Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) stood firm on his position to hold up military nominations in the Senate over its abortion policy despite a new Pentagon media pressure campaign.
On Tuesday, the Department of Defense sent the civilian leaders of the Navy, Army, and Air Force to protest Tuberville's holds in a string of media appearances, and it published a news story on the DOD website regarding the effects of the holds. Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro even suggested Tuberville was aiding communists in an interview on CNN.
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“For someone who was born in a communist country, I would have never imagined that one of our own senators would actually be aiding and abetting communist and other autocratic regimes around the world,” Del Toro said, appearing alongside Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall and Army Secretary Christine Wormuth.
Appearing on Fox News the following day, Tuberville brushed off the complaints from the Pentagon and laughed off Del Toro's comments.
"I grew up in a military family. My dad was career military — died on active duty," he told host Laura Ingraham. "There’s no bigger fan of the military than me up here. I’m on the Armed Services Committee. I didn’t think I would come up here and ever be associated with terrorism and communism as a United States senator. That’s wrong. This is coming from the talking heads of the White House."
Tuberville said the Biden administration could stop his hold on promotions any time and that all it had to do was call a vote on the new Pentagon abortion policy, which would give paid leave to any woman who wanted to travel to get an abortion. If one promotion is urgent, the Pentagon can put forward that nomination individually and get it passed.
"I told Secretary Austin this almost a year ago," Tuberville continued. "'If you do this, I’m going to block your generals and admirals from promotion.' They didn’t believe me. They put all this into effect. And, as you said, I can hold just so many of them. If they bring them one at a time, they could get them all they want. The problem is ... they don’t want bad votes."
The Alabama Republican pointed to the political aspect, blaming the Pentagon's refusal to bring forth the policy or individual promotions on fears from Democrats that it would force vulnerable senators to take unpopular positions with their base.
He also dismissed the suggested urgency of the situation, pointing to what could be perceived as positive effects of the holds.
"There is a huge percentage of the people that they want to elevate to another star, possibly to even a four-star," Tuberville said, referring to the generals' rank. "By the way, we already got 44. That’s way too many as it is. There is a lot of them, and all they want to do is talk about DEI. Everything is about equity."
"They are saying that generals and admirals are the most important. The most important people we have in the military are the sergeants, the corporals, the privates, the second lieutenants, the first lieutenants," he said.
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"The people who actually do the work, not the people riding around in black limousines in Washington, D.C., and have a nice office at the Pentagon. The Pentagon is way too big as it is. We need to send more money back down to the people who actually do the work. We have way too many leaders at the top. It is getting way out of control."
Tuberville recommended the DOD focus on getting "wokeness" out of the military and building up forces to counter China.