During a speech in Georgia on Friday night, former President Barack Obama took aim at Republican Senate nominee Herschel Walker, calling him “a celebrity that wants to be a politician,” CNN reported.

While admitting that Walker was indeed “one of the best running backs of all time,” Obama also contended that he is “someone who carries around a phony badge and says he is in law enforcement like a kid playing cops and robbers.” He also attacked his “issues of character” and his “habit of not telling the truth.”

In his first foray onto the campaign trail in 2022, Obama framed the upcoming midterms as a choice election “between politicians who seem willing to do anything to get power and leaders who share our values, who see you and care about you.”

“Just about every Republican politician seems obsessed with two things—owning the libs and getting Donald Trump’s approval,” he continued inside the Gateway Center Arena in College Park, Georgia.

“That’s their agenda, it is not long, it is not complicated and, at least to me, it is not very inspiring. They aren’t interested in actually solving problems. They are interested in making you angry and finding someone to blame. Because that way you may not notice that they have got [no] answers of their own.”

Meanwhile, Fox News reported that Walker on Saturday responded to Obama’s remarks by calling himself a “warrior for God.”

“President Obama was here last night. He said I'm a celebrity. He got that one wrong, didn't he? I'm not a celebrity, I'm a warrior for God. He got something else wrong, too. Remember two years ago he told us to vote for Joe Biden, didn't he? He got that one wrong, did he not? He's lost twice to Georgia already, hasn't he, so I think he probably needs to sit this one out,” said Walker, who has been polling neck and neck with incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA), per the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“I'm sorry to tell former President Obama, I'm sorry, I'm gonna pray for him. I'm gonna pray for him because he needs some help. He needs some help because he got with the wrong horse. Sen. Warnock is the wrong horse. You know he can't do the job, and it's time for him to leave. So don't let the door hit your butt as you walk out of there,” he continued.

Walker once again made headlines last week when a second woman came forward to allege that he was involved in her abortion. The woman, referred to as Jane Doe to protect her identity, claimed during a press conference with her lawyer, Gloria Allred, that Walker had “pressured” her into getting an abortion after she learned she was pregnant in April 1993.

Earlier this month, a Daily Beast report accused Walker of allegedly paying for a former girlfriend’s abortion in 2009. The woman supported her claim with a receipt from an abortion clinic and a bank deposit receipt showing that Walker reimbursed her $700 for the procedure. The news outlet also reported that the same woman is the mother of one of Walker’s children.

Ethen Kim Lieser is a Washington state-based Finance and Tech Editor who has held posts at Google, The Korea Herald, Lincoln Journal Star, AsianWeek, and Arirang TV. Follow or contact him on LinkedIn.

Image: Reuters.