Coast Guard language on swastikas, nooses clarified, then Senate confirms Admiral Kevin Lunday as chief

Courtesy: CBS

Washington — The Senate confirmed Admiral Kevin Lunday as Coast Guard commandant Thursday night after agency guidance on the display of hate symbols such as swastikas and nooses was clarified. Democrats objecting to the guidance had been holding up the confirmation.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, of South Dakota, called for and got senators to approve Lunday unanimously in remarks before the chamber adjourned for the year.

After references to the hate symbols as “potentially divisive” were removed from Coast Guard policy, Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen of Nevada said she was lifting a hold she’d placed on Lunday’s nomination for the agency’s top job.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, whose agency oversees the Coast Guard, said on social media that the latest changes were made so no one can “misrepresent” the branch’s position.

Adm. Kevin Lunday during a Nov. 19, 2025 Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee hearing on his nomination to be Coast Guard commandant.Julia Demaree Nikhinson / AP
“The pages of superseded and outdated policy will be completely removed from the record so no press outlet, entity or elected official may misrepresent the Coast Guard to politicize their policies and lie about their position on divisive and hate symbols,” Noem said.

The move capped back-and-forth revisions of the Coast Guard policy on swastikas, nooses and other hate symbols that had sparked an uproar. The Department of Homeland Security has asserted there “was never a ‘downgrade'” in policy language.

Rosen had said she was holding up Lunday’s nomination because leadership appeared to have “backtracked” on a commitment that swastikas and nooses are considered hate symbols and prohibited from display.

Rosen said Thursday on social media that she was lifting the hold and looked forward to working with Lunday to continue strengthening anti-harassment policies at the Coast Guard.

“While I continue to have reservations about the process by which this happened and the confusion created by leadership at the Department of Homeland Security, I am pleased to see that the policy now directly refers to stronger language against swastikas and nooses,” she said.

Noem called the delay of Lunday’s nomination a “politicized holdup,” saying it had gone on long enough and he should be confirmed without delay.

“He has given nearly 39 years of distinguished service to the Coast Guard, this country, and the American people,” she said.

The Coast Guard’s planned policy change calling hate symbols “potentially divisive” emerged publicly last month. It stopped short of banning them, instead saying that commanders could take steps to remove them from public view and that the rule did not apply to private spaces, such as family housing.

DHS has said the change “strengthens our ability to report, investigate, and prosecute those who violate longstanding policy.”

The Coast Guard said on social media that it “maintains a zero-tolerance policy toward hate symbols, extremist ideology, and any conduct that undermines our core values. We prohibit the display or promotion of hate symbols in any form. Any suggestion otherwise is false.”