Senate Republicans confronted Alabama Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville on Wednesday as he continued to reject military officer promotions amid the Pentagon funding abortions.
Tuberville has received criticism from Democrats for months over his hold on several hundred promotions, which he intends to maintain until Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin reverses a current policy granting service members paid leave and covered travel expenses when they desire abortions. Members of the Senate have not voted to approve the Pentagon policy.
“We all swore to uphold the Constitution,” Tuberville remarked on the Senate floor. “I cannot simply sit idly by while the Biden administration injects politics in our military from the White House and spends taxpayer dollars on abortion.”
Several Republican lawmakers, including Alaska Senator Dan Sullivan, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, and Iowa Senator Joni Ernst, confronted Tuberville on the Senate floor as he rejected promotions for sixty-one officers. Sullivan said “China is smiling” and asked Tuberville “how dumb can we be,” while Graham claimed the move would impact national security.
“No matter whether you believe it or not, Senator Tuberville, this is doing great damage to our military,” Graham said. “If this is the norm, who the hell wants to serve in the military when your promotion can be canned based on something you had nothing to do with?”
Utah Senator Mitt Romney claimed that Tuberville was exercising “an abuse of the powers” possessed by lawmakers. “I rise out of great concern for our military, for its readiness at a time of great peril, but also out of concern for the men and women who are being held up,” he said.
Tuberville previously asserted that the number of abortions funded by the Defense Department could surpass 4,000 every year should the policy continue. The abortion funding also extends to the spouses and dependents of service members should they choose to murder their babies.
“The efforts taken by the department today will not only ensure that service members and their families are afforded time and flexibility to make private health care decisions, but will also ensure service members are able to access non-covered reproductive health care regardless of where they are stationed,” the Defense Department said in a statement earlier this year.
