Less than a month after Rep. Michelle Steel, R-Calif., was defeated for reelection by a wafer thin 604 votes, the two-term lawmaker and first Korean-American woman to serve in Congress is under serious consideration to be the U.S. ambassador to South Korea.

Newsmax learned Friday that House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has privately urged President-elect Donald Trump to name the Seoul-born Steel as ambassador and that two former GOP speakers — Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and Newt Gingrich, R-Ga. — have also weighed in with Trump to tap Steel for the South Korea portfolio.

Interest in South Korea and just who Trump sends there to speak for the U.S. has risen dramatically in the last week. Not only was President Yoon Suk Yeol impeached for his never-anticipated late night declaration of martial law Dec. 3, but his successor, Prime Minister Han Duck-soo was himself impeached on Friday for complicity in Yoon’s power grab.

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