Photo: Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images
As his swearing-in approaches, Donald Trump continues to select a parade of disgraced politicians and celebrities for prominent Cabinet positions. Shortly after sending his son’s ex to Greece, he tapped failed Senate hopeful Herschel Walker to serve as U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas.
You may remember Walker, a former NFL player turned conservative anti-abortion politician, from his disastrous 2022 Senate campaign in Georgia. Walker lost a runoff election to Democratic candidate Raphael Warnock after two different women came forward, claiming he’d pressured them to get abortions, while other reports seemed to reveal the existence of three children Walker had kept hidden from the public. Walker’s conservative influencer son, Christian, went on a scorched-earth campaign against his father on the platform that was then known as Twitter, accusing Walker of adultery, domestic abuse, and hypocrisy. Walker denied most of the allegations against him but admitted to sending a check to a woman who claims he paid for her abortion — he said he didn’t know what he was paying for — and acknowledged his other children, saying he wasn’t trying to hide them.
As you can probably guess, Trump, who’s enjoyed plenty of support from both Herschel and Christian Walker, doesn’t seem to mind all this. On Tuesday, Trump announced that he’s nominating Herschel Walker to be ambassador to the Bahamas, praising his “decades serving as an Ambassador to our Nation’s youth, our men and women in the Military, and athletes at home and abroad.” To be clear, the Senate hasn’t confirmed an ambassador to the Bahamas in over a decade — and one guy Trump nominated in 2017 appeared to have paid him off for the opportunity. If Herschel Walker makes it through, this won’t be his first position in the Trump administration; he served as the co-chair of Trump’s Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition from 2019 to 2020 and stayed on the board through the Biden presidency until his Senate run.
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This position does seem like a bit of a downgrade, but maybe Herschel Walker was craving some sun and rejuvenation after what was surely a very stressful Senate campaign.
