WASHINGTON – A Trump administration State Department nominee has withdrawn his candidacy following backlash over racially charged statements that cost him Republican backing in the Senate.
Jeremy Carl, who was selected for the assistant secretary of state position overseeing international organizations, announced his decision Tuesday on social media platform X. While expressing gratitude to President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio for their continued support, Carl acknowledged it wasn’t enough to secure confirmation.
“We also needed the unanimous support of every GOP Senator on the Committee on Foreign Relations, given the unanimous opposition of Senate Democrats to my candidacy, and unfortunately, at this time this unanimous support was not forthcoming,” Carl wrote in his statement.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee must typically approve nominations before they advance to a full Senate confirmation vote.
Carl’s prospects dimmed after Utah Republican Senator John Curtis, who sits on the foreign relations panel, expressed concerns following February confirmation hearings. Curtis stated he couldn’t support Carl as the right representative for America’s interests in international forums.
Curtis specifically pointed to Carl’s “anti-Israel views” and “insensitive remarks” targeting Jewish people as reasons for his opposition.
It’s unusual for Republican senators to oppose Trump’s nominees, as the GOP-controlled chamber has generally supported the president’s appointments and agenda.
Neither the White House nor State Department provided immediate responses to requests for comment.
During his confirmation hearing, senators grilled Carl about previous statements regarding Jewish people and his endorsement of the “great replacement theory” – a debunked conspiracy claiming that leftist and Jewish elites are orchestrating the demographic replacement of white Americans through non-white immigration.
Carl told senators he couldn’t recall making some of the quoted statements and expressed regret about others. “I made some comments in interviews about minimizing the effects of the Holocaust that were absolutely wrong,” he admitted during testimony.
When questioned about whether efforts to replace white Americans were underway, Carl responded that he believed Democratic immigration policies have “certainly sent signs of that.”
Carl currently works as a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, a conservative think tank, and previously served as deputy assistant secretary of the interior during Trump’s first presidency.
