Herschel Walker, a 2022 failed candidate for a Georgia Senate seat, was announced President-elect Donald Trump’s choice on Tuesday to serve as the United States ambassador to the Bahamas.
“Herschel has been an ambassador to our country’s youth, our military men and women, and athletes both domestically and overseas for decades,” Trump said on his social media platform, TruthSocial.
As the Republican nominee in his native state of Georgia two years ago, Walker—who won the Heisman Trophy at the University of Georgia before playing in the NFL—led a turbulent Senate campaign before losing in a run-off to Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock.
In 2022, NBC News revealed that Walker’s evasiveness about his past, financial difficulties, and micromanagement all contributed to issues throughout his campaign. Only a few weeks before the election, shocking news broke that the ardent anti-abortion candidate had paid for a woman’s abortion in 2009.
Walker’s longtime friend Trump, who urged him to run for the Senate, claimed at the time that Walker was being defamed and slandered. Walker acknowledged delivering a $700 payment to an ex-partner in a 2022 interview with NBC News, but he denied being aware that the check was for an abortion.
Walker, who ran alongside Trump in the 2024 presidential election, needs to be confirmed as ambassador by a simple majority in the Senate. Early in January, Republicans seize control of the chamber.
Trump has appointed almost all of his Cabinet members, while some Senate Republicans are questioning a few of them. Additionally, he has appointed a number of well-known people to ambassadorships, including Tom Barrackas, Kimberly Guilfoyle, and Charles Kushner to France, Greece, and Turkey, respectively.
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