Tuberville stands behind military holds, faces GOP confrontation

WASHINGTON (NewsNation) — Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville responded to Republican senators who are protesting his military holds that have lasted nearly eight months over the Pentagon’s year-old policy that covers travel expenses for military personnel who travel for abortion care.

A group of Senate Republicans attempted to overcome Tuberville’s (R-Ala.) blockade of more than 370 military promotions on Wednesday, marking the first time GOP members have attempted a maneuver of this kind. 

Senate Republicans sought to move numerous promotions for military officers but were blocked by Tuberville.

Tuberville said he’s not holding up military promotions, he is just holding up all of them being voted on at the same time. He explained that the Senate can go through each military promotion one by one; it’ll just take more time.

On Thursday, the Senate teed up a final vote on the nomination of Adm. Lisa Franchetti to be chief of naval operations, which was the first in a series of votes aimed at filling crucial positions to lead the Navy, Air Force and Marines — all which have been put on hold due to Tuberville’s holds.

The Senate is also slated to vote on Gen. David Allvin for Air Force chief of staff and Lt. Gen. Christopher Mahoney to be the assistant commandant of the Marines. 

The Alabama senator said all he wants is for the chamber to be open to negotiation.

“That’s all I want,” Tuberville said. “I know I’m not going to get 100% of what I want, but at least we can make it fair for everybody.”

Throughout that eight-month stretch, Tuberville has been a constant thorn in the side of members of both parties who have attempted to find an offramp, only to be stymied at every turn. However, the pressure has been ramped up in recent weeks after Hamas’ attacks on Israel and increasing questions about U.S. military readiness in concerning parts of the world.

The group grew more frustrated by the nominee as Tuberville continued to object. At one point, Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) said that Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin are “loving this” exercise, adding: “How dumb can we be, man?”

“I’m fighting for the unborn,” Tuberville said.

Tuberville said that Sullivan has a right to stand up for what he believes to be right, just like him. The Alabama senator said the U.S. had a policy in place for 40 years that worked “perfectly” with no complaints, but they changed it just so they could have their own abortion policy in the military.

“They have the power to do that, but they can’t seem to explain what the policy is. If they can’t tell me that, they are doing the wrong thing for the American people,” Tuberville said.

He said this is an unlawful policy, explaining that there’s a law in the U.S. that says taxpayers do not have to pay for anything that has to do with abortion. Tuberville said the American people have had this policy pushed on them by the Biden administration, hence why the senator wants to have a negotiation about it.

“For some reason, this administration doesn’t like to negotiate: whether it’s foreign policy, whether it’s anything to do with abortion, it’s ‘our way or the highway.’ And the American people don’t deserve that even though they’re in power. They don’t get to circumvent and go around Congress. That’s where the laws are made,” Tuberville said.

The Hill contributed to this report.