Bipartisan opposition to inflammatory comments could sink Trump’s State Department nominee

Jeremy Carl, the Trump administration’s pick for a top State Department post, is unlikely to get the job after a bipartisan group of senators grilled him over his history of racist, sexist and reportedly anti-Semitic comments and posts.

Sen. John Curtis, Republican of Utah, said in a statement after Thursday’s heated Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing that he does not support Karl’s nomination for assistant secretary for international organizations.

“After reviewing his record and attending today’s hearing, I do not believe Jeremy Karl is the right person to represent our nation’s best interests in international forums, and I find his anti-Israel views and insensitive comments about the Jewish people to be the position he has been nominated for,” Curtis said.

Republican opposition is likely to sink Carl’s nomination — if all Democrats on the committee don’t vote, he won’t have the votes to move forward. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer also opposed his nomination.

A White House official told CNN Thursday evening that Carl is still a candidate.

CNN’s KFile revealed in September 2025 that Karl had deleted thousands of social media posts, many displaying a history of inflammatory comments — including inflammatory posts about race, claims that “peaceful coexistence” with Democrats was impossible, and even calls for a political opponent to face the death penalty.

Karl also frequently wrote about the “Great Replacement,” a conspiracy theory that deliberately brought in non-white immigrants to Western countries to “replace” the white population.

At Thursday’s hearing, Carl was pressed on those past comments and others, including a 2024 podcast appearance in which he reportedly said, “Jews often like to play the victim,” and that “the Holocaust has dominated modern Jewish history a lot,” according to Sen. Jane Shahin, a New Hampshire Democrat.

Shaheen, ranking member of the committee, said that since his nomination, Carl has “tweeted over 850 times, appeared on five podcasts and repeated this language.”

“It’s a pattern,” she said.

“It’s hard to see how we can trust you when you can’t even stop yourself during the nomination period,” she told him.

Karl argued that he understood the “importance of restraint and manners”.

“Unfortunately I have to balance it with my current job as an advocate. As I explained, I can’t completely give up my day job,” he said. Karl is a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, a conservative think tank. He served as a former deputy assistant secretary at the Department of the Interior during President Donald Trump’s first term.

In an exchange with Democratic Sen. Cory Booker, Carl said he regretted some of his past comments about Jewish people.

“I made some comments in the interview about minimizing the impact of the Holocaust that were absolutely wrong. And I’m going to sit here and defend them,” he said.

However, pressed on whether he regretted his comments about other races, Karl said he was “echoing” Trump by saying that “unity is a strength rather than diversity.”

Sen. Chris Murphy said Carl’s nomination was “heartbreaking,” calling him “wildly unqualified” for the position. The Connecticut Democrat spent several minutes asking Carl for his thoughts on “white anti-segregation” and the “eradication of white culture.”

Carl struggled to answer Murphy’s questions about what constitutes “white culture” but pointed to “mass immigration” as erasing “common American culture” and “weakening us.”

Curtis, the Utah Republican, pressed Carl on how he would be able to counter perceived anti-Israel bias at the United Nations.

And Democratic Sen. Jackie Rosen, who is Jewish, called Carl’s past comments “despicable” and said his nomination should “warn every senator who believes in basic decency.”

CNN has contacted the State Department about Carl’s nomination. In September 2025, spokespeople for both the department and the White House defended the nominee.

CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski, Em Steck and Morgan Rimmer contributed to this report.

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