(Radio Iowa) – President-elect Donald Trump has announced he’s chosen an Iowan — Matt Whitaker — to be U.S. Ambassador to NATO. Whitaker was the acting U-S Attorney General for three months during Trump’s first term in office. During a September fundraiser for Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Whitaker talked about his tenure in the Justice Department, where he had served as chief of staff before his stint as acting attorney general.

“What I learned is that you have to lead. You have to lead from the front and you have to be willing to take unpopular positions. I think the biggest challenge we have in Washington, D.C. is…we have way too many people that want to be somebody instead of do something,” Whitaker said. “…If I was succssful at all at the Department of Justice in the Trump Administration, it was because I was unafraid of what would came next. I knew I was never going to work at a big law firm. I knew that I may never work and be able to feed my family…We had a country to save and a mission.”

Whitaker campaigned extensively for Trump’s reelection. This is what he told the crowd in Iowa City in early September. “This is the election that is going to not just set the next four years, but really it’s going to set decades of American history,” Whitaker said.

Trump says Whitaker is a strong warrior and loyal patriot who will ensure U-S interests are advanced and defended. Whitaker’s nomination to be NATO Ambassador is subject to a confirmation vote in the U-S Senate. Whitaker has won Senate confirmation before. He served as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa during President George W. Bush’s second term. Whitaker has run for statewide office twice. He was the Republican Party’s nominee for state treasurer in 2002 and he ran for the U-S Senate in 2014.

Whitaker, who grew up in Ankeny, played football for the Iowa Hawkeyes and credits that experience for his success as an adult. “When I came on the national scene suddenly and unexpectedly as acting attorney general, I was an overnight sensation 10 years in the making because no one ever saw when I was doing Newsmax hits in 2014 and 2015 and 2016,” Whitaker said. “And all the radio and all of the practice and so much of what you learn from sports is you’ve got to practice and you’ve got to get better and you’ve got to constantly improve.”

Whitaker earned a communications degree and an M-B-A and a law degree from the University of Iowa in 1995.