“The View” co-hosts commended Republican Georgia Sen. Herschel Walker’s concession speech after losing to his Democratic opponent, incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock, in Tuesday’s runoff election.
Walker narrowly lost the runoff race by around after Warnock garnered 51.4%, while Walker received 48.6% with more than 95% of the votes counted, according to The New York Times. Georgia voters cast over 3.5 million ballots, with around 95,000 votes separating the two candidates. After multiple outlets called the race, Walker gave a surprisingly positive concession speech to a crowd of supporters, telling them to “believe in America” and the Constitution.
“I was impressed with Herschel Walker’s concession speech,” co-host Joy Behar said. “No mention of werewolves or vampires, he was right on it,” she added, alluding to a November speech in which Walker rambled at length about a late-night monster movie he’d recently watched.
“He made a concession speech, that’s the beauty,” co-host Whoopi Goldberg replied.
Behar suggested that Walker knew the “white guys” in the Republican Party, notably Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and former President Donald Trump, used him because of his race for political points.
“I feel like he was relieved in a way. It’s like, somewhere in this guy’s head, he must be thinking these white guys, Lindsey and the other one [Trump] are pushing him around, telling him they’re using him. I think he knew it, and he looked relieved almost,” Behar continued. (RELATED: ‘Morning Joe’ Host Says Herschel Walker Not Intellectually Fit To Be In Senate)
“But I appreciated when he said, ‘I just want to say that you still got to believe in our elected officials, you got to believe in the Constitution,’ because those are his fans out there,” co-host Sara Hines added. “You can lean in and do what other people have done that we’ve watched and just stoke that crowd, and he did the right thing in that moment, and I appreciated that.”
Co-host Sunny Hostin said the results mark another major loss for Trump, who endorsed Walker in the Republican primary. She then accused Republicans of engaging in “identity politics” and described Walker’s candidacy as an “insult” to her as a black woman.
“The Republicans are always arguing about identity politics and how Democrats use too much identity politics and we talk too much about race and we talk too much about the LGBTQ+ community. They made this race about identity politics,” Hostin said. “They tried to find a black man, because there was another black man running and they found the worst, most unqualified, most undignified black man to run against Sen. Raphael Warnock, who has so much dignity and is actually a pastor at Martin Luther King’s former church and has a doctorate, so that’s an insult to me as a black woman. How dare you think that’s okay?”
Co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin agreed that her party used Walker for political points, but gave the candidate credit for showing “more dignity and integrity” than Trump by conceding.
“This shows what a bad man the former president is, that even Herschel Walker — which, there’s a lot of things you could criticize — said this is a moment to say our politics works, the Constitution matters and I lost fair and square,” Griffin said.
Behar said Walker is not “a bad guy,” but was not qualified for Senate. Walker had come under fire after two women accused him of paying for their abortions in the 1990s and early 2000s. The former NFL star repeatedly denied the allegations.