Senate

GOP senators clash with Tuberville over military nominees late into night

by Alexander Bolton - 11/16/23 9:14 AM ET

A group of pro-defense Republican senators clashed with Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R) into the early hours of Thursday morning, challenging him over his blockade of more than 400 military nominees that they warned is putting the nation’s national security at risk.

Tempers flared on the floor as Sens. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Todd Young (R-Ind.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) attempted for the second time in two weeks to move a batch of stalled military nominees through the Senate only to be met with objections from Tuberville and his ally, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah).

The GOP senators praised the nonpolitical military nominees as “war heroes” who have sacrificed time with their families many times in service of their country and argued they should be confirmed before the Thanksgiving recess.

But Tuberville sat at his desk unmoved, while Lee, the influential chair of the Senate Steering Committee, rejected the requests for swift approval and argued that Senate Republicans shouldn’t allow the promotions to proceed until the Pentagon drops its policy of paying the travel expenses of service members who obtain abortions.

“I wish we could resolve this. I’m on the floor here more out of sadness and frustration than anger. I really do wish with my colleague Sen. Tuberville we can find a way forward on this fast, to turn to the even bigger readiness problem,” Sullivan said on the floor, referring to rising concerns that the U.S. military isn’t ready for a conflict with Iran or China.

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Sullivan and the other senators took to the floor at 12:15 a.m. Thursday, after the Senate had completed its business for the week and passed a bill to fund the government until January and February, to break Tuberville’s holds.

Graham, who plans to introduce a 15-week national abortion ban later this Congress, said he supports Tuberville’s opposition to the Pentagon’s abortion policy but warned that Tuberville is “wrong” to hold up the military nominees.

“The wrong we’re creating here is to put our military at risk at a time of great need. If you do not believe these holds are having an effect on the military, I don’t question your sincerity, I question your judgment,” he said.

Young stood up on the floor to seek unanimous consent to approve the promotions of Naval Captains Kurtis Mole and Thomas Dickinson to rear admiral.

He read through Mole’s impressive biography, noting that he enlisted in the Navy in 1988, became a cryptologic technician before attending the Naval Academy and steadily worked is way up the chain of command through multiple deployments in the Arabian Gulf and Western Pacific.

But Lee objected to both nominees, speaking for more than an hour on the floor to explain why Tuberville is justified in using his power as a senator to insist on time-consuming floor votes for the noncontroversial nominees as a form of protest.

Lee spoke for so long that he appeared to be filibustering his colleagues’ attempts to seek unanimous consent to approve the promotions, prompting Young to vent his frustration with his Utah colleague shortly after 1:30 a.m.

“There are now tens, tens of Americans watching us on C-SPAN 2, captivated, I know, by the presentation of this evening,” Young said sarcastically. “Some may look upon these proceedings and think, ‘What a functional United States Senate.’ … Others will say perhaps it’s dysfunction,” the Indiana senator said, his voice full of exasperation.

Young then switched tactics and pledged to read through the biographies of several stalled nominees consecutively to deprive Lee the chance of using up the floor time in rebuttal.

Sullivan accused Tuberville and Lee of trying to block their colleagues from even reading the biographies of the nominees they’re stalling.

The Alaska senator said his own goal was to “bring up these nominees one by one, try to get them cleared.”

“To be honest, if I were blocking all these military heroes, I wouldn’t want their bios being read on the floor,” he said. “But we’re going to do that. … Guess who can’t go out and hold a press conference on this? The military members.”

The GOP senators signaled they are prepared to vote for a Democratic-drafted resolution to change Senate procedure to allow Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to confirm the more than 400 stalled nominees in one package if Tuberville doesn’t agree to allow their promotions to proceed soon.

“I promise you this. This will be the last holiday this happens. If it takes me to vote to break loose these folks, I will,” Graham warned, referring to the resolution to change Senate procedure that was passed out of the Rules Committee on Tuesday.

The same group of GOP senators confronted Tuberville over his holds on military promotions on Nov. 1 during a lengthy floor exchange that grew testy at times.

“The idea that some of these officers are supposedly ‘woke’ or desk jockeys is ridiculous,” Sullivan said during that early clash.