‘Um…Lemme Think’: Trump’s Pick For Top State Department Post Sputters When Challenged On His Belief in the ‘Erasure of White Culture’

Jeremy Carl, President Donald Trump’s pick for a top State Department post, sputtered through his Senate confirmation hearing Thursday when challenged by a senator who characterized him as a “legit white nationalist.”

Carl is a senior fellow at the conservative Claremont Institute, who has made incendiary statements about Jews, women, race and the “great replacement theory” that suggests white Americans are being replaced by immigrants in the work force, according to The Washington Post. Trump nominated him in June to the post of Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs, where he would oversee relations with international organizations.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) posted a clip of him questioning Carl on his extremist beliefs.

Murphy posted to X, “Trump nominated a legit white nationalist to a top post at the State Department. I asked him some basic questions about his belief in the “erasure of white culture”. Watch this embarrassing, fumbling answer. Like he has never before been asked to explain his views.”

In the video, Murphy asked, “Tell me how you define white identify and white and what you think is being erased about white identity.”

“Certain types of Anglo-derived culture that comes from our history —” Carl began.

MURPHY: Like what?

CARL: Um, lemme think about this. Um, you know, Senator, if you were to look at the, uh, book, by one of your Senate colleagues, Born Fighting, about the sort of Scotch-Irish military culture and certain, you know, pride that went with that, that would be one example. Obviously you can have sub-elements of that culture. You could have Italians, you could have Irish, and those are in many ways more —

MURPHY: Yeah, but you’re worried about white culture. You’re not worried about — you’re now retreating to ethnic identity. You don’t speak about ethnic identity, you speak about white identity. So, tell me the values that stitch together white identity that make it different than Black identity.

CARL: I would say the white church is very different from the Black church in terms of its tone and style, on average. Um, food ways can often be different. Um, music —

MURPHY: And those are being erased?

CARL: Music can be different, if you look at the Super Bowl halftime show that was not in English this year.

MURPHY: So, our ability to access white churches or white food or white music is being erased?

CARL: I am concerned with majority common-American culture that we had for some time, that particularly through mass immigration I think has become much more Balkanized, and I think that weakens us. And, again, I’m not running away from that comment. I’m not apologizing for it.

MURPHY: Well, I’m way over my time, but I think you’re struggling to answer this question, right? Because underlying your beliefs is a sentiment that white culture is simply better.

Carl has already lost one Republican vote in the Senate.

Sen. John Curtis (R-UT) said in a statement Thursday, “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, and I find his anti-Israel views and insensitive remarks about the Jewish people unbecoming of the position for which he has been nominated.”

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