Tuberville Hits Back at Dems: ‘Schumer Could Put These Nominations on the Floor Whenever He Wants To’

Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., shakes hands with Air Force Lt. Gen. Gregory M. Guillot bef
Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
Kristina Wong

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) hit back at the Biden administration and Democrats attacking him over his hold on blanket Senate confirmations of military promotions, noting that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) could bring those nominations to the Senate floor at any time.

“@SenSchumer could put these nominations on the floor whenever he wants to,” Tuberville posted on X on Thursday.

While Tuberville is blocking unanimous consent of about 300 senior military official promotions, Schumer could get around the block by bringing nominations to the Senate floor for a vote individually. However, he has not opted to do so, reportedly out of concern it would set a precedent for all of the nominations and eat up time for other priorities.

Tuberville began his block about six months ago, in response to the Biden Pentagon enacting a new policy that would pay for troops and their family members to take time off and travel to a state for abortions if they lived in a state where they could not get one.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., speaks to reporters at the Capitol in Washington, Nov. 15, 2022. Democrats celebrating a successful effort to keep control of the U.S. Senate this year will soon confront a 2024 campaign that could prove more challenging. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

The Biden administration made this move after Dobbs v. Jackson overturned Roe v. Wade, in order to ensure that service members and their families could have access to abortions. Tuberville maintains that the Pentagon’s policy violates the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits the federal government from funding abortions except in the case of rape, incest, or if the mother’s life is at risk.

He has said he would drop his hold on the nominations if the Biden Pentagon rescinds its policy, or if Democrats can enact the policy into law, but the Biden administration and Democrats have not budged.

This week, the Biden administration upped their pressure on Tuberville, with three civilian service secretaries writing in an op-ed in the Washington Post that Tuberville’s hold was harming national security. Two of the secretaries — of the Navy and the Air Force — subsequently bashed Tuberville on CNN, with Navy Secretary Carlos del Toro accusing Tuberville of “aiding and abetting communists and autocratic regimes.”

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said on CNN, “We are safe and we are prepared” but accused Tuberville of doing “significant damage to our national security.”

Tuberville responded to the op-ed, saying, “My holds are not affecting national security, no matter what national pundits are saying.”

“@SecAFOfficial, @SECNAV, and @SecArmy would rather attack me in a newspaper than have an actual conversation. Just another example of woke propaganda,” he added.

Sen. Ted Budd (R-NC) supported his colleague, calling del Toro’s comments “totally inappropriate.”

“@SecDef can solve this immediately by rescinding DoD’s abortion travel policy,” he posted on X.

As the Biden administration has continued to attack him, Tuberville has broadened the reason for his hold from the Pentagon’s abortion policy to the nominees for promotion themselves, noting that some of them have promoted woke policies during their time in the Pentagon.

Tuberville recently told Breitbart News in an exclusive statement:

I warned the Pentagon that I would hold their most senior nominees if they broke the law. They did it anyway, and forced my hand. Since then, Chuck Schumer and the Biden Administration have refused any serious negotiations, and so this situation has dragged on.

This has given me more time to look more closely into the background of some of these nominees, and I have deep concerns about some of them. I will continue this process of oversight and I will announce my opposition to specific nominees in the weeks ahead.

He has also recently pointed out that some generals and admirals up for promotion make as much as $300,000 while those who fought the nation’s wars have made less than $40,000.

He also has pointed out that Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) once held up over 1,000 military nominations to pressure the Pentagon into promoting then-Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who sparked an impeachment inquiry into Trump for a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, claiming that Trump tried to bribe him for political dirt on Hunter Biden.

Vindman responded that Duckworth was exercising “oversight” in doing so.

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