U.S. Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker has said walls don't stop people getting in, during remarks about the southern border where he also expressed support for a wall.
Walker will face Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock in the Georgia Senate runoff on December 6 in a race that polls suggest will be extremely close.
In video shared to Twitter by PatriotTakes, which describes itself as "researchers monitoring and exposing right-wing extremism," Walker told a crowd that he supported putting up a wall to secure the border with Mexico.
"A wall do work," he said. "When you got a wall around your house, people don't... yeah, but they can get in. But, you know what? If they get in, it would be hard to get out because I got a dog that... well, my dog really won't bite, but he's pretty bad anyway."
That video had been viewed more than 300,000 times as of early Wednesday morning.
Walker's comments drew attention to a longstanding policy of former President Donald Trump, who campaigned heavily in the 2016 presidential election on the issue of building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Newsweek has asked the Walker campaign for comment.
Trump has endorsed Walker, but the former president is not expected to campaign for him in the final days of the Georgia runoff election. That follows disappointing midterm results for Republicans, where some high-profile Trump-backed candidates were defeated.
One of the most prominent Trump-endorsed candidates to lose was celebrity surgeon Dr. Mehmet Oz, who was defeated in the crucial Pennsylvania Senate race by Democratic Lt. Governor John Fetterman on November 8.
Walker returned to the campaign trail on Monday, following a break over the Thanksgiving holiday that saw him hold no public events. It reportedly left some of his Republican allies "baffled."
The Walker campaign has also been plagued by controversies, including criticism from his eldest son, and the Republican's tendency to make gaffes in public remarks.
The Warnock campaign has also taken aim at Walker by airing a campaign ad of some of the Republican's speeches, including remarks where he described a vampire movie to the crowd.
Early voting in the Georgia runoff has begun, and high turnout in Democratic areas over the weekend seemed like good news for the Warnock campaign.
However, the final result is expected to be very close, and the most recent polling reflects how tight the contest could be.
Walker led with 48 percent to Warnock's 47 percent in a Phillips Academy poll for Abbot Academy Fund, conducted from November 26 to 27, but a Frederick Polls survey from November 23 to 26 found the race as a dead heat, with both candidates on 50 percent.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Darragh Roche is a U.S. News Reporter based in Limerick, Ireland. His focus is reporting on U.S. politics. He has ... Read more
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