With Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), the former Auburn University head football coach, announcing on Tuesday that he’ll forgo a second term in the Senate to instead run for governor of Alabama, chatter is emerging that another Auburn University coach, Bruce Pearl, might follow in Tuberville’s footsteps and make a bid for his Senate seat.

Semafor reported on Tuesday that Pearl’s name is being floated for the seat, but it’s not clear that he is interested. Pearl is Jewish and has become politically active on issues related to Israel and Middle East policy and antisemitism — delivering a keynote address just last week on Capitol Hill at a breakfast celebrating Jewish American Heritage Month.

“Alabama is a Republican stronghold, so the NRSC is confident voters will elect another Republican to continue representing them and championing President Trump’s agenda,” Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said in a statement about Tuberville’s decision, which did not mention Pearl specifically.

In his speech on the Hill last week, Pearl, who coaches Auburn’s men’s basketball team, rejected the idea of a two-state solution.

Pearl argued that a Palestinian state had effectively been “tried” in Gaza, following the Israeli withdrawal from the territory in 2005. “They had an opportunity and they turned it into a terrorist state. We cannot make that same mistake again,” he said.

“There cannot be another Palestinian state,” Pearl said. “We need to practice our faith and we need to put our faith into practice. My Jewish friends, we need to wake up and understand that when we said never again, we meant never again, but it happened again on Oct. 7.”

Pearl said that he supports the position recently articulated by Trump administration officials on Iran — that negotiations are the right first step but that Iran must dismantle its nuclear program.

“I’m glad President [Donald] Trump is taking leadership and having this discussion, and giving them the opportunity, and if they don’t take the opportunity, it’s got to be done for them,” Pearl said.

He pushed back on charges of genocide leveled against Israel, highlighting that the Palestinian population has ballooned since 1948, and said that Holocaust education should be mandatory and that colleges should be teaching the truth about the Middle East. Pearl also condemned countries that have criticized Israel’s conduct in the war.

“We’ve gotta protect ourselves from those people that want to kill us,” Pearl, who does not have Israeli citizenship, said. “And the second thing is this: We’ve got to be mensches. We’ve got to be kinder. We’ve got to be more generous. We’ve got to be the very best versions of ourselves that we possibly can. That’s what we’re simply commanded to do.”

Pearl told his family’s story at the event — his grandfather fled the pogroms to the United States with three siblings, while the rest of his family remained in Europe, where most died in the Holocaust. 

He said he remembers sitting with his crying grandfather watching television coverage of the Six-Day War; Pearl said his grandfather was afraid that Israel would be wiped out overnight.

“He said if Israel was a state, maybe, in 1929, maybe more of his family would have been able to go to Israel,” Pearl said. “And maybe some of his relatives would still be alive. He told me two things that day: Number one, the United States of America saved his life … And the second thing was that if Israel was born sooner, maybe more of my family would still be alive.”

Pearl said that his love for Israel is an intrinsic part of his love of his Jewish faith.

He highlighted connections between the Abrahamic faiths — that Abraham “is the father of all nations, that connects us all” and that Jesus was Jewish.

“The Jewish people are strong. The Jewish people know how to work hard. We’re taught to speak the truth. We’re taught to hold the right values. We’re taught to stand up for injustice. We’re taught to teach it to our children,” Pearl said, describing that spirit as the one that brought him and two other Jewish coaches into the college basketball Final Four this year.

He said he believes the “vast majority of Americans support the Jewish people and support the State of Israel,” and praised Evangelical Christians who support Israel for reasons of faith.