Speaking of Trump nominees

The Trump administration’s nominee to coordinate billions of dollars in assistance to migrants around the world has suggested in social-media posts that Islam is an inherently violent religion and has said Christians in some cases should receive preferential treatment when resettling from hostile areas.

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[Ken] Isaacs was announced Thursday as the Trump administration’s pick to become director general of the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration, or IOM. The 169-member organization has a nearly $1 billion annual operating budget and for decades has deferred to the United States, one of its top benefactors, to lead the organization.

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In an undated radio interview with the Christian radio program “First Person” with Wayne Shepherd, audio of which is available online, Isaacs said he sees young people as overly focused on social justice.

“I guess I’m an older guy, but I see rights as coming from God and not from governments. And any time that a government gives a right — let’s say that it was decreed by law that everybody has a right to clean water, everybody has a right to a house — who’s going to pay for that?” Isaacs said.

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In tweets, social media posts and radio appearances reviewed by The Washington Post, Ken Isaacs, a vice president of the Christian relief organization Samaritan’s Purse, made disparaging remarks about Muslims and denied climate change — a driving force behind migration, according to the agency the State Department has nominated him to lead.

In June, after a terrorist attack in London, Isaac reposted and commented on a CNN International story that quoted a Catholic bishop saying “This isn’t in the name of God, this isn’t what the Muslim faith asks people to do.”

Isaacs responded: “CNN, Bishop if you read the Quran you will know ‘this’ is exactly what the Muslim faith instructs the faithful to do.”

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Isaacs wrote in another tweet: “If Islam is a religion of peace, let’s see 2 million Muslims in National Mall marching against jihad & stand for America! I haven’t seen it!”

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After The Post sent a sampling of his social media activity to the State Department, along with a request for comment, his Twitter account was made private, and the department provided a statement from Isaacs apologizing for his posts.

“I deeply regret that my comments on social media have caused hurt and have undermined my professional record,” his statement read. “It was careless and it has caused concern among those who have expressed faith in my ability to effectively lead IOM. I pledge to hold myself to the highest standards of humanity, human dignity and equality if chosen to lead IOM.”

  

An apology. That should fix things. He'll be confirmed.

Isaacs’s public media posts caught the department by surprise and were not reviewed before his announced nomination, State Department officials familiar with the matter said.

Which is worse: nominating a bigot or claiming you didn't vet him properly?

During the administration of President George W. Bush, Isaacs served as the U.S. Agency for International Development’s director of foreign disaster assistance. The agency led U.S. relief efforts after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and a massive earthquake in Pakistan in 2005.

As a vice president at Samaritan’s Purse, an organization led by the Rev. Franklin Graham, son of the evangelist Billy Graham, Isaacs has in the years since coordinated the group’s international relief efforts. In 2014, Isaacs was an outspoken advocate for the United States and Europe to lend more aid to Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia to stop the spread of a deadly outbreak of Ebola.

Yep. He'll be confirmed.

Isaacs’s views on climate change and dwindling natural resources, factors the United Nations has cited increasingly as contributing to international migration, may also cause consternation abroad. Writing on Facebook in reference to the Paris climate accord in 2015, Isaacs called a connection between national security and climate change “a joke.”

“The meeting in Paris next week is not going to be a rebuke to ISIS. It is going to be a dinner joke, a laughing stock, and a diversion of all the real issues.”

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The election to lead the IOM is scheduled for June. A nominee must receive the support of two-thirds of its voting members.

Yeah, he's gonna have a hard time getting that.

“It doesn’t matter what it says on paper, what matters is what people are expected and allowed to do based on the rights given to them by God. You know, sadly, clean water’s not a human right. It is something we all want to aspire to see people to get, but it’s not a right, it’s not guaranteed anywhere, and you have to work for it.”

Jesus wept.

In 2010, the U.N. General Assembly explicitly recognized a human right to water and sanitation, calling the two “essential to the realisation of all human rights.”

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.