Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) explained to Breitbart News his fight against the Biden administration’s taxpayer-funded abortion policy at the Department of Defense and his win against Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY).
Wednesday Tuberville achieved a victory over Schumer by forcing him to cave on his long-held position of refusing to bring military nominations to the floor individually. Tuberville has blocked the Senate from approving large blocks of multiple military nominations without debate to protest the Pentagon’s abortion policies. Schumer has insisted the Senate is unable – or unwilling – to consider each nomination individually, and has routinely attacked Tuberville for threatening national security by forcing the Senate to consider nominations to high-level military posts individually. However, after Tuberville slyly used a seldom-used Senate procedure to bring one of those nominations to the Senate floor, Schumer relented, scrambling quickly to set up votes on three individual nominations.
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) speaks to the media. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty)
“Yesterday was a huge win for the Constitution and the Congress on both sides to have an opportunity to vote, to vote for what they think is right,” said Tuberville.
Tuberville, who rose to fame as the successful head football coach at Auburn University and ran for Senate as an outsider focused on racking up wins for his constituents, explained to Breitbart News his battle against the administration’s policies that materialized in the aftermath of Roe v. Wade’s invalidation.
“Everything was predicated on after Roe v. Wade went down, they know they can’t control the states, but they think they can control all the federal employees,” explained Tuberville, who quickly emerged as a leading pro-life champion as the Biden administration scrambled to circumvent Congress.
“Well, first, Bradley, we found out that they were gonna change the VA [Veterans Administration] towards abortion, and we got to looking into it. I fought that, but I lost. They brought the vote to the floor and I even had some Republicans vote against me, which I was not very happy about. And then we started hearing that the Biden administration and the Secretary of Defense and the Pentagon were gonna change the military abortion policy.”
Tuberville pressed the administration, which after dragging its feet, made clear it would not comply with the law or the intent of Congress. “We asked for a briefing, and finally got one last November. They told us what they were gonna do. They were gonna change the policy, and I kept waiting for them to say, you know, ‘We’re gonna send it to Congress to vote on it,’ but that wasn’t what they were planning on doing. They were planning on changing this policy which was passed in the Senate in 1984, the policy for the military abortion.”
The Senator, who is called “Coach” even by his Senate colleagues, noted that this law banning taxpayer-funded abortion was passed with the widespread support of Democrats, including then-Senator Joe Biden, and remains popular. “It’s worked great for 30-something years. And then [the Pentagon] was gonna start paying for travel, three weeks off [to travel to receive an abortion]. And, we polled it and looked at it and 60 percent of the people in this country, whether Democrat, Republican, or independent, say they do not want one dime spent for anything to do with abortion. Now, this is not just Republicans.”
Tuberville remained on the warpath and sent letters to the Pentagon and Secretary of Defense expressing the view that the administration’s policy violated the law, laying out his plan to combat its implementation, telling them, “Now, if you do this without going through the proper channels of Congress and having this voted for, I’m gonna put a hold on all your admirals and generals. Well, they didn’t believe it.”
President Biden, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Schumer and his Senate foot soldiers, and Democrat media allies rattled their sabers for months, insisting Tuberville’s holds somehow affected national security. But Tuberville never relented, leading to Schumer’s capitulation. Tuberville insists he will continue fighting against the Pentagon’s policy — and for Congress’s rightful ability to determine how tax dollars are spent — as the battle enters a new stage.
“Here, we are 220 days later, that yesterday, I finally convinced them to confirm three very important people. We did that. And now I’ve still got a hold on close to 300. I’m not gonna change my mind on this. They’re gonna change the policy back and vote on it like they should, you know, not like a dictator.
“You know, what they’re playing now in the White House, it’s communism. I’m not gonna allow that to happen.”
