Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) told Jewish Insider on Wednesday that there was a “broad consensus” among members of the Senate Armed Services committee that two nominees tapped to serve under Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby did not yet have sufficient support to move ahead at a committee meeting on Wednesday.

Confirmation hearings for the two nominees — Alex Velez-Green and Austin Dahmer, who were initially expected to receive votes in committee on Wednesday — turned into an airing of the grievances by a series of Republican and Democratic senators with Colby and his office.

The senators accused the Defense Department’s policy team of failing to properly communicate or consult with Congress on key decisions and issues, and of executing their own policy at odds with and without authorization from the White House on various issues. Colby is viewed as one of the leading isolationist voices in the Trump administration.

Rounds told JI that there was a “broad consensus” on the committee that more time was needed to consider the two nominations.

“I don’t think it was one or two people holding it up, or anything like that. … My impression was the committee felt the support there was not ready yet, but … we didn’t want to hold up anybody else,” Rounds said.

Republicans have only a one-vote majority on the committee, so they cannot afford to lose any GOP votes if all Democrats plan to vote against a given nominee.

Senate Armed Services Committee Republican leadership did not respond to a request for comment. Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), the Democratic ranking member, deferred to Republicans when asked Wednesday about the postponed votes.

A Washington Post report that the U.S. Coast Guard will no longer classify the swastika as a hate symbol under a new policy set to be implemented next month is garnering condemnation from Jewish groups and Democratic officials.

According to the report, the new policy will classify the Nazi emblem as “potentially divisive.” It is also set to apply to nooses.

Acting Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Kevin Lunday denied the reports, saying “The claims that the U.S. Coast Guard will no longer classify swastikas, nooses or other extremist imagery as prohibited symbols are categorically false. These symbols have been and remain prohibited in the Coast Guard per policy. Any display, use or promotion of such symbols, as always, will be thoroughly investigated and severely punished.”

Coast Guard spokesperson Jennifer Plozai, however, told the Washington Post that the Coast Guard would be “reviewing the language” of the new policy.

Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-IL), the ranking member of the House Appropriations subcommittee responsible for funding the Department of Homeland Security, said she’d met with Lunday on Thursday evening and he had committed to changing the policy and publishing an updated version on Thursday evening.

She said that Lunday had “assured us that there is a[n] across-the-board prohibition on hate symbols, including swastikas and nooses.” She said the policy would also make clear that there will be “zero tolerance” for “any display” of such symbols in the Coast Guard.

“The swastika and the noose aren’t ‘potentially divisive.’ They are explicit symbols of antisemitism and hate. Treating them as anything less than hate symbols is a dangerous mistake,” Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said.

“Nazi swastikas are not ‘divisive.’ They are antisemitic,” the American Jewish Committee said in a statement. “They represent a regime responsible for the murder of six million Jews and insult the hundreds of thousands of Americans who gave their lives to defeat the Nazis 80 years ago.”

The AJC called on Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, under whose jurisdiction the Coast Guard falls, to “reverse these deeply troubling guidelines immediately.”

Amy Spitalnick, the CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs said, through the amended policy, “the Coast Guard is doing nothing less than normalizing violent extremism.”

Halie Soifer, the CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, told Jewish Insider the policy marks as “dark and unprecedented moment in our country’s history,” in conjunction with President Donald Trump’s recent comments accusing Democrats of “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” 

“This signaling to right-wing extremists and antisemites — combined with the President’s explicit threat of political violence — is depraved, unconscionable, shocking, and incredibly dangerous, including for Jews,” Soifer continued.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said that, “Granting hate symbols like swastikas & nooses even an ounce of respectability is absolutely an anathema.” 

“Sec. [Kristi] Noem should be ashamed & Americans outraged. This edict besmirches the Coast Guard’s honor & should be immediately reversed,” he continued. 

Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) called the policy change “indefensible.”

Reps. Dan Goldman (D-NY), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Haley Stevens (D-MI), Mark Veasey (D-TX), Ted Lieu (D-CA) and Grace Meng (D-NY), co-chairs of the House Antisemitism Task Force, issued a statement condemning the decision.

“By eliminating the terminology of ‘hate incident’ symbols at a time of rising antisemitism and increasing hate, the Coast Guard risks emboldening those who seek to intimidate or target Jewish Americans, Black Americans, and other minority communities,” the lawmakers said. “This change sends a chilling signal to American Jews at a moment when antisemitic incidents have already hit record highs in the United States. This policy change must be reversed immediately.” 

Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), also a co-chair of the task force, said, “This would be an egregious move on the part of the Administration if true.” 

“The Department of Homeland Security is outright refuting and another outlet has confirmed it reporting that officials say they are still covered under the new language and will not be tolerated,” Bacon said. “We need some clarity on this issue and the Coast Guard should make it 100% clear. It would help if the Coast Guard had a Commander, as the position has been vacant for many months.”

Rep. Laura Gillen (D-NY) wrote to Lunday, the Coast Guard commandant, expressing “deep concern” and “strong opposition” to the policy, and said that the policy change should be reversed immediately and requested an explanation of the policy change, who was involved and how the Coast Guard will “reaffirm its zero-tolerance posture toward racism and antisemitism.”

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who is Jewish and a potential 2028 presidential candidate, said that he “helped build a Holocaust museum so future generations would understand the horror of the swastika — not watch our own government rebrand it, the noose, and the Confederate flag as merely ‘potentially divisive.’ These are symbols of mass murder and racial terror. The Trump Administration must reverse this immediately. You do not sanitize evil. You confront it.”

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), the ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, said that the policy “is vile and horrific.”

“Swastikas and nooses aren’t ‘potentially divisive’; they are longstanding and well known representations of genocide and lynchings,” he said. “The Trump Administration is looking to take us back all the way to the era of the Nazi Party and the Jim Crow South.”

He dismissed the Coast Guard’s denials, saying that the “administration is trying to claim they don’t mean what the policy says,” and should withdraw and disavow the policy.

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA), the ranking member of the House Rules Committee, posted on X, “Welcome to Donald Trump’s America—where it’s fine to be a Nazi or in the KKK.”

Doug Emhoff, the former second gentleman and a leader of the Biden administration’s efforts to combat antisemitism, said on X, the change is “Completely wrong and unacceptable. Leaders cannot remain silent on this if they are serious about combatting antisemitism and hate.”

Members of the Senate Armed Services Committee from both parties voiced concerns with Elbridge Colby, under secretary of defense for policy, and his office at the Pentagon, at a committee hearing — for the second time this week.

While Thursday’s proceedings, a confirmation hearing for Alex Velez-Green, nominated to be Colby’s top deputy and who has been a senior advisor to him in an interim capacity, were generally less heated than a Tuesday hearing with nominee Austin Dahmer, lawmakers reiterated concerns with a lack of consultation by Colby’s team and alleged rogue decision-making on a range of issues by the office.

“Many of this committee have serious concerns about the Pentagon’s policy office and how it is serving the president of the United States and the Congress,” Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), the chairman of the committee, said in his opening statement. “In many of these conversations, we hear that the Pentagon policy office seems to be doing what it pleases without coordinating, even inside the U.S. executive branch.” 

Wicker, pushing back on a defense offered earlier this week by Dahmer — who dismissed many concerns as fallacious and based on inaccurate media reporting — said that the issues raised by committee members were based on their own conversations with other administration officials and United States allies.

“Either all of these other administration officials and senior foreign officials are deliberately misleading us or we have a problem coming from this office,” he continued.

He said that the policy office can begin to rectify those issues by meeting “its statutory requirement to consult with this committee … rather than simply informing us of a decision after the fact.”

“We need a process that works for the president and the [Congress]. Unfortunately, we do not have such a process at this moment,” Wicker said, adding that progress will require a “change in a mindset” from the policy office.

Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) added that, “the perception is that there’s some disagreement between what has been put out [by the policy office] and what the president wants. And I think it’s pretty important that you guys figure out how to stop that.”

Velez-Green generally took a conciliatory posture, pledging to communicate and consult with lawmakers whenever possible and appropriate. He also insisted that the policy office and the entire Department of Defense have been diligent in ensuring they are fully aligned with the president’s policy.

But Velez-Green also insisted that the policy office had not directed a pause in U.S. arms transfers to Ukraine, which was later publicly overridden by President Donald Trump, who said he had not been aware of or instructed any such moves. Multiple Senate Republicans pointed to a news release from the Pentagon that specifically stated that such a pause had been implemented.

Velez-Green also denied media reports that Colby had opposed the deployment of additional U.S. forces to the Middle East during the war between Israel and Iran.

Lawmakers again raised concerns that they and U.S. allies in Romania had been notified only days ahead of time that the U.S. would be withdrawing troops from Romania, and that lawmakers were only provided a notification after the decision had been made rather than consulted ahead of time.

“Congress was not consulted about this. I think I can say with certainty about that,” Wicker said.

Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) was the only lawmaker to offer an unequivocal defense of Colby and his office, accusing those criticizing Colby over both policy decisions and communication issues of attempting to block his policy preferences.

“I think much of the criticism, which is cloaked in terms of transparency and communication, really is just an effort to undermine a shift in our foreign policy orientation, which I support, which is to realism, as opposed to some of the failed points of view that have dominated permanent Washington over the last 30 years,” Schmitt said, adding that criticisms of Colby and his team reflect “resistance from those invested in maintaining the foreign policy status quo that has repeatedly failed the American people.”

The Senate voted to advance the nomination of Elbridge Colby to be undersecretary of defense for policy on Monday, teeing up a final confirmation vote for later this week, with three Democrats crossing party lines to vote in favor of advancing to a final vote on his confirmation.

Colby’s nomination advanced in a 53-39 vote on Monday evening, with no Republicans voting against him. It was unclear going into Monday’s vote what the final whip count would be, the result of Colby’s nomination being advanced in a secret vote during a classified session of the Senate Armed Services Committee last week. 

A final vote on Colby’s confirmation is scheduled for Tuesday morning. 

Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), the top Democrat on Armed Services, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) voted for the procedural motion to advance Colby’s nomination to a final vote on Monday. All three serve on Armed Services, and Slotkin worked with Colby in the past. Slotkin, who has worked for the Defense Department and the Central Intelligence Agency, told Jewish Insider in February that she was familiar with Colby’s record because he “used to be my assistant.”

Sens. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), Cory Booker (D-NJ), John Fetterman (D-PA), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Jon Ossoff (D-GA), Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Tim Sheehy (R-MT) did not attend Monday’s vote. 

The Democratic backers of Colby come as something of a surprise given the tough questioning the nominee faced from Democrats at his confirmation hearing on his skepticism of U.S. support for Ukraine and other issues.

Colby has faced pushback from some Republican lawmakers over his past support for accommodating a nuclear Iran. He walked back some of those positions, including that the U.S. could contain a nuclear armed Iran and that it should not attack Iran to stop it from obtaining a nuclear weapon, during his confirmation hearing last month. 

Several Republicans could vote against Colby on the final vote on Tuesday, but none of the potential critics previewed their plans to JI on Monday.

Colby said at the hearing that a nuclear Iran would be an “existential danger” to the United States and that he would provide the administration with military options to prevent such an outcome. He also said his past comments had been intended to push back on what he viewed as an overly hawkish public consensus at the time.

Those comments, along with a private lobbying effort by Colby and his allies to assuage concerns and distance himself from other controversial Pentagon hires, had a positive impact on skeptical senators who had been hesitant about voting to confirm him. 

“Speaking for me, he did answer things the way he needed to answer them, adequate at least to my satisfaction,” one GOP senator told JI last month. “He has said the things he needed to say to the satisfaction of people who like me and maybe others — I can’t speak for any of them … and he was pretty convincing.”

Jewish Insider’s senior congressional correspondent Marc Rod contributed to this report.