GOP Senator's Holdout Causes Biden Military Leaders to Melt Down in the Media
As the Biden administration sought to put pressure on Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama to end his hold on military promotions that must be confirmed by the Senate, one top Biden appointee accused Tuberville of supporting America’s enemies.
The senator has taken his stand in response to a Pentagon policy that pays the expenses of service members who go out of state for an abortion if the state they are in has restrictions under which that service member could not obtain an abortion, according to The Associated Press.
Tuberville has said the policy violates the Hyde Amendment, which has prohibited U.S. taxpayer funding of most abortions since 1977.
His tactic blocks the traditional Senate voice vote on promotions of generals and other officers.
It does not prohibit Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York from scheduling roll call votes on the promotions.
About 300 promotions have been halted, according to the AP.
To put pressure on Tuberville, Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall and Army Secretary Christine Wormuth attacked him in an Op-Ed published Monday in The Washington Post.
The three Biden administration military leaders also made a joint appearance on CNN to decry the senator’s hold on promotions.
During the interview, Del Toro accused Tuberville of “playing Russian roulette with the very lives of our servicemembers by denying them the opportunity to actually have the most experienced combat leaders in those positions to lead them in times of peace and in times of combat.”
“I would have never imagined that actually one of our own senators would actually be aiding and abetting communist and other autocratic regimes around the world,” the Navy secretary said.
At one point, Kendall said a U.S. military officer was taunted by a Chinese officer “about the way our democracy was working.”
Warmuth said that social media criticism of specific officers is “unprecedented” because it was “attacking apolitical general officers and flag officers.”
In the Op-Ed, the three secretaries said Tuberville is “putting our national security at risk.”
Tuberville, however, said “I’m not budging,” according to CNN.
The senator said the hold will end when the Pentagon rescinds its policy, which was instituted in October following the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision that overturned the Roe v. Wade ruling on abortion.
“If I thought I was really harming our military, I wouldn’t be doing this,” Tuberville said. “But I’m not.”
In comments on Fox News, he fired back at Del Toro, saying, “We are so woke in the military we are losing recruits right and left. Secretary Del Toro of the Navy, he needs to get to building ships, he needs to get to recruiting, and he needs to get wokeness out of our Navy.
“We’ve got people doing poems on aircraft carriers over the loudspeaker. It is absolutely insane the direction we are headed in our military. And we’re headed downhill, not uphill.”
Tuberville responds to the Navy Secretary by saying the Secretary has to get wokeness out of the Navy because “we’ve got people doing poems on aircraft carriers” pic.twitter.com/JiTgCrFb2q
— Acyn (@Acyn) September 6, 2023
Tuberville bristled that the secretaries went public before speaking to him, according to the AP.
They should have spoken to him “if you’re gonna run your mouth in the paper.”
“I have not heard from any of them,” he said.
The former college football coach said if they were truly worried about readiness, “you would think they would be calling, ‘Coach, let’s work this out.’ Zero.”
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