The nomination of Amer Ghalib, the mayor of Hamtramck, Mich., to be U.S. ambassador to Kuwait is facing what appear to be insurmountable odds as opposition to his confirmation grows among Senate Republicans.

No Republican or Democratic senators have come to Ghalib’s defense after his performance at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week, when he faced a bipartisan grilling over his long record of promoting antisemitic ideas and his embrace of anti-Israel positions as an elected official. 

Senators on both sides of the aisle had privately expressed reservations about Ghalib’s nomination prior to the hearing, but his attempts to evade responsibility for his record while under oath prompted several Republicans on the committee to go public. 

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) announced at the end of Ghalib’s hearing last Thursday that he would not be able to support moving his nomination out of committee to the Senate floor. Sens. John Curtis (R-UT), John Cornyn (R-TX) and Dave McCormick (R-PA) have since followed suit. Others on the panel, including Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE), have said they plan to raise their concerns about Ghalib with the committee chairman, Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID), and the White House. 

“Based on the hearing that we had last week, I’m going to vote no against him,” McCormick told Punchbowl News on Tuesday. “I don’t think he demonstrated that he’s qualified for the role.”

Asked about Ghalib and the concerns surrounding his nomination while speaking to reporters on Tuesday morning, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said he was “vaguely familiar” with the Hamtramck mayor’s nomination but had not “examined” the matter closely. 

The White House did not respond to Jewish Insider’s multiple requests for comment on the status of Ghalib’s nomination or the growing number of GOP senators coming forward to oppose him. 

Ghalib is not believed to have any support on the Democratic side, reinforced by his lackluster answers to questions about his documented history of antisemitic remarks from Sens. Chris Murphy (D-CT), Tim Kaine (D-VA) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), the top Democrat on the committee. He also has an embattled standing within the Democratic Party because of his decision to help President Donald Trump win the state of Michigan for Republicans last November. 

“I think that you have dug your hole deeper today,” Murphy, who already opposed Ghalib prior to last week, told the nominee at his confirmation hearing. 

Paul Ingrassia announced on Tuesday he was withdrawing his embattled nomination to lead the Office of Special Counsel amid growing GOP opposition to his recently unearthed antisemitic and racist text messages. 

Ingrassia, 30, currently serves as the White House liaison for the Department of Homeland Security. Prior to that role, he briefly served as the liaison to the Department of Justice at the beginning of President Donald Trump’s second term, but was reassigned after clashing with the DOJ’s chief of staff.

“I will be withdrawing myself from Thursday’s HSGAC [Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee] hearing to lead the Office of Special Counsel because unfortunately I do not have enough Republican votes at this time,” Ingrassia wrote in a post on Truth Social. “I appreciate the overwhelming support that I have received throughout this process and will continue to serve President Trump and this administration to Make America Great Again!”

Trump nominated Ingrassia in late May to lead the Office of Special Counsel, which is tasked with investigating and prosecuting whistleblower claims and accusations of corruption within the federal government. He was scheduled to receive a confirmation hearing in committee on Thursday.

The nomination was initially poorly received by some Republicans on the committee due to his past incendiary comments, including antisemitic conspiracy theories posted to social media. Two GOP committee members had privately expressed concerns to the White House about Ingrassia’s candidacy in recent months, those senators told Jewish Insider on condition of anonymity. 

Ingrassia’s standing plummeted further after Politico reported on Monday that he had sent text messages in a group chat of Republican operatives stating that Martin Luther King Jr. Day should be “tossed into the seventh circle of hell” and described himself as having a “Nazi streak … from time to time.”

Ingrassia wrote in the text chain that he would “never trust a chinaman or Indian,” a comment made in reference to former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. Another message stated that “We need competent white men in positions of leadership … The founding fathers were wrong that all men are created equal.” 

The revelation prompted immediate outcry on Capitol Hill, with Democrats reiterating their prior calls to pull Ingrassia’s nomination and Republicans publicly and privately urging the White House to do the same. Three Republicans on the Homeland Security Committee — Sens. Ron Johnson (R-WI), Rick Scott (R-FL) and James Lankford (R-OK) — told reporters that they would vote against Ingrassia’s nomination at his confirmation hearing. 

Johnson said that Ingrassia’s nomination “never should’ve gotten this far” and that the White House “ought to withdraw” his name from consideration. 

“I don’t plan on voting for him. I can’t imagine how anybody can be antisemitic in this country,” Scott said, later adding that he had informed the White House of his decision after the most recent text messages were published.

Asked by reporters at the Capitol on Tuesday if the White House should pull Ingrassia’s nomination, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) replied, “I hope so. He’s not going to pass.” He responded, “Yeah,” when asked if it’d be a mistake for Ingrassia to appear before the Homeland Security Committee on Thursday. 

Ingrassia also lost the backing of the Zionist Organization of America, the sole Jewish group that was supporting Ingrassia’s nomination, over the texts. The group announced on Tuesday that they were pulling their endorsement as a result of the messages.

“In this age of Jew hatred, even a hint of antisemitism can’t be tolerated,” Mort Klein, the group’s president, told the Washington Post of the decision. 

At a luncheon hosted by the White House on Tuesday for GOP senators, several Republicans took part in a discussion about Ingrassia’s nomination being “dead,” according to one senator who participated in the conversation.

“He’s going to be pulled,” the senator said of Ingrassia, citing several conversations this week with the White House. 

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), who also serves on the panel, similarly predicted the White House would withdraw his nomination, saying there was no reason to force the confirmation hearing to proceed on Thursday when he had no chance of being confirmed.

“I expect it because there’s no way he’ll be confirmed. I don’t know why anyone would put him through the gauntlet of questions that I would be asking him, along with others,” Blumenthal told JI. “They should mercifully spare him the ignominy of being overwhelmingly disapproved.”

Ingrassia’s nomination was already considered controversial prior to the leak of his text messages, the result of his ties to avowed white nationalists and antisemites like Kanye West and Nick Fuentes, his record of public statements embracing conspiracy theories and his already rocky tenure in the second Trump administration, which had seen him depart from two roles due to friction with colleagues in less than a year. 

Ingrassia was also the subject of an internal investigation at the Department of Homeland Security this month after a sexual harassment complaint was filed against him, though the complaint was later withdrawn and no wrongdoing was found. 

Ingrassia has also been consistently critical of the U.S.-Israel relationship and has repeatedly asserted since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel that the United States should not provide any aid to the Jewish state. 

As the Hamas attacks were still underway, Ingrassia posted on X calling illegal immigration to the U.S. “comparable to the attack on Israel.” Days later, Ingrassia wrote in a since-deleted post on the platform that the Israel-Palestine conflict was a “psyop.”