Republican to oppose Trump nominee for senior diplomatic post over remarks on Israel, Jews

WASHINGTON - US President Donald Trump’s pick to be assistant secretary of state for international organisations hit a major stumbling block on Feb 12 when a Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said he would oppose the appointment.

Republican Senator John Curtis of Utah said he did not believe Mr Jeremy Carl is the right person to represent the country’s best interests at international organisations.

The position manages the US relationship with international organisations including the United Nations.

Mr Carl is currently a senior fellow at the conservative Claremont Institute think-tank.

He was a deputy assistant secretary of the interior during Mr Trump’s first term.

“I find his anti-Israel views and insensitive remarks about the Jewish people unbecoming of the position for which he has been nominated,” Mr Curtis said in a statement after Mr Carl’s nomination hearing.

Mr Curtis’ decision was first reported by the Deseret News.

A White House official said that Mr Carl remained the nominee.

At the hearing, Mr Curtis asked Mr Carl about past comments about Jewish people, including an appearance on a podcast in which he responded, “Right, right yeah”, when the host criticised them for “claiming special victim status” because of the Holocaust.

At the hearing, Mr Carl said he did not remember making some of the comments read out by senators and said he regretted some others.

“I made some comments in interviews about minimising the effects of the Holocaust that were absolutely wrong,” he said.

Mr Curtis’ objection leaves Mr Carl unlikely to win the approval of the foreign relations panel, which could sink his nomination.

That would be a departure in the Republican-majority Senate, which to date has backed the vast majority of Mr Trump’s nominations and policies.

There are 12 Republican and 10 Democratic members of the committee, which oversees the State Department.

Every Democrat is expected to object to Mr Carl.

‘Great replacement’

During the hearing, Democratic Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey asked Mr Carl what he meant when he said he believed in the “Great Replacement” theory, which fosters the belief that non-white immigrants will replace white citizens.

Mr Carl responded that the theory referred to the “international demographic replacement of Europeans in Europe”.

Mr Booker asked if Mr Carl believed there is currently “an effort to replace Americans” and Mr Carl said, “I think the Democratic Party, through its immigration policies, has certainly sent signs of that.”

Questions about Mr Carl’s nomination have existed for months, over his past comments but also his lack of diplomatic experience.

In September, CNN reported that Mr Carl had tried to delete at least 5,000 of his comments on X.com, including many that were inflammatory about racial issues.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York opposed Mr Carl’s nomination in a Senate speech this week, saying he had a “long history of racist, white supremacist and anti-Semitic views”.

A nomination can be sent for a vote by the full Senate if the committee does not vote in his favour, but this is extremely rare.

Mr Trump’s Republicans have just a 53-47-seat majority in the chamber.

Asked for comment, a spokesperson for the committee’s Republican chairman Jim Risch of Idaho said he supported all of the President’s nominees. REUTERS