride at the right time and finding his voice.
“He’s a serious guy, capable of doing serious work,” Urban added. “It is a tactic that has re-energized his campaign and that is why the race is where it is right now.”
Oz said he is happy that people are finally taking notice of him for all the right reasons.
“I’m going to go back to the roots of why I got into this, what are the challenges that we’re facing as a nation and what is really happening that we can fix,” he said. “Because I want to be optimistic. I don’t go to the operating room with patients knowing that I’m going to do poorly. I go there knowing I can fix them.
“This is the difference between knowing and guessing. I’m not hypothesizing they might live. I have to, in my heart, believe I can fix the problem.”
Georgia GOP senate candidate Herschel Walker vehemently denied a report that he had paid for a girlfriend to get an abortion in 2009 — blasting the claim as a “repugnant hatchet job.”
Walker, a staunch anti-abortion advocate who has supported a national abortion ban, took to Twitter Monday to forcefully repudiate reporting by the Daily Beast that claims the former NFL player paid for his then-girlfriend to have an abortion in 2009.
“This is a flat-out lie — and I deny this in the strongest possible terms,” the 1982 Georgia Bulldog Heisman Trophy winner turned political candidate said.
“This is another repugnant hatchet job from a democratic [sic] activist disguised as a reporter who has obsessively attacked my family and tried to tear me down since this race started,” Walker, 60, continued.
The woman, who asked to remain anonymous, told the Daily Beast that she and Walker mutually agreed not to go ahead with the pregnancy.
She provided a $575 receipt from an abortion clinic as well as a signed personal check for $700 from Walker and a “get well” card purportedly signed by the former Dallas Cowboys star.
The Post has not been able to independently verify the allegations.
Meanwhile, Walker’s statement was slammed by his 23-year-old son Christian Walker, who the former running back shares with ex-wife Cindy DeAngelis Grossman, according to Politico.
“I know my mom and I would really appreciate if my father Herschel Walker stopped lying and making a mockery of us,” Christian Walker said.
“I don’t care about someone who has a bad past and takes accountability. But how DARE YOU LIE and act as though you’re some ‘moral, Christian, upright man.’ You’ve lived a life of DESTROYING other peoples lives. How dare you,” he continued later.
In response to his son’s accusations, the senate hopeful wrote: “I LOVE my son no matter what.”
Walker is hoping to defeat Democrat Sen. Raphael Warnock in November on the strength of an endorsement from former president Donald Trump. It is in one of the nation’s most competitive Senate races.
He was trailing Warnock by two percentage points in the Peach State at the end of September, according to FiveThirtyEight.
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