Republican Sen. John Curtis of Utah announced Thursday that he will not support Jeremy Carl's nomination as assistant secretary of state for international organizations — a single defection that could kill the nomination before it ever reaches the full Senate.
If every Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee votes against Carl, Curtis's opposition alone would be enough to doom the pick. The announcement landed the same day Carl appeared before the committee for what turned into a grueling confirmation hearing.
"I do not believe that Jeremy Carl is the right person to represent our nation's best interests in international forums."
According to the Daily Caller, Curtis cited what he called Carl's "anti-Israel views and insensitive remarks about the Jewish people" as disqualifying. He did not respond to the Daily Caller's request for comment.
Carl, a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute who served as deputy assistant secretary at the Interior Department during Trump's first term, walked into a committee room where Democrats were waiting with ammunition — and they had plenty of it.
The nominee has previously referenced "anti-White discrimination," the "erasure of white culture," and the "Great Replacement." A CNN KFILE report from September found that Carl had deleted thousands of social media posts, including commentary on race and statements about "peaceful coexistence" with Democrats being impossible. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the committee's ranking Democrat, noted that Carl had tweeted more than 850 times and appeared on five podcasts since his nomination — not exactly the profile of a man preparing for diplomatic work overseeing more than 100 diplomats stationed abroad.
"This is a pattern. It's hard to understand how we can trust you if you can't even restrain yourself during the period in which you've been nominated."
Carl's defense was not exactly airtight. When pressed on his prolific posting, he offered that he "can't just totally put away my day job," while also acknowledging the "importance of restraint." Those two statements sit uncomfortably next to each other.
When questioned about prior statements on "anti-White discrimination" and the "erasure of white culture," Carl said "mass immigration" erases "common American culture" and "weakens us." He did not define "white culture" when pressed directly. Under questioning from Sen. Cory Booker, Carl expressed regret for "minimizing the effect of the Holocaust," adding plainly:
"I'm not going to sit here and defend" those remarks.
The remarks in question: Carl reportedly said on a 2024 podcast that "Jews have often loved to play the victim" and that "the Holocaust dominates so much of modern Jewish history." On his broader statements about race, Carl said he was "echoing" Trump in arguing that "unity rather than diversity is a strength."
Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut wasted no time posting on X after the hearing, calling Carl a "legit white nationalist" — a characterization that says more about Murphy's eagerness to paint every Trump appointee with the broadest possible brush than it does about the underlying facts. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has also voiced opposition.
But here's the uncomfortable reality for anyone who wants to dismiss this as pure Democratic theatrics: the problems with Carl's nomination don't originate from the left. They originate from Carl himself.
There's a meaningful difference between fighting back against DEI orthodoxy, challenging the left's monopoly on racial discourse, and defending the principle that Americans of every background deserve equal treatment under the law — and whatever Carl has been doing on podcasts and social media for the past two years. Conservatives have spent enormous political capital making the case that opposing racial preferences isn't racial grievance. Carl's record — the Holocaust remarks, the deleted posts, the inability to define his own terminology under oath — hands the left exactly the caricature they've been desperate to construct.
You don't advance the cause of colorblind governance by tweeting 850 times during your own confirmation process about the "Great Replacement."
The assistant secretary for international organizations oversees a bureau responsible for more than 100 diplomats representing America in international forums. It's a role that demands discipline, rhetorical precision, and the ability to advance American interests without handing adversaries easy propaganda victories.
Curtis's defection reflects a calculation that Carl cannot do that job — not because of his conservatism, but because of his inability to exercise the basic judgment the role requires. A man who acknowledges the "importance of restraint" while simultaneously refusing to practice it is not a man you send to represent the United States on the world stage.
Democrats will try to make this about Trump. They always do. Murphy's "white nationalist" label is designed to tar the administration, not evaluate the nominee. But Curtis's opposition strips that narrative of its power. This isn't the left defeating a Trump pick. This is a Republican senator concluding — based on the nominee's own words — that the pick was wrong.
Trump has shown a willingness to fight for his nominees. Whether he spends political capital on this one will say a lot about how the administration weighs loyalty against liability. The committee vote hasn't happened yet.
But Carl's confirmation didn't die in that hearing room on Thursday. It died on a podcast mic, one deleted tweet at a time.