() Herschel Walker is having a big week.
Just days after the former football great announced on social media that he had graduated from the University of Georgia—42 years after starring between the hedges—Walker was nominated to be the next ambassador to the Bahamas by President-elect Donald Trump.
“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 said in a Truth Social post. “A successful businessman, philanthropist, former Heisman Trophy winner, and NFL great, Herschel has been a tireless advocate for youth sports.”
Trump helped recruit Walker to run for U.S. Senate as a Republican from Georgia in 2022, but he was defeated by incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock in a close race.
The contest had national implications as Warnock’s win gave Democrats a slim majority in the Senate.
Trump nominated three other prominent Georgians for positions in his administration.
Former U.S. Sen. David Perdue accepted an offer from Trump to serve as the next U.S. ambassador to China. Perdue unsuccessfully challenged Gov. Brian Kemp in the 2022 election.
Prior to that, he lost his reelection bid to now-Sen. Jon Ossoff in the state’s highly contentious 2020 election. The particularly unusual case saw the historically red state flip blue not only in the presidential race, but also lose both Senate seats, giving Democrats the majority for incoming President Joe Biden.
While Kemp and Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger refused to investigate allegations of widespread election irregularities in Fulton County and elsewhere, subsequent probes have indicated that there was likely widespread vote fraud due to illegal ballot harvesting and meddling by local election officials, both in the Nov. 3 election and in a Jan. 5 runoff for the two Senate seats.
Trump also tapped Kelly Loeffler—the former U.S. senator who lost race against Warnock in 2020 to fill the seat of the late Johnny Isakson—to lead the Small Business Association.
Former U.S. Rep. Doug Collins, who ran against Loeffler for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in 2020, was picked by Trump to serve as secretary of Veterans Affairs.
Headline USA’s Ben Sellers contributed to this report.
