Donald Trump last summer nominated Jeremy Carl to lead the Bureau of International Organizations. It’s a top position in the State Department, acting as the primary nexus between the U.S. government and several international organizations like the United Nations, and requires Senate confirmation. Carl served in Trump’s first administration and is now a fellow at the Claremont Institute, a conservative think tank. He’s also a prolific poster with a long history of espousing white nationalism, antisemitism, solidarity with the Jan. 6 rioters, and other extreme viewpoints.
Carl sat before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday, which is weighing whether to confirm him to the key diplomatic position the president wants him to hold. Senators pressed Carl on his social media posts. It did not go well.
Here’s one exchange between Carl and Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), for example:
Murphy: “Tell me how you define white identity and what you think has been erased about white identity.”
Carl: “Certain types of, umm, Anglo, uhh, derived culture that comes from our history …”
Murphy: “Like what?”
Carl: “Umm, let me think about this. Uhh, you know, senator, I would say if you were to look at the book by one of your Senate colleagues, “Born Fighting,” about the sort of Scotch-Irish military culture and certain, you know, pride that went with that, that would be one example. Obviously, you could have sub-elements of that culture. You could have Italians, you could have Irish …”
Murphy: “But you’re now retreating to ethnic identity. You don’t speak about ethnic identity. You speak about white identity. So tell me the values that stitch together white identity, that make it different than Black identity.”
Carl: “I would say the white church is very different than the Black church in terms of its tone and style, on average. Food ways could often be different. Music could be different.”
Murphy: “And those are being erased?”
Carl: “Well, if you look at the Super Bowl halftime show, which was not in English …”
Murphy: “Our ability to access white churches or white food or white music is being erased?”
Carl then said that mass immigration has “Balkanized” what he described as “common American culture,” that this weakens America and that he won’t apologize for his comments on the issue.
Carl did express remorse about some of the comments he made in the past. “I made some comments in interviews about minimizing the effect of the Holocaust that were absolutely wrong, and I’m not going to sit here and defend them here,” he told Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), who wasn’t the only senator to press Carl on his history of antisemitism.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) noted how Carl said on a podcast in 2024 that “Jews have often loved to play the victim,” adding that Carl has demonstrated a “pattern” of similar comments about Jewish people. Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Ill.) read several such comments, including, “The Jews love to see themselves as oppressed,” “Jews have often loved to play the victim rather than accept that they are participants in history,” and “Hitler is always the convenient kind of bad example.”
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) later pointed out the irony of Carl claiming that Jewish people love to see themselves as victims as he claims white people are being victimized. “One of the things you said was that American whites are victims of a cultural genocide,” Kaine said, before challenging Carl on whether white people are well-represented in the Senate, House of Representatives, the presidency, the vice presidency, the Supreme Court, in the ranks of American governors, in CEOs of American corporations, among high-income Americans.
Carl basically agreed with all of this, but did manage to insert a claim in his response that among high-income Americans white people are “underrepresented with respect to Asian Americans, but overrepresented with respect to other groups.”
“Cultural genocide is a stiff claim,” Kaine continued. “It’s an interesting one because it’s kind of a white victimhood argument.”
The hearing was such a disaster that Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah), who also grilled Carl on Thursday, released a statement announcing that he will oppose the nomination, effectively tanking Carl’s nomination assuming universal opposition from Democrats on the committee. “After reviewing his record and participating in today’s hearing, I do not believe that Jeremy Carl is the right person to represent our nation’s best interests in international forums, and I find his anti-Israel views and insensitive remarks about the Jewish people unbecoming of the position for which he has been nominated,” Curtis wrote, per the Deseret News.
The hearing didn’t dissuade the White House, which according to The Washington Post, is standing by Carl as the nominee to represent the United States on the international stage.
