Tuberville Gives Up Military Blockade Stunt After Wasting 10 Months
Sen. Tommy Tuberville has finally — albeit partially — surrendered his blockade on military appointments and confirmations.
After a lunchtime meeting with members of the GOP on Tuesday, Tuberville (R-Ala.) announced that he would no longer be contesting the nomination of appointments for offices ranked three stars or below, but will continue to oppose higher-ranking nominations.
“I’m releasing everybody. I still got a hold on I think 11 four-star generals. Everybody else is completely released from me.” Tuberville told a gaggle of reporters. “But other than that, it’s over.”
Since February, Tuberville, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has single-handedly blocked more than 400 military promotions over his opposition to the Pentagon’s policy of reimbursing service members, veterans, and dependents for travel expenses related to abortion and reproductive health care.
The freeze on confirmation resulted in three branches of the U.S. military, the Navy, Marines, and Air Force, being forced to operate since August without a Senate-confirmed leader, thanks to Tuberville’s freeze on approvals.
Harsh criticism from military officials, including Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, as well as increased bipartisan pressure from his fellow lawmakers seems to have finally cracked Tuberville’s resolve.
In November, several Republican senators expressed their frustration with Tuberville to Rolling Stone. “The concern I have with Tommy’s current position is the blanket holds. It affects readiness. It affects recruiting. So we’ve got to come to a solution,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said. “I like policies where you’re negotiating and trying to come up with a compromise, and I’m not seeing any compromise, which suggests to me this policy could go on for months — or years, technically, and I think that’s a mistake. Got to figure out a middle ground.”
Another anti-abortion, pro-military GOP senator, who requested not to be named by Rolling Stone, said he did not want Tuberville “to punish military members who are ready for more authority because of this debate. I don’t want to hold them hostage.”
Something finally broke through. Last week, Tuberville signaled that while he would not fully relinquish his hold on nominations, only those of candidates he is concerned are too “woke” to serve in their appointments. “This started out as, obviously, abortion overreach and those things. Now, since we’ve had all this time, we’ve had different groups across Washington, D.C., and the country that have evaluated all these military appointees,” the Republican told reporters on Friday. “This is not a private moving to a sergeant and getting one more stripe. This is people that are running our military. I think that we need to make sure that people that are our generals and admirals should be vetted to some degree, but also understand that we need to get these people promoted, and it’s been a long time for some of them.”
What exactly Tuberville means by “woke” remains a mystery, but his concessions on Tuesday mark the most progress made toward confirming the nominees in months — all that remains is for him to follow through.
More from Rolling Stone
BTS' Jimin, Jung Kook, V, and RM Have Started 'Military Enlistment Process'
GOP Senator Stands Up and Tries to Fight Witness During Hearing
Best of Rolling Stone
