[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 201 (Wednesday, December 6, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5773-S5775]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                          Military Promotions

  Mr. TUBERVILLE. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk 
about the military's new illegal abortion policy.
  Last November, I got word from the Pentagon that it was planning on 
replacing a 40-year law that was passed in this building, about 
abortion in our military, that has worked perfectly for 40 years--no 
complaints. But our President, in his wisdom, decided to change that 
abortion policy with a memo.
  So, because of that, I warned the Pentagon: Don't do this. Send this 
new policy through the Senate, and let's vote on it. Let's represent 
our colleagues. Let's represent the people back home who sent us up 
here. They elect us to do that, to make decisions for them, to 
represent them.
  I said in writing that, if they imposed this new policy, I would put 
a hold on senior nominations in the military. That is the only power 
that we have in the minority to get the attention of the majority here 
in the Senate.

  I hated to do it. These people needed promotions, but somebody needs 
to wake up in the White House and the Pentagon that they cannot dictate 
policy here in the U.S. Senate.
  Send it over. Let's vote on it.
  So I put a hold, 11 months ago, on admirals and generals and civil 
nominees. A few months went by--a few months being 11--and we have had 
that hold ever since they put this policy in place.
  But somebody had to stand up to what was going on. So I did it. I 
stood up, knowing that I am 100 percent military. My dad was in the 
military. I was a military brat. I believe in our military. It is the 
No. 1 institution in this country because, if we don't have peace and 
security for the American citizens, we are in trouble.
  Secretary Austin knew that I would hold these nominations. He knew 
it, but he decided to go ahead and do it anyway. It was his choice. The 
current leadership in the Pentagon seems to think that taxpayer-funded 
abortion is more important than military nominations.
  Now, let's get this straight. This was in a policy that we had for 40 
years that was about rape, incest, and harm to the mom. It had worked 
for 40 years, but they decided to change that because they thought they 
could without the consent of the Senate.
  Since then, there has been absolutely no negotiation from my 
Democratic colleagues or the Biden administration. I have had a brief 
phone call a couple of times with the Secretary of Defense, but no 
negotiations at all. You would think, if they were really concerned 
about our military in a trying time in which we have all of the world 
which they have created, that they would have called me: Let's talk 
about this. Let's work it out. We need promotions.
  Zero. Zero communications. I have been willing to negotiate the 
entire time.
  So, instead, the Democrats have spent 11 months attacking me for 
trying to get them to do the right thing and to stand up for our 
military. No, they didn't want any of that. They wanted it their way or 
the highway.
  Unfortunately, last month, even some of my Republican colleagues 
attacked me--and attacked me personally--here on this floor. I could 
see how this thing was going. They call themselves, you know, 
military--people

[[Page S5774]]

that support the military. There is nobody, again, who supports the 
military any more than me. But they are currently in the military, and 
they were standing up for their colleagues, which is fine. But I can 
stand and we all can stand for the life of the unborn and for our 
military. You can do both.
  Unfortunately, the Democrats don't want to do that. They do not like 
the unborn, and they don't care anything about the military, or they 
would have done something about this. They were saying these guys and 
women need promotions. Well, these young unborn will never have a 
chance for a promotion because they want to kill them before they are 
born, which is absolutely amazing to me.
  I have been asking the Pentagon to support evidence of changing this 
policy, again, for almost a year. They said it is because of 
recruiting: We need to be able to recruit more people, more women, 
because we need a better abortion policy.
  Again, there was zero evidence that this was going to help in 
recruiting. And, folks, recruiting in the military has been an 
absolute, total disaster--the worst in the history of this country. We 
don't have anybody--hardly anybody--who wants to join a volunteer 
military. It has only gotten worse since this policy went into effect, 
which they started in February.
  I have asked the Pentagon how many people have used this policy since 
it has gone into place. They refused to answer. They have given me no 
information at all.
  I have also explained on this floor many times that this policy is 
illegal. Now, if it was sent over here and we voted on it and it 
passed, it is what it is. But that didn't happen. It wasn't going to 
happen because they didn't have the votes. They didn't have the votes 
to pass it. So we have an immoral, illegal policy that has no basis in 
facts.
  The world is a much more dangerous place today because of some of the 
things that have happened, such as this abortion policy being put in by 
Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer himself. It has become much more dangerous, 
even since we put this policy in place last year.
  Over the last 3 years, we have seen some of the worst humiliations in 
the history of our military. President Biden waved the white flag of 
surrender in Afghanistan: We are leaving; we want out. That is without 
even helping people who are Americans and who have helped Americans for 
20 years. We abandoned them.
  Just 2 months later, Vladimir Putin began massing forces on his 
border with Ukraine. I went to Ukraine right before the war started in 
Ukraine and talked to President Zelenskyy himself, who said: We need 
help. We need people at the border. If you will send materials, they 
won't come in.
  This administration wouldn't listen. We got out of the way and let 
them come in. Since then, by the way, we spent 100 billion of the 
taxpayer dollars. Now we want to spend $100 billion more. Joe Biden 
failed to deter President Putin.
  Joe Biden failed to deter Hamas because of his support of Iran--his 
appeasement of Iran for the last 3 years, giving them money. Iran is 
flush with cash now. Hamas is one of their proxies. Joe Biden has been 
softer on Iran than any President in American history. There is no 
question that America is less safe today than it was before Joe Biden 
and Chuck Schumer took control of Washington, DC. There is no question. 
The facts speak for themselves.
  We have weakened our military, and Democrats in Congress have been 
more than happy to go along with all of these policies. There are no 
complaints from my Democratic colleagues.
  I will just mention a few examples.
  Joe Biden drove out 8,000--just think about this. We drove out 8,000 
people in the military because they would not take a vaccine--8,000 
people who love this country. Democrats in the Senate refused to 
reinstate them and give them backpay when we voted on it about a year 
ago. Now the Pentagon and my colleagues are begging them to please come 
back. We can't get anybody to take a job in the military. Please come 
back. It is no surprise that most of these heroes whom we ran out 
because of the vaccine will not come back.
  Now, I heard that Senator Durbin now wants illegal immigrants to 
serve in the military because we can't find enough Americans.
  Did I just not hear on the floor that Senator Durbin and Senator 
Schumer are against assault weapons?
  I heard that. Everybody has got their opinion. But they want to turn 
around and give an assault weapon to a Chinese or a Russian or Iranian 
who is coming into this country illegally to protect the American 
citizens in the United States of America. Have we lost our minds? We 
have absolutely lost it when it comes to protecting the citizens of 
this country.
  Is anybody in the White House asking why we can't recruit anymore? It 
is absolutely amazing to me.
  Here is another example. Our Navy is not building enough ships that 
are required by law--that we passed. We are not building them. We are 
worried more about climate change and EV cars.
  Folks, we had better start protecting our borders and our country or 
we are not going to have a country. I have never seen anything like it. 
The Pentagon has become more distracted from its core mission by things 
like diversity, equity, and inclusion. Hmm. The Pentagon just asked for 
$114 million.
  Now, I have been told during these last 11 months when I have been 
attacked by the Democrats--and I have been attacked every day by the 
Democrats: Oh, this is not a ``woke'' military. Wait a minute. We are 
not teaching social justice programs in the military, but we want $114 
million more to give for diversity, equity, and inclusion. We don't 
even know how much the abortion travel memo has cost.
  More and more veterans are telling their kids: Don't join this woke 
military. I hear it every time I go out on the road and talk to groups 
of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. I mean, it is not about 
party. It is about an institution that has been sacred to all of us in 
this country for 247 years, but now it is under attack. It is under 
attack by the politicians. This list goes on and on about the problems 
in the military. It is an absolute disaster.
  Then, last week, Senator Schumer stooped to a new low. The House and 
the Senate, every year, pass a budget independently. Then we bring it 
together, and we vote on the discrepancies to build one bill together 
with the House--voted on by people on each side. I was involved in 
that, but it was a sham. The conference is supposed to report it out as 
a single bill after we put it together, but we had no vote. We had no 
vote. The conference committee was just brought in for pictures. All of 
the confirmations were done by the leadership, and Senator Schumer got 
the No. 1 vote. The abortion policy was on the House side. It got 
kicked out. We were supposed to vote on it. I had the votes to get it 
done, but he knew that; so now we have an illegal abortion policy. This 
bill was written in the back rooms, which is like a lot of things that 
are done here, not by many but by a few.
  I came here to represent the people of Alabama. If you are not given 
a vote, why even send people up here? I didn't come here to outsource 
my job to the Pentagon or the White House or, frankly, to the 
leadership of either side--it doesn't make any difference--Democrat or 
Republican.
  This issue of taxpayer-funded abortion could have been resolved 
through the NDAA, and whatever the outcome, I am fine; but bring it to 
the floor, and let's vote on it. That is our job. But that doesn't 
happen. It is not happening because Senator Schumer knew that he 
couldn't get it passed. That is how DC works. Abortion is so important 
to Senator Schumer that he is not letting us vote on this. Therefore, 
there no longer appears to be any short-term path to ending the 
Pentagon's illegal abortion policy. Some other policy will take time 
for me to work through the process, but that doesn't happen overnight.
  So, yesterday, I announced that I would change my tactics and let the 
promotions go through--promotions that they needed, that our military 
needed. But, again, Senator Schumer and his colleagues could care less. 
They held their feet to the fire--no negotiation. But I am going to 
continue to hold the four-star generals.
  People say: Why would you insist on holding the four stars? We have 
got 11 of them.

[[Page S5775]]

  Today, we have 44 four-stars in the military. In World War II, we had 
7--44 to 7. We had 12 million with 7 four-stars. Today, we have 44 
four-stars with 2 million. It doesn't make sense--too many chiefs. So 
we are going to hold those four stars. We can bring them up one at a 
time, but they need to be vetted. We need to know who is running our 
military. These jobs are too important to rubberstamp.
  We need to keep fighting to make our military stronger and stronger. 
The fight for the integrity of our military leadership will continue as 
long as I am here. The fight to keep politics out of the most sacred 
institution will continue. The fight to protect Senate and executive 
branch overreach will continue. Senator Schumer can rig it all he 
wants, but this fight is not over. We will continue to take it to the 
American people because elections have consequences; and don't think 
next year's is not very, very important.
  I am not going to stop fighting for these things, and I am not going 
to stop fighting for the American people. That is the reason we are 
here. A lot of people forget that.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I sit here as I have listened to Senator 
Tuberville say that the world is a more dangerous place. He has spoken 
about how we have weakened our military. Senator Tuberville is right on 
that, and one of the principal reasons is because of Senator 
Tuberville's own actions. He has held up hundreds of military 
nominations, hundreds of our military leaders, who have not made it to 
the posts they were assigned to.
  It is clear that it was a grave mistake for one Senator to hold our 
military promotion system hostage over his personal disagreement with a 
Department of Defense policy. We need our commanders in the Pacific to 
deter China and our service vice chiefs to lead the military. I am 
relieved that he has released most of his holds, but he continues to 
weaken our military readiness and to undermine both recruiting and 
retention.
  The Senate should not go home for the holidays until we confirm the 
remaining nominees. This Senator has held up nominations for nearly a 
year. It undermines our national defense, and it is unfair to our 
military and to our military families. He insults our military, and 
then he turns around and tries to blame President Biden for his own 
actions. The hypocrisy of this Senator is truly breathtaking. We have 
got to stay, and we have got to get these military leaders confirmed.