Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) spoke with Breitbart News about his fight against woke policies in the government amid a barrage of attacks from the Democrats’ mainstream media allies.
Tuberville, holding his first political office, brings a different approach to a legislative body known for going along to get along. “I’m not a politician. OK? And I’ve told people, listen, I’m gonna make the decisions that’s best for the people of Alabama and the citizens across this country that love our constitution. I’m gonna fight, and if people don’t want to send me back up here on the next election, fine, vote against me. But while I’m here, I’m gonna speak for the people.”
Matt Perdie / Breitbart News
Tuberville, nicknamed the “Riverboat Gambler” in his coaching days for fearless and sometimes risky playcalling that often worked to his advantage, has earned the enmity of some colleagues and mainstream media for bucking the Senate status quo. His maverick approach to his Senate work earned him a victory Wednesday, as he told Breitbart News, when he forced Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) into a major concession over Tuberville’s blocking of en masse military promotions in protest of the Pentagon’s abortion policies. Tuberville’s unconventional tactics were decried by President Joe Biden, Pentagon officials, the mainstream media, and many of his colleagues as a “national security threat,” but Schumer, by caving and moving nominations individually, as Tuberville requested for months, made clear no threat existed.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) speaks during a news conference following a policy luncheon meeting with fellow Senate Democrats on Capitol Hill May 18, 2021 in Washington, DC. Schumer and the Democratic Senators took questions form reporters about the Endless Frontier Act, which aims to counter Chinas global economic ambitions, and the situation between Israel and the Palestinians. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
“I am pro-military and we have got some good people in the military,” said a patriotic Tuberville, who nonetheless has been painted by Democrats and their media allies as being anti-military. “We’ve got some good leaders, we’ve got some good soldiers. We got people from top to bottom that really believe in this country.
“But the problem is a lot of our leadership that’s coming out of the White House and from the old Obama administration, they want to change our military to something that it’s never been. They want to involve politics in it. They want to indoctrinate people in socialism and something that we’re not familiar with at all. And so, that’s what we’re fighting with all these 300 nominees.”
Tuberville blocked the mass advancement of over 300 military nominations, not only in protest of the Pentagon’s abortion policy, but also out of the belief that the nominations merit full scrutiny by the Senate. He opposes many of the nominees for their history of interjecting politics and “wokeness” into the military and prioritizing policies like diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) over the military’s core function. Schumer’s actions Wednesday set an important precedent by bringing three of those nominations to the floor for individual consideration. Yet few mainstream media outlets portrayed Wednesday’s victory for what it was – clearly, Senator Schumer blinked – with one loyal Democrat organ, CNN, going so far as to change a headline after publication to downplay Tuberville’s victory.
Why did you change your headline @CNN???
Looks like someone got the Schumer talkers!! pic.twitter.com/WnawLt3kdC
— Mallory Blount Jaspers (@MalloryJaspers) September 20, 2023
Tuberville is undeterred by the media’s unfaltering loyalty to the Democrat Party. “The national media is their marketing arm. I call them activists, they’re not journalists, and anything that this White House comes out with, most of the mainstream media just jumps right on and supports it.”
Coach Tuberville laid bare the hypocrisy of claims that his holds somehow affect national security by pointing to the harm done to military readiness and recruitment by the Biden administration’s vaccine mandates. “They want to talk about readiness. They did away with 8,000 of our best military people for a stupid vaccine mandate, which was unconstitutional.
“So, that they can make all these innuendos about what I’m doing, not doing. I’m doing the right thing for the American people, because when you have a controversial subject like this, Bradley, people in every state need to have a say, and to have that say, they go through their senator and congressman.”
After Wednesday’s victory, Tuberville plans to continue shining a light on the quality of Biden’s nominees and their radical histories. “We’ve had an opportunity with these last 220 days to vet a lot of these people. We’re teaching things in the military that are being taught in a lot of our schools now, which is indoctrination in the social justice agendas, things that shouldn’t be taught. You know, our military is not an equal opportunity employer. Our military is here to protect the citizens and the allies around the world. And if we don’t have the strongest military, we are in trouble, and I’m afraid with the leadership we have from the Biden administration and this Pentagon, a lot of these generals and admirals, they’re pushing things that the American people don’t believe in and that, that is wrong.
“We cannot be teaching all this DEI, social justice, identity politics. If we do that and continue to add politics to something that should be very strong, coherent, and should be like a football team pulling together and fighting, because–there is no second place in war. We have not won a war since World War Two in this country. People don’t realize that we get into these conflicts but we don’t go in to win. We go in to police and patrol.”
Biden’s disastrous Afghanistan retreat remains a clear but painful example of Biden’s foreign policy weakness, said Tuberville, who compared Biden’s fecklessness to the strength of President Donald Trump. “Afghanistan was a debacle. We look like a weak person around the world now to all of our allies and other countries because [of] how Joe Biden has handled our foreign relations. We had better get back to the things at hand that made this country strong and that started with a strong military.
TOPSHOT – Taliban supporters gather to celebrate the US withdrawal of all its troops out of Afghanistan, in Kandahar on September 1, 2021 following the Talibans military takeover of the country. (Photo by JAVED TANVEER / AFP) (Photo by JAVED TANVEER/AFP via Getty Images)
“And that’s the reason I’m a Donald Trump fan. Donald Trump believes in a strong military. He has strong leaders around him. We have to get back to that. We have no choice. We have no choice [but] to get back to that. So that’s what we’re trying to help. As long as we’re in the minority, I’m gonna continue to fight.”
The affable coach’s humility – an uncommon characteristic in cutthroat, power-hungry Washington – fused with his athlete’s competitiveness, sets Tuberville apart in a Senate where most of his colleagues fit the mold of glad-handing dealmakers who worked their way up from smaller political offices. In only his third year in the Senate, the “Riverboat Gambler” has shown himself to be cut from a different cloth, and he hopes that his unique, outsider approach can enable his second career act, however long it might be, to be truly impactful.
“I think the people like somebody that’s gonna fight back again. I’ve had a great career in coaching. I’m here to help. I don’t have all the answers, but I’m not going to bow down to politicians and I’m not gonna bow down just because I might lose a vote here or there. That’s not even in my purview. My purview is do what’s right for this country because, Bradley, this country is in trouble. All you have to do is look at the crime and the border, our foreign policies, our inflation, doing away with fossil fuels, the climate hoax. I mean, we have so many problems in this country. There has not been one positive thing happen since I’ve been here towards making things better for the American citizen. And we’ve got to wake up and smell the, roses because we’re going down, down the tube pretty fast in this country.”
