Overview
- At least four Senate Foreign Relations Committee Republicans — Ted Cruz, John Cornyn, John Curtis and Dave McCormick — have publicly said they will vote against advancing Amer Ghalib.
- No Democrats on the committee plan to support the nominee, according to a reported whip count, meaning he could lose only one Republican yet has already lost multiple GOP votes.
- White House officials told Republican senators that President Trump will not withdraw Ghalib and wants the committee to hold a vote, Jewish Insider reported, while the White House declined public comment.
- Ghalib faced a bipartisan grilling at his Oct. 23 confirmation hearing over a record that senators described as antisemitic or at odds with U.S. policy, and Republicans said his answers under oath were inadequate.
- Opponents have cited his past remarks praising Saddam Hussein as a “martyr,” statements viewed as sympathetic to Hamas’s 2023 attack on Israel, and a social-media “like” of a post comparing Jewish people to monkeys.