Republican presidential primary candidate Nikki Haley isn’t pulling her punches, and on Sunday she went after Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala.
Tuberville is holding up roughly 300 military promotions in protest over the U.S. military’s abortion policy.
Haley blasted the Republican leader, and accused him of “using military families as political pawns” on the show “State of the Union” Sunday.
“Speaking of having a strong defense and having a strong Navy, Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville is currently and for months has been holding up more than 300 military promotions in the Senate, non-political positions,” CNN’s Jake Tapper said.
“Okay, there’s a couple of things here, Jake. Let’s speak hard truths. First of all, the Department of Defense never should have done [the abortion policy Tuberville is protesting]. I’ll disagree with it, and I’ll put an end to it as Congress,” Haley promised.
But Haley bashed Tuberville and said the whole of Congress must act to overturn the policy, not one senator.
“We have three branches of government for a reason,” Haley said.
“You can’t slip something in there like that and think that Congress is not going to be upset. First, I’ll put an end to that, and you’ll handle it through the proper channels. Secondly, we don’t need to be using military families as political pawns. That’s a mistake,” she said.
“These military members and families, they sacrifice enough,” Haley said. “They don’t need to be a pawn in Congress.”
Tuberville has brushed off criticism and vowed to not give in. “We’re going to be in a holding pattern for a long time,” he said, if the Pentagon refuses to end its policy of paying for travel when a servicemember goes out of state to get an abortion.
It’s a classic Washington standoff with rippling effects across the country, placing the lives of servicemembers effectively on hold as they await what has traditionally been routine Senate approval for their promotions.
The secretaries of the Navy, Air Force, and Army wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post last week saying Tuberville’s efforts were not only unfair to the military leaders and their families but also “putting our national security at risk.”
They noted that three military branches — the Army, Navy and Marine Corps — have no Senate-confirmed chiefs in place. Those jobs are being performed without the full range of legal authorities necessary to make decisions that will sustain the United States’ military edge, they wrote.
Tuberville took umbrage with the three defense secretaries. He said they should have spoken with him first “if you’re gonna run your mouth in the paper.”
“I have not heard from any of them,” he said.
If they were truly worried about readiness at such a dangerous time for the world “you would think they would be calling, ‘Coach, let’s work this out.’ Zero,” said Tuberville, a former college football coach.
Tuberville said that during the August break, he visited six states, and “I didn’t have one negative comment from anybody. I had questions, but I didn’t have any negative comments.”
He insisted that he would lift his hold on the military nominations only after the Pentagon rescinds the policy that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin put into place in October, mere months after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
Once the Pentagon returns to pre-memo policies on travel reimbursement, Democratic leaders could bring up for a Senate vote whatever replacement policy they want to enact, he said.
“Move it back,” Tuberville said of the current reimbursement policy. “And then have them write up what they want to vote on, and I will accept whichever way it goes. The holds are off. Let’s go to work.”
Tuberville’s blockade is unique because it affects hundreds of military nominations and promotions. Democratic leaders would have to hold roll call votes on every one to get around the hold, an unwieldy and time-consuming process in a chamber that already struggles to finish its basic business.
It’s a decades-long tradition for the Senate to group military nominations and approve them by voice vote, avoiding lengthy roll calls and reserving valuable floor time for other important issues.
But, while unusual, Tuberville’s office notes that lawmakers from both parties have threatened holds on military promotions over the years. What’s truly unprecedented is the length of time it has gone on with Tuberville.
But Steven Stafford, a spokesman for Tuberville, said there has been no contact with the Biden administration about the holds at the principal or staff level since July 18, and no further communications are planned.
The Pentagon to date has not provided data on the number of servicemembers who have relied on the new policy to get access to an abortion citing privacy issues. It emphasizes that the new policy was in response to the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, which created a situation where federal troops serving in one state may not have access to the same type of reproductive services available in others.
As many as 650 nominations could be affected by the end of the year if the impasse continues. But Haley was one of the first Republican leaders to pressure Tuberville to end his holds.
“I’m hoping that the conversations that occur this week and the conversations that Senator Tuberville has had with the military leadership will lead to a breakthrough at some point,” said Sen. John Thune, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate.
The Horn editorial team and the Associated Press contributed to this article