Trump’s State Department Nominee Drops Out After Blowback Over ‘White Identity’ Comments

President Donald Trump’s pick for a senior State Department role, Jeremy Carl, withdrew his nomination Tuesday following a contentious Senate hearing in which he was accused of making racist comments.

“Unfortunately, for senior positions such as this one, the support of the President and Secretary of State is very important but not sufficient,” Carl said in a lengthy post to X. “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, a conservative political commentator who was being considered for the role of assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs, faced a difficult Senate hearing last month. Members repeatedly pressed him for an explanation of previous comments in which he promoted policies to protect “white identity.”

In a 2024 book titled “The Unprotected Class: How Anti-White Racism Is Tearing America Apart,” Carl wrote that “white identity” has been “erased” from American history.

During his hearing, Carl told Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy that “white identity” can be defined as “certain types of Anglo-derived culture that comes from our history.”

He also faced questions for previous comments in which he argued Adolf Hitler was a “convenient kind of bad example.” Carl has also endorsed the “great replacement theory” — a far-right conspiracy that says there is an intentional effort by Jews to replace white Europeans with immigrants —= referred to Juneteenth as a “racial hustle” and deleted almost 5,000 social media posts ahead of his nomination.

Sen. John Curtis, a Republican from Utah, voiced concern following the hearing and vowed not to vote in support of Carl, who served as deputy assistant secretary of the interior during Trump’s first term.

“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,” Curtis said in a mid-February statement. “And I find his anti-Israel views and insensitive remarks about the Jewish people unbecoming of the position for which he has been nominated.”