Herschel Walker Opens Up About the Time He Went to a Psychiatric Hospital: ‘Whoa! These People Here Are Crazy’

Georgia Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker opened up this week about the time he went to a mental hospital.

Throughout his candidacy, Walker has spoken about his mental health history as political observers have raised eyebrows over his conduct, statements, and questionable grasp on various issues. On Tuesday, Walker held a closed-door event with evangelical Christians, and he recalled his experience at a psychiatric facility as he sought treatment for mental illness years ago.

From Walker’s monologue:

When you are speaking God’s name, Satan knows your playbook. So he will try and sneak in on it, he tried to sneak in on me…I love the Lord Jesus and I’m not ashamed to admit it but all of a sudden they told me I had a mental problem. ‘Mental problem?’ How does Herschel Walker have a mental problem?’ I’m talking about myself in the third person, but I know that. That’s what I was saying. Then all of a sudden I go, ‘I never drink,’ because you know, when you see people who have mental problems, they drink, they are on alcohol, they are on drugs or something.

Additional footage from inside the event shows Walker going on to say “I started seeing doctors and stuff. I decided to go to the hospital…I remember sitting in this hospital and going, ‘Whoa! These people here are crazy. These people here are crazy and I am not like them.'”

“All of a sudden, as I am sitting there, I realized we all fall short of the glory of God,” he said. “That I am identical to them but what I am doing is, I got full of myself because I was winning everything and doing everything. Even though I was speaking God’s name I was not leading God’s life.”

It’s rare for political candidates to talk about their grapples with mental health, especially since Walker is in the middle of a crucial Senate campaign already plagued with scandal, thanks to explosive new reporting.

The footage comes as Walker is facing major political pressure after The Daily Beast broke the story that he apparently impregnated a woman in 2009 and paid for her to get an abortion. This directly conflicts with Walker’s platform as an anti-abortion absolutist, and his son, Christian Walker, has been ripping his father’s personal conduct on Twitter ever since the report’s publication and Walker’s subsequent denial.

Walker reportedly did not go into detail about any of this during the prayer luncheon.

[H/T Ron Filipkowski]

Watch above.