Trump picks former Senate candidate Herschel Walker for ambassador to the Bahamas

President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday named Herschel Walker, who unsuccessfully ran for a Georgia Senate seat in 2022, as his pick for U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas.

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“Herschel has spent decades serving as an Ambassador to our Nation’s youth, our men and women in the Military, and athletes at home and abroad,” Trump wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social.

Walker, a Heisman Trophy winner at the University of Georgia before he played in the NFL, led a tumultuous Senate campaign two years ago as the Republican nominee in his home state, Georgia, ultimately losing to Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock in a runoff.

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NBC News reported in 2022 that financial troubles, micromanaging and Walker’s evasiveness about his past all contributed to problems during his candidacy. His campaign was rocked just weeks before the election when a bombshell report said Walker, a staunch anti-abortion candidate, paid for a woman’s abortion in 2009.

Trump, a longtime friend of Walker’s who encouraged him to seek the Senate seat, said at the time that Walker was “being slandered and maligned.” In a 2022 interview with NBC News, Walker acknowledged having given a $700 check to an ex-partner but denied having known it was for an abortion.

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Walker, who campaigned with Trump during the 2024 presidential race, must be confirmed by a simple majority in the Senate for the ambassador post. Republicans take control of the chamber early next month.

Trump has named nearly all of his Cabinet picks, a handful of whom have drawn scrutiny from some Republicans in the Senate. He has also made several high-profile picks for ambassadorships, naming Charles Kushner, Kimberly Guilfoyle and Tom Barrack to be ambassadors to France, Greece and Turkey, respectively.