Herschel Walker claims that he found out for the first time on Friday the identity of the woman who claimed Walker paid for her abortion 13 years ago and then asked her to have a second abortion ten years ago. NBC News received copies of text messages between Julie Walker, Herschel’s wife, and the woman. In those messages, the woman asks Julie if she knew Herschel paid for the abortion and asked her to get a second one.

The reason the Walker campaign provided NBC with the texts was to get out in front of a piece in the New York Times just hours before it was published. The NYT published an interview with the woman on Friday.

“The first I knew about any of this was when some reporter asked me about an abortion. And I’m like, ‘No, that’s a lie.’ And then I was asked if I paid for an abortion, and I said No. I did not pay for an abortion,” said Herschel Walker. “I’m not saying she did or didn’t have one [an abortion]. I’m saying I don’t know anything about that. I don’t know.”

Herschel Walker, who often limits interviews to conservative news outlets, added that “I have nothing to hide. That’s why I’m talking to you.”

The messages his campaign provided between the woman and Julie Walker dated back to May 2022.

If I’m reading all this correctly, it seems that Julie Walker was acting as a go-between for Herschel and this woman. Julie, apparently, didn’t know about Herschel paying for the abortion or that he asked her to get a second one. She didn’t and they broke up. Their son is now ten years old. He is one of four children Walker admits to fathering since the campaign began. NBC has not released her name.

“Did you know Herschel paid for my abortion the first time? Or that he told me it wasn’t the ‘right time’ to have [her current child]?” the woman wrote in a 9:54 a.m. text message sent Friday to Herschel Walker’s wife, Julie Walker, who initiated the conversation.

In response, Julie Walker acknowledged that she had tried to be a mediator between Herschel Walker and the woman, who seldom corresponded directly with her son’s father.

“This message makes me incredibly sad. You know I have continually tried to bridge a better relationship between you and Herschel putting [the child] first,” Julie Walker wrote to the woman, who did not return messages to NBC News requesting comment.

That’s a helluva conversation to be having via texts, right? After all this time Julie Walker is told that her husband paid for another woman’s abortion and it’s just a month out from an election in which he is running on a pro-life, pro-family campaign. It’s still not clear why she has chosen the timing. She was happy when he announced he was running for office and congratulated him when he won the Republican primary.

According to the text messages, the woman also expressed early support for Herschel Walker’s campaign, especially in the run-up to the May 24 GOP primary, when Walker first began running as an anti-abortion conservative.

“He’ll do great & you will keep him focused! Proud of you guys!” the woman wrote to Julie Walker on the day of the primary election. “Wishing nothing but the best for you tonight!!!”

The night after Herschel Walker’s win, the woman texted again: “Congratulations!!!”

As I wrote earlier this week, this is a soap opera saga that just keeps getting worse. As much as we’d like to, though, we can’t look away. The stakes are high and a family’s personal drama is all mixed up with a race that may determine the balance of power in the U.S. Senate.

Frankly, neither candidate is a jewel. Raphael Warnock, the Democrat incumbent, has his own ugly baggage. He even is accused of running over his wife with his car. Voters are either going to have to hold their noses and vote for their party’s candidate or skip the race on the ballot, which allows Warnock to be re-elected. Warnock isn’t acceptable for anyone who is pro-life. He supports abortion up to the time of delivery, no restrictions at all. Plus he votes 100% for the agenda of progressives in Congress.

The text messages between Julie and the woman are described as friendly and mostly about the boy and his activities. However, things began to change as the woman began getting calls from reporters about Herschel’s children with different women.

After the primary, the woman warned Julie Walker that she had been contacted by a reporter and asked Julie Walker if she should tell the press that the candidate “complies 100% with the child support agreement.”

Days later, on June 15, Julie Walker shared a series of suggestions with the woman about how she could respond to press inquiries. Those messages came a day after The Daily Beast published a story about one of Herschel Walker’s previously publicly unacknowledged children.

The woman replied on July 7 when she asked, “Any more surprises we should know about?” It appeared to be a veiled reference to two Daily Beast articles reporting that Walker had two additional previously publicly unacknowledged children and that he had lied to campaign staff about it. In a statement to The Daily Beast in response to the report about the additional children, Walker said, “I have four children. Three sons and a daughter. They’re not ‘undisclosed’— they’re my kids.”

In the Friday text message exchanges between the two, the woman explained that she did not know about another of Walker’s children, saying that boy “was a surprise to us all” in the rest of the family.

As she did for The Daily Beast, the woman showed the NYT a copy of the receipt for the abortion from an Atlanta clinic in 2009. She showed a copy of a $700 check from Walker as reimbursement for the abortion cost. And she showed a copy of a get well card signed with a message from Herschel. Allegedly. Both outlets confirmed the details of her story with a close friend of hers who supported her during this time.

Now that he acknowledges he knows who she is, Walker says the woman has been angry at him for years.

“She has been angry at me for years and it is very difficult. She’s a big, big advocate for abortion rights; she’s said that,” he said.

Julie Walker didn’t question the woman’s motives, and instead said that “I’m sad. I’m taken totally back. I want Herschel to have a relationship with his kid and now this is just tough.”

In the NYT piece, published Friday and updated Saturday morning, the woman now seems to be motivated by a desire for revenge. She voiced anger that Walker’s supporters are standing by him and dismissing her story.

In the interviews, she described the frustration of watching Republicans rally around Mr. Walker, dismiss her account and bathe him in prayer and praise, calling him a good man.

She said she wanted Georgia voters to know what kind of man Mr. Walker was to her.

“As a father, he’s done nothing. He does exactly what the courts say, and that’s it,” she said. “He has to be held responsible, just like the rest of us. And if you’re going to run for office, you need to own your life.”

So, not exactly “nothing”, right? Herschel has financially supported the child and abided by the legal agreement between himself and the woman. He sends birthday and Christmas presents.

Walker told reporters gathered at his campaign event Friday that he knew they were there because of the woman’s story. “You’re here because Democrats are desperate to hold onto power,” he said. “They are desperate to make this race about my family.”

The woman is a Democrat and maybe that all plays into the drama now that election day is so close and Walker has a shot at winning the election, even after all this. Perhaps she never expected him to win the race. She told The Times that she wasn’t given any advanced notice that he was entering the race and that she was shocked when he did.

So, here we are, a month out from the midterm election. Herschel Walker needs to hold a press conference and tell his story. Lay it out and do so honestly. He needs to be transparent and answer these claims as best as he can. He owes it to voters, especially the ones who may now question whether or not they can vote for him. I don’t think it is a coincidence that Warnock is campaigning today with his two young daughters in tow. He has his own baggage, as I mentioned, and part of that is his battling his ex-wife for custody of the children, ages 3 and 5.