President-elect Donald Trump says he will nominate Herschel Walker, the former NFL player and failed Georgia candidate for the U.S. Senate, as U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas.
Like many other Trump transition picks, Walker has little to no experience for the position. In a post on Truth Social on Tuesday, Trump praised the Georgia Republican as “a tireless advocate for youth sports” who has “traveled to over 400 Military installations around the World, removing the stigma surrounding mental health.”
Walker mounted a haphazard and ultimately unsuccessful bid for Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock’s Georgia seat in 2022.
Walker mounted a haphazard and ultimately unsuccessful bid for Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock’s Georgia seat in 2022. A number of damaging allegations surfaced during the campaign, including claims that he had separately paid for two women to have an abortion and the revelation that — despite his criticism of absentee Black fathers — he had three children by women to whom he was not married. (Walker has denied that he paid for any abortion.)
Walker will join other Georgia Republicans who have lost Senate races and been picked for positions in Trump’s second administration. Former Sen. Kelly Loeffler, who lost to Warnock in a 2020 special election, has been tapped to lead the Small Business Administration, and former Sen. David Perdue, who lost his seat to Jon Ossoff in the 2020 election, will be Trump’s nominee for U.S. ambassador to China.
Walker has no clear ties to the Bahamas and little to no diplomatic experience. The president-elect’s other picks for ambassadorships so far include Charles Kushner and Michael Boulos, the fathers-in-law of his two daughters; Kimberly Guilfoyle, who announced her engagement to Donald Trump Jr. in 2022; and several major donors to his campaign.