During Donald Trump’s first term, the president and his White House team showed some apprehension about having accused racists and white nationalists in key positions of influence. In the Republican’s second term, however, the standards are … different.
For example, Team Trump tapped Paul Ingrassia, a right-wing lawyer and former podcast host, to lead the Office of Special Counsel, despite his history of radicalism, including a group text in which he acknowledged having a “Nazi streak.” Similarly, the president and his team tapped Darren Beattie for multiple positions in the administration, despite a lengthy record of inflammatory and racist remarks.
And then there’s Jeremy Carl, Trump’s nominee for assistant secretary of state for international organizations, who has a similarly offensive background, including publishing online commentary suggesting the Capitol rioters of Jan. 6, 2021, were treated worse than Black people in the South during the Jim Crow era. He’s similarly championed the “great replacement” conspiracy theory and condemned white people who celebrate Juneteenth.
“We are essentially moving,” he told Tucker Carlson in April 2024, “to what is effectively a postwhite America.”
In case that wasn’t quite enough, Carl has also criticized Jewish people for wanting to “relitigate” the Holocaust, while claiming that Jews are “overrepresented” in the ranks of American billionaires.
In a normal and healthy political environment, these revelations would have led the White House to pull the nomination. But Carl, still backed by Trump, nevertheless went to Capitol Hill on Thursday for his Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing, where Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut asked him about his stated concerns regarding “the erasure of white culture.” To put it mildly, Carl struggled to defend his right-wing worldview.
In a separate exchange with Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, Carl also said, “One of my weaknesses … is sometimes I take an idea too far. I made some comments … about minimizing the effects of the Holocaust that were absolutely wrong.”
After the hearing, one Senate Republican, Utah’s John Curtis, announced his opposition to the nominee.
“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 said in a statement.
While the Utahn is just one member, the GOP only has a one-vote advantage on the Foreign Relations Committee. In other words, if Curtis joins Democrats in opposing the nominee, he won’t have the votes to advance to the Senate floor.
Given the circumstances, Carl’s odds of being successfully confirmed are poor and falling, but there’s a larger question hanging overhead: Why in the world did the president nominate this guy, and why does Trump continue to support Carl’s nomination in light of everything we’ve learned about his indefensible worldview?
