'You're struggling': Trump nominee quails at demand to explain white nationalist rhetoric

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) backed President Donald Trump's nominee for assistant secretary of state for international organizations into a corner during questioning this week, as he asked him to clarify what he meant by a series of pro-white nationalist posts claiming that "white identity" is under threat in America.

This comes after Jeremy Carl has deleted 5,000 social media posts, including posts claiming that Jan. 6 rioters were treated worse than Black Americans under Jim Crow, and that the head of a top teachers union should be executed.

"Tell me what you think about 'white identity' and what you think is being erased about 'white identity,'" said Murphy.

"Certain types of, uh, Anglo-derived culture that comes from our history," said Carl.

"Like what?" Murphy pressed him.

"Um, let me think about this," said Carl. "Um, you know Senator, I would say if you were to look at the book by one of your Senate colleagues, 'Born Fighting,' the sort of Scots-Irish military culture and certain, you know, pride that went with that, that would be one example. Um, obviously you can have sub-elements of that culture, you could have Italians, you could have Irish, and those are in many ways more distinct."

"So you're worried about white culture, you're not worried about — you're now retreating to ethnic identity," said Murphy. "You don't speak about ethnic identity, you speak about white identity. So tell me the values that stitch together white identity. And make it different than Black identity."

"I would say that, the white churches, very different from the Black church in terms of its tone and style, on average," said Carl. "Um, foods, food ways could often be different. Um, music could be different."

"And you think those are being erased," said Murphy.

"Well, if you look at the Super Bowl Halftime Show, which was not in English this year," said Carl.

"So our ability to access white churches or white food or white music is being erased?" repeated Murphy.

"I am concerned with the majority, common American culture that we had for some time, that through, particularly, 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."

"I think you're struggling to answer this question, right, because underlying your beliefs is, is a sentiment that white culture is just simply better," said Murphy.