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.
“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 TruthSocial.
Walker, a Heisman Trophy winner at University of Georgia before playing in the NFL, led a tumultuous Senate campaign two years ago as the Republican nominee in his home state of Georgia, ultimately losing to Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock in a run-off.
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 that the 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 giving a $700 check to an ex-partner, but denied knowing that it was for an abortion.
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 in early January.
Trump has named nearly all of his Cabinet picks, with a handful drawing 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 as ambassadors to France, Greece and Turkey, respectively.