President Donald Trump’s nominee for a high-ranking State Department post told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday he will not stop making posts and statements as he waits for congressional confirmation.
Members from both parties on the committee grilled Jeremy Carl, who the White House tapped to serve as assistant secretary of state for International Organizations, during a confirmation hearing, over a string of comments Democrats call antisemitic and racist that have surfaced in recent months.
“I greatly understand the importance of restraint and conduct,” said Carl, a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, a conservative think tank with members dispersed throughout Washington. “I unfortunately have to balance that with my current job, which involves advocacy and I can’t, as I’ve explained, just totally put away my day job. I’m not being offered a job here yet.“
In the past, Carl has appeared to endorse the “great replacement theory,” slammed the Juneteenth holiday and called for the execution of American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, according to CNN. He deleted nearly 5,000 social media posts since before his nomination, the outlet reported in September.
“We are essentially moving,” he told conservative media commentator Tucker Carlson in April 2024, “to what is effectively, a post-White America.”
Democrats also hit out at Carl, who grew up Jewish before converting to Christianity, for what they say are derisive comments he’s made about Jewish Americans, including statements that diminish the effects of the Holocaust.
“No person who thinks Jews should get over the Holocaust and spreads pernicious Jewish stereotypes can claim to have the character or judgment necessary to serve as a diplomat for this country,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who is Jewish, said in a statement this week.
Democrats on the foreign relations committee, including ranking member Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), a former synagogue president, panned Carl for his past statements.
A vote for Carl “tells Americans you’re willing to use your sacred vote, not just to ignore but to endorse the hateful statements,” Rosen implored her colleagues.
“It tells Jewish Americans they simply don’t matter,” she said.
