Florida Senate Candidate Val Demings Taunts Herschel Walker with Police Badge: 'This One's Real'

Val Demings/Twitter; John Bazemore/AP/Shutterstock Val Demings (left), Herschel Walker

Florida Senate candidate Val Demings took to Twitter Tuesday to taunt a candidate on the other side of the aisle — Republican Herschel Walker, who has recently come under fire for flashing an honorary police badge that he has claimed allows him to "work with police."

Demings, a Democratic congresswoman and former chief of the Orlando Police Department, shared a photo on Tuesday with her own police badge, adding the caption: "This one's real."

Walker's use of an honorary police badge began publicly in August, when the former football legend turned Georgia Senate candidate posted an image of a Cobb County, Georgia, "Special Deputy Sheriff" badge on Twitter, writing that he "was proud to serve the blue as an Honorary Agent and Special Deputy Sheriff of Cobb County for many years."

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The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports on at least three instances of Walker lying about being in law enforcement, including in 2019, when he said he "spent time at Quantico at the FBI training school," a claim multiple fact-checkers have disputed.

The badge came up again during last week's Georgia Senate Debate with Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, when 60-year-old Walker took the badge out of his suit pocket after his opponent called out several past instances in which the Republican has misled voters about his record.

"One thing I have not done, I've never pretended to be a police officer," Warnock said in a clip from the debate. "And I've never threatened a shootout with the police."

Walker then reached into his coat, responding: "And now, I have to respond to that. No, no, no, I have to respond to that. It's so funny, I am [sic] work with many police officers."

Moderator Tina Tyus-Shaw regained control of the debate by telling Walker to put the "prop away."

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Days later, in an interview with NBC News, Walker was continuing to claim that the honorary badge is "real," and allows him to "work with the police getting things done."

"That's a badge that I was given by a police officer and I do have the badge I carry with me all the time. It's a real badge. It's not a fake badge," Walker told journalist Kristen Welker, according to a transcript of the interview.

His campaign is now reportedly using fake police badges as a publicity tool and plans to hand them out at events featuring Walker.

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Demings, meanwhile, served in law enforcement, graduating from the police academy in 1983 and becoming the first woman to lead the Orlando Police Department in 2007.

Demings participated in her own debate on Tuesday night, facing off against incumbent Republican Marco Rubio, whom she accused of not doing enough to stop violent crime by tightening gun laws.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images; Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images Val Demings, Marco Rubio

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After being elected as a U.S. representative in 2017, the lawmaker earned a spot on President Joe Biden's shortlist of possible running mates in 2020. She was earlier rumored to be mulling a run for governor of Florida.

Instead, she opted to challenge Rubio, officially announcing her candidacy in June 2021 with a three-minute announcement video drawing on her time as the Orlando's Police Department's first female chief of police and her own personal history growing up "in the South poor, Black and female."

Demings, who served 27 years with the Orlando police, said in the video: "I just never got tired of it. Eventually, this working mom worked her way up to chief of police."

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