donaldtrump

Herschel Walker’s appointment as US ambassador is raising eyebrows and questions — not just in the United States, but right here in the Bahamas.

What does a former NFL star bring to one of America’s closest partners, the Bahamas?
And others may ask, ‘What does it mean for Bahamian–American relations?’

Prime Minister Philip Davis, in a generic response, said he looks forward to “a close and constructive partnership with the United States.”

Bahamians expressed their sentiments on social media, with some welcoming the new appointment and others appearing surprised and offended.

Edward Smith applauded Walker and expressed his love for Walker as an athlete. “I loved him from his football and NFL days.”

But Audrey Christian is uncertain of the appointment. “I don’t know about this. But he is a sports guy, so maybe he will do something good in that respect.”

A not-so-happy Renee Darling said, “I had hoped this was all a big joke and Trump’s way of throwing a bone to those who are loyalists. But in the end, a qualified person would be appointed, not a bobble head.”

Americans chimed in, expressing disappointment in the appointment.

Yanny Fernandez asked, “What did the Bahamas ever do to Trump?” while Linda Paradise asked, “Is this a joke?

Cathy Ladee said she pitied the Bahamas. “I feel for the citizens.” Tamara Piety expressed empathy, “Poor Bahamas! Surely they deserve better.”

Walker, Trump’s pick, is the first US Ambassador to the Bahamas in 14 years and was confirmed in a Senate vote on Tuesday.

Walker’s appointment appears unconventional. He is a friend of President Donald Trump; a one-time Senate candidate who lost in a scandal-ridden bid in 2022; a former National Football League player and Heisman Trophy winner — but not a career diplomat.

When Walker testified at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing earlier in the month as he sought to be confirmed as ambassador, he said, “Throughout my life, many people have underestimated me in academics, athletics, and business, and I have always proven them wrong.”

Herschel Walker, who is Donald Trump’s pick as US Ambassador to the Bahamas, testified at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Thursday, hoping to be confirmed as the first ambassador to the country since 2011.

When Donald Trump tapped him in 2024, he praised his longtime friend, but controversies have plagued Walker. He once claimed to be an FBI agent and falsely claimed to have graduated from the University of Georgia, when in fact he had not completed his degree, instead leaving college to play professional football.

He finally graduated at 62 years old, last December, with a bachelor’s degree in Housing Management and Policy from the University of Georgia.

During a Georgia Senate run against Raphael Warnock in 2022, he campaigned against abortion, but his former girlfriend claimed he gave her $700 for an abortion, rocking his campaign, which he vehemently denied.

Walker has also been accused of domestic violence and physical threats in past relationships, some allegations he denied and others he claimed not to have remembered.

Walker admitted in an advertisement at the height of his 2022 campaign that he battled with mental illness, which he overcame “by the grace of God” and wrote about it extensively in his memoir “Breaking Free”.

Though not necessary, Walker has no previous diplomatic experience and has no connection to the Bahamas.

The Bahamas is a small nation, but it has become politically critical because of the United States’ fears that the country, which is its backdoor neighbor, is cozying up to China.

During his confirmation hearing in the Senate, Walker highlighted China’s perceived influence in the Bahamas and his willingness to help combat drug smuggling operations in the country.

Senator Ted Cruz endorsed Walker as his friend, describing him as someone with “great discipline, dependability, humility and patriotism”.

“He will make a terrific ambassador to the Bahamas,” Cruz said.

Walker, admired in the football arena as a legend, having played for the Dallas Cowboys, and now owns two restaurant businesses, says he sells supplies to the military and schools.

“Throughout my life, many people have underestimated me in academics, athletics and business, and I have always proven them wrong,” he said.

When President Donald Trump announced Herschel Walker as the newest US ambassador to the Bahamas, it was surprising.

Walker is a longtime friend of Trump and known for his athleticism on the football field but made his mark on the political scene when he ran for a Senate seat in Georgia in 2022 against Ralph Warnock, but was unsuccessful–due in part to allegations of paid abortions while running as an anti-abortion candidate.

Here’s what to know about Herschel Walker

Herschel Walker acclaimed fame as a star running back for the Georgia Bulldogs, winning the Heisman trophy in 1982, and spent his first few years of professional ball in the United States Football League before it moved on to the NFL.

At 62, he graduated last week from the University of Georgia and completed his degree in housing management and policy, 42 years after he played his last college football season there in 1982.

Walker joined the New Jersey Generals, a United States Football League team that was owned at the time, by Trump. Trump said in his book, “The Art of the Deal” that he often criticized the team’s coach for not properly utilizing Walker’s talent on the field.

Walker is new to ambassadorship and has no previous diplomatic experience, and neither does he have any obvious relations to the Bahamas.

The United States has not had a permanent ambassador to the Bahamas in over ten years, with several nominees stuck in limbo because the Senate never approved their appointments.

Photo credit: AP 

Donald Trump’s election victory was history-making in several respects, even as his defeat of Vice President Kamala Harris prevented other firsts. She would have been the nation’s first Black and South Asian woman to be president.

He’s the oldest to be elected

At 78, Trump is the oldest person elected to the U.S. presidency. When sworn in on Jan. 20, 2025, he will be a few months older than Joe Biden was at his inauguration in 2020. Trump’s running mate, 40-year-old JD Vance, will be the third-youngest vice president.

It’s only the second time someone has won two non-consecutive terms

Several U.S. presidents have served more than one term, and Trump joins the group. He was the 45th president and now will be the 47th. But only one other president did it the way Trump will — with a gap between terms. That was Grover Cleveland, who served as the 22nd president after the 1884 election, and as the 24th president after the campaign of 1892.

He’s been convicted of felony crimes

Trump is in line to become the first U.S. president with a felony conviction. In May, New York jury found him guilty of all 34 charges in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a hush money payment to a porn actor who said the two had sex.

He’s been impeached (twice)

Trump already is the only president in U.S. history to face impeachment proceedings twice while in office. In each case, he was acquitted by the Senate on all counts.

The Associated Press

(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump’s return to the White House means he’ll want to stand up an entirely new administration from the one that served under President Joe Biden. His team is also pledging that the second won’t look much like the first one Trump established after his 2016 victory.

The president-elect now has a 75-day transition period to build out his team before Inauguration Day arrives on Jan. 20. One top item on the to-do list: filling around 4,000 government positions with political appointees, people who are specifically tapped for their jobs by Trump’s team.

That includes everyone from the secretary of state and other heads of Cabinet departments to those selected to serve part time on boards and commissions. Around 1,200 of those presidential appointments require Senate confirmation, which should be easier with the Senate now shifting to Republican control.

Here’s what to expect:

 What will the transition look like?

Though the turnover in the new administration will be total, Trump will be familiar with what he needs to accomplish. He built an entirely new administration for his first term and has definite ideas on what to do differently this time.

He’s already floated some names.

Trump said at his victory party early Wednesday that former presidential hopeful and anti-vaccination activist Robert Kennedy Jr. will be tapped to “help make America healthy again,” adding that “we’re going to let him go to it.” Ahead of the election, Trump didn’t reject Kennedy’s calls to end fluoridated water. Trump has also pledged to make South African-born Elon Musk, a vocal supporter of the Trump campaign, a secretary of federal “cost-cutting,” and the Tesla CEO has suggested he can find trillions of dollars in government spending to wipe out.

The transition is not just about filling jobs. Most presidents-elect also receive daily or near-daily intelligence briefings during the transition.

Who is helping Trump through the process?

Trump’s transition is being led primarily by friends and family, including Kennedy Jr. and former Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard, as well as the president-elect’s adult sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, and his running mate, JD Vance. Transition co-chairs are Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick and Linda McMahon, the former wrestling executive who previously led the Small Business Administration during Trump’s first term.

Lutnick said this year’s operation is “about as different as possible” from the 2016 effort, which was first led by Chris Christie. After he won eight years ago, Trump fired Christie, tossed out plans the former New Jersey governor had made and gave the job of running the transition to then-Vice President-elect Mike Pence.

Unlike the campaign of Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump’s team didn’t sign any pre-Election Day transition agreements with the General Services Administration, which essentially acts as the federal government’s landlord. He has therefore already missed deadlines to agree with GSA on logistical matters like office space and tech support and with the White House on access to agencies, including documents, employees and facilities.

New transition rules

In 2020, Trump argued that widespread voter fraud — which hadn’t actually occurred — cost him the election, delaying the start of the transition from his outgoing administration to Biden’s incoming one for weeks.

Four years ago, the Trump-appointed head of the GSA, Emily Murphy, determined that she had no legal standing to determine a winner in the presidential race because Trump was still challenging the results in court. That held up funding and cooperation for the transition.

It wasn’t until Trump’s efforts to subvert election results had collapsed across key states that Murphy agreed to formally “ascertain a president-elect ” and begin the transition process. Trump eventually posted on social media that his administration would cooperate.

To prevent that kind of holdup in future transitions, the Presidential Transition Improvement Act of 2022 mandates that the transition process begin five days after the election — even if the winner is still in dispute. That is designed to avoid long delays and means that “an ‘affirmative ascertainment’ by the GSA is no longer a prerequisite for gaining transition support services,” according to agency guidelines on the new rules.

Associated Press 

Prime Minister Hubert Minnis and Opposition Leader Philip Davis quickly extended congratulations to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris after news media announced Biden as President-elect after he passed the 270-mark required to win the election. But is it premature?

The big picture

It is not clear who is the winner of the US presidential election as counting continues, recounting is required due to close margins and allegations of fraud and election irregularities and tabulation will be presented to the Supreme Court to decide.

What has Hubert Minnis said?

In a press statement from the Office of the Prime Minister, Hubert Minnis sends a letter to Biden saying, “The Bahamas and the United States have enjoyed long-standing, warm, friendly and historic relations.”

He continues, “I extend my best wishes to you for a successful administration and I am very confident that the warm and friendly relations existing between our two governments and peoples will not only continue but will be further strengthened.”

What has Philip Davis said?

PLP Leader was the first to congratulate Joe Biden publicly saying, “In voting in such record numbers, we applaud the American people for reaffirming the democratic ideals of Thomas Jefferson and recognize that the will of the people has been freely and fully expressed.”

Davis continues, “The PLP looks forward to working with the new administration on a number of national and regional issues of mutual concern and interest.”

What has GOP Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said?

The Republican Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said not yet. She said the media does not decide the winner of the election, adding that voters are the deciders of the outcome of the election. McDaniels argued, “In multiple states, the margins are razor-thin with counting ongoing, several of which are headed for recounts.”

The Associated Press and CNN have announced Joe Biden as the 46th president of the United States as he surpassed the 270 electoral votes, the number required to win.

Why it matters

The 78-year-old will be the oldest president of the United States, but President Donald Trump says the election is far from over as he challenges the election in court amid allegations of election fraud.

What Joe Biden says

• Biden in a press statement on Saturday stated, “I am honored and humbled by the trust the American people have placed in me and in Vice President-elect Harris.”
• He has campaigned as a unifier as the USA appears divided over race and the handling of the coronavirus. He said, “The voters made it clear, they want the country to come together and not pull apart.”

What Donald Trump says

• Trump indicated that he will not concede as he issued a statement saying, “The simple fact is this election is far from over.”

Key Points

• Kamala Harris as vice president is expected to be the first black woman in that role.
• Donald Trump was at a golf club when the news broke that Biden was the projected winner.
• Biden is expected to give a victory speech tonight at 8 pm, as president-elect.
• Biden is coming in as president during COVID-19 and economic challenges.
• Election results are recorded as close as Trump challenges votes in Wisconsin, Georgia and Pennsylvania.
• Trump is arguing discrepancies in vote counts, access to votes and fraud.

Featured image: thenation.com

The world is watching the U.S presidential race. The Bahamas too, is keeping a close eye on the 2020 elections.

We care about who will win the election set for Tuesday because the next president impacts the Bahamas’ relationship with the world’s ‘superpower’ and it affects our economy.

President Donald Trump represents a different type of leader, who is unorthodox and is not considered a ‘politician.’

And we’ve been introduced to Joe Biden as President Barak Obama’s vice president, described as a moderate politician but fast becoming a leftist, based on some people’s opinion.

The USA’s economic influence on the Bahamas

The United States provides the Bahamas with 80% of its tourism market, greatly influencing the economy of this small island nation where the sector is our primary industry. The millions of tourists that visit the Bahamas from the United States each year, help with the circulation of the American dollar into our economy.  And, jobs in the Bahamas are created from our dependency on tourism.

But COVID-19 has shutdown our tourism market as countries like the US are lockdown to contain the spread of the virus. The fewer people travel from the U.S.A, the greater the negative impact on our economy.

Both presidential candidates have a different perspective on the economy and the handling of the virus in the United States.

President Trump’s loose approach invites the reopening of the country and the end to lockdowns against the advice of the CDC and health officials. He predicts that the economy will rebound and touts that a vaccine will soon be available.

On the other hand, Vice President Biden has cautioned against reopening the US. He says if elected as president, he will follow the advice of health officials advising against reopening. In fact, Biden said the US economy cannot recover until the virus is contained.

The decision made by the next President of the United States directly affects the Bahamas, one way or another.

On November 2nd, the Bahamas moved forward with reopening to tourists, hoping that more tourists will visit sooner and regrow the economy.