Former State Dept officials warn that racist Trump nominee could dismantle human rights protections at the UN

Ahead of a Thursday confirmation hearing, two former senior U.S. officials in the Biden administration are warning that President Donald Trump’s nominee to oversee U.S. engagement with the United Nations could use the post to weaken global human rights protections, particularly for LGBTQ+ people and communities of color.

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Desirée Cormier Smith, the former State Department special representative for racial equity and justice, and Jessica Stern, the former U.S. special envoy to advance the human rights of LGBTQI+ persons, told The Advocate that Jeremy Carl’s public record and ideological commitments make his nomination to serve as assistant secretary of state for international organizations uniquely dangerous.

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Smith described the job as obscure to most Americans but enormously influential inside the U.S. government.

“The Assistant Secretary for International Organizations is an obscure post to folks who are not familiar with the State Department, but it’s actually quite a powerful one,” she said, noting that the position is responsible for U.S. engagement with the United Nations and its agencies and for representing the United States inside those bodies.

“He would be, if confirmed, the senior-most diplomat under the Secretary of State really responsible for our engagement with the United Nations and all of its agencies,” Smith said.

That reach, she argued, renders Carl’s prior statements on race and demographics incompatible with the role. Smith cited his promotion of the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory and rhetoric about “anti-white racism,” asking how someone with those views could credibly represent the United States to most of the world. The "Great Replacement" is a far-right, white nationalist conspiracy theory that falsely claims white populations in countries are being replaced by non-white immigrants.

Carl, a senior fellow at the conservative think tank the Claremont Institute, has come under scrutiny following a CNN KFile investigation that reported he attempted to delete thousands of social media posts ahead of his confirmation process. Among the statements flagged were calls for the execution of the head of the American Federation of Teachers, claims that January 6 defendants were treated worse than Black Americans during Jim Crow, and repeated references to the “Great Replacement” theory, according to the outlet.

CNN also reported that Carl referred to Juneteenth as a “race hustling and white-shaming” holiday and wrote in 2021, “If you’re a white person celebrating Juneteenth, you’ve already surrendered.”

In subsequent posts and commentary, he criticized Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson as “unqualified,” arguing she was chosen “solely because of her race and gender,” and wrote that institutions he accused of promoting “anti-white racism” must be “reformed completely … or else destroyed."

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Smith said senators should confront Carl directly with that record. She urged lawmakers to ask him about “the thousands of tweets that he deleted” and to press him on how those views square with representing the United States on human rights, immigration, and “basic human dignity.”

She also said senators should review Carl’s podcast appearances and writing. “I just wish that senators in his upcoming hearing would just use his own words and make him explain what he meant by that,” Smith said.

Stern focused on what Carl’s record could mean for LGBTQ+ people who depend on international institutions for protection.

“Jeremy Carl is not only racist and antisemitic,” she said. “He is violently anti-trans, and he’s gone so far as to say that there are no transgender kids and that ‘transgenderism,’ according to him, is a spiritual violation.”

“At the global scale, what this means is he would be leading the U.S. government to strip the multilateral system of protections from transgender people and potentially actively target them,” Stern said.

She pointed to a recent fight at the United Nations over a disability rights resolution that was expanded at the committee level to include sexual orientation and gender identity, language recognizing that LGBTQ+ people with disabilities face heightened risks. According to Stern, the U.S. government under Trump then intervened to force a new vote and worked with governments she described as “the most homophobic and transphobic states in the world” to remove that language.

“So that’s what the U.S. is already saying is its new approach to multilateralism,” Stern said. “It’s only going to get worse if this guy is confirmed.”

Both Smith and Stern stressed that the United Nations remains a critical backstop for LGBTQ+ people in countries where being gay or transgender is criminalized. Stern said that in more than 60 countries with sodomy laws and in others that criminalize gender expression, “there is no chance at justice at the domestic level,” making access to international mechanisms essential.

“The UN is a place of refuge for people who are desperate, and Jeremy Carl wants to destroy that refuge,” Stern said. “When he promotes this worldview, what he’s really saying is that people who have been marginalized should have nowhere to turn.”

The warning from the former diplomats comes amid escalating opposition on Capitol Hill. On Monday, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer took to the Senate floor to urge colleagues to reject Carl’s nomination, citing what he described as a record of racist and antisemitic rhetoric. In his remarks, Schumer pointed to Carl’s past comments about Juneteenth, Jews, and the Holocaust, arguing that they show a lack of judgment and basic fitness for a senior diplomatic post.

Schumer said no one who has suggested Jews should “get over” the Holocaust or who has trafficked in what he called pernicious stereotypes should represent the United States abroad.

Stern argued that beyond ideology, there is a more basic question senators should ask. “Why would you want this position?” she said. “You clearly don’t believe in respect for other nations, and you have no interest in supporting institutions of global government. Why do you want this position?”

Smith said the nomination also fits a broader pattern in which loyalty and ideology are rewarded over expertise. She described the trend as a warning sign for democratic governance, citing other recent appointments in which officials appeared more focused on serving a political leader than on advancing U.S. interests abroad.

“If nominees like Jeremy Carl become the norm in U.S. foreign policy, the U.S. will be guaranteeing its own obsolescence,” Stern said, adding that human rights advocates and foreign officials increasingly tell her, “We used to believe in the United States, and now we feel betrayed.”