It sure looks like Amer Ghalib’s nomination to serve as the U.S. ambassador to Kuwait is dead in the water. On January 3, 2026, the U.S. Senate sent Ghalib’s nomination, made in March 2025, back to the White House without action. Unless President Donald Trump re-nominates him during the current session of Congress—a very unlikely possibility—Ghalib’s effort to make the leap from the mayor’s office in Hamtramck, Michigan, to an ambassadorship in the Middle East has come to an end. Hallelujah.
Ghalib’s nomination ran aground during a fiery confirmation hearing on October 23, 2025, as senators grilled him over his previous expressions of antisemitism, his glorification of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, and support for the Muslim Brotherhood.
The hearing centered around Ghalib’s social media posts that Middle East Forum researcher Benjamin Baird first exposed in a 2022 investigative report. Clearly, his support for Saddam Hussein, who invaded Kuwait in 1991, was a major factor in derailing Ghalib’s nomination.
“I served in the 82nd Airborne that helped oust Saddam Hussein from Kuwait,” U.S. Senator Dave McCormick (R-PA) said at the hearing. “You called Saddam a martyr. How do you justify that?” McCormick asked.
Ghalib, who made a valiant effort to distract committee members from his hateful comments by portraying himself as a model immigrant and steadfast opponent of Iran during his opening testimony, said he posted in defense of Hussein out of anger over an Iranian attack on U.S. bases in the Middle East. It was to no avail.
You called Saddam a martyr. How do you justify that?
“For the record, your long-standing public positions are directly contrary to President Trump’s, and I will not be supporting your nomination,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said at the October hearing. “Perhaps there’s another position where your skills could be put to use, but it should not be in the diplomatic corps,” Cruz said later.
“Nowadays, bipartisan cooperation on any issue is a political rarity,” said Baird, who has written several articles on Hamtramck’s all-male, all-Muslim city council. “But senators united in opposition to Ghalib’s nomination, put principles above politics and sent the nomination back to the White House without a favorable report,” he added.
Other Problems
Ghalib apparently hopes that the Trump administration will come through with another job offer. At the January 4, 2026 swearing in of Adam Alharbi, who replaced him as Hamtramck mayor, Ghalib told the audience, “I may not go overseas as the ambassador of the United States, but I will take another important role with the administration that will enable me to stay in touch with the community.”
President Trump should think twice about offering Ghalib a job elsewhere in his administration. The senators who opposed his ambassadorial nomination last October raised only a portion of the problems associated with Ghalib’s career as a public servant. As previously reported in Focus on Western Islamism, “during the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries, Ghalib admitted on Facebook to filling out ballots on behalf of other voters, whom he urged to change their votes from Joe Biden to Bernie Sanders, ‘the Jewish guy.’”
And as documented by Baird in 2022, Ghalib shared a racist Facebook meme depicting an African American looting alcohol during the George Floyd protests. To make matters worse, Ghalib has been less than up front regarding his professional background. Ghalib apparently told a local newspaper that he had graduated from medical school in the Caribbean when in fact, he hadn’t.
It is not as if Ghalib represents a strong base of support in Michigan. Yes, Ghalib did support President Trump during the 2024 election, but Hamtramck voters supported the Democratic ticket by a pretty wide margin—seven percentage points. Whatever support Ghalib provided to Trump’s campaign comes with real risks. Just ask Democrat Tim Walz who dropped out of the governors race in Minnesota—as an incumbent—in part because of the controversy surrounding rampant corruption at Somali-run childcare centers in his state.
Ghalib’s Islamist disdain for America civil society is a liability that President Trump should avoid. Rewarding a man who praised America’s enemies, demeaned his fellow citizens, and treats democratic norms with contempt is an unnecessary risk. Keeping Amer Ghalib out of the administration isn’t just the right thing to do.
It’s the smart choice.
