Republican Civil War Finally Spills into the Senate over Military Promotions

Tierney L. Cross

The Republican civil war which had long been confined to the House of Representatives reached the other chamber at last, with some furious Senate Republicans publicly calling out one of their own, Tommy Tuberville, for his persistent blockade on crucial military promotions.

For 9 months, Tuberville, a Senator from Alabama, has singlehandedly blocked confirmation of a staggering 350 military nominees offered by President Biden.

His stated reason for grinding the process to a halt is to force the Biden administration to repeal a Defense Department policy which allows for servicepeople seeking abortions to be reimbursed for out of state travel if the state in which they are stationed forbids the procedure.

Though the policy doesn’t compensate the serviceperson for the abortion itself and is commensurate with travel reimbursement for other medical procedures, Tuberville objects on anti-choice grounds, arguing the Biden administration is politicizing the military.

As many others—including Democrats, veterans, national security experts, and now some Republicans—have reminded Tuberville, his efforts to extort the President over a political issue is itself politicizing the military and materially weakening national defense.

Tuberville, who is not a veteran or national security expert, has rejected these assessments in favor of his own judgment.

After the second-in-command of the Marine Corps. suffered a recent heart attack, the simmering tension seemed to finally break on the Senate floor Wednesday night when Republican Senators Ernst, Graham, Romney, Sullivan, and Young introduced individual motions for dozens of nominees.

Tuberville objected each time, prompting heated remarks from those fellow Republicans—particularly Ernst and Sullivan, two veterans.

“Xi Jinping is loving this. So is Putin,” Sullivan said at one point, referring to the authoritarian leaders of China and Russia. “How dumb can we be, man?”

Graham admonished Tuberville, “No matter whether you believe it or not, Senator Tuberville, this is doing great damage to our military. I don’t say that lightly; I’ve been trying to work with you for nine months.”

Tuberville told reporters afterward that he has no intention of changing course.