Tuberville: GOP Senators Siding with Dems on Holds Would Be 'Devastating'

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) said in an exclusive interview with Breitbart News on Wednesday it would be “devastating” to the Republican Party if nine Republican senators crossed the fence and sided with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to take away Republican’s ability to put a hold on blanket confirmation of Biden administration nominees.

The resolution is aimed at getting around Tuberville’s hold on the Senate’s ability to unanimously confirm the promotions that he put in place after the Pentagon ignored his warnings and issued a pro-abortion policy that he argues violates the Hyde Amendment, which prevents federal taxpayer funds from going towards abortions.

“The leader of the Senate is going bring a resolution to the Rules Committee next week. And he’s proposing that they pass a rule for the next year and three months for the rest of this Congress that we cannot put holds on anybody as a minority. Now that would be devastating to us in the Republican Party,” Tuberville told Breitbart News.

He added:

When you’re in the minority, which we’ve been in, three years going on for in the Senate, you have no power. There’s nothing you can do, other than sit around get your brain is beat in by the Democrats who are trying to ruin our country. They’ve not made one good decision for the American citizen.

But the only thing you have is to say, ‘OK, I’m putting a hold on this nominee or this situation’ and they have to adhere to it.  And you get an opportunity to just speak out. But if they pass this, I mean, we just burned the Senate down. We might as well lock the doors and go home as as Republicans because we wouldn’t be able to make it the first base on anything for another year and three months.

Tuberville noted that in order to pass the resolution on the Senate floor, Schumer would need nine Republicans, and he hoped they would vote to pass it.

“They have to weigh the their responsibility to their voters. With this vote, I hope it doesn’t come to that,” he said.

Tuberville said he called a meeting with fellow Republican senators on Tuesday, and told them he would try his best to find a solution before the vote.

However, he said, “If we can’t — which is going to be hard to do — there could possibly be a vote on this reform. And so again, I don’t know the direction is gonna go. But I just I just hope they don’t circumvent the rule to give the Democrats a win.”

Last week, five Republicans senators publicly turned against Tuberville — Sens. Joni Ernst (R-IA), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Mitt Romney (R-MA), Dan Sullivan (R-AK), and Todd Young (R-IN).

They lambasted Tuberville for placing a hold on the Senate’s ability to confirm the nominees on a blanket basis, despite Schumer having the ability to bring votes on each nominee individually but not wanting to use time on the Senate floor to do that.

Tuberville told Breitbart News, “We do fight amongst each other, but we shouldn’t bring it out in public.”

“I’m a team player, you know, I’ve coached forever. I know you can’t win unless you stay together as a team,” he said.

He reiterated his position:

It’s been nine months that we’ve been fighting back against the executive overreach from the White House and the Pentagon. They’re attacking the unborn. They’re making the taxpayers pay for things that have to do with abortion. It’s against the law.

He said he told his fellow Republicans during the conference on Tuesday, “I’m from Alabama, I ran as a pro-life conservative, and I’m gonna stand up for the people of Alabama.”

He said there were options that came up during the meetings and he is looking at those avenues, but said, “We do need some dialogue with the Pentagon.”

“I can’t do this by myself. The Pentagon has got to be involved in some kind of negotiation,” he said. “This Pentagon and this White House, they refuse to have any kind of communication with me.”

“This has been a one way street, and I’ve been driving this car and nobody’s gotten into it with me,” he said, “It’s frustrating. … It’s been me, and [Sens.] Mike Lee, JD Vance, Roger Marshall. Everybody else has been kind of on the sideline and we got to we have to get more people on board.”

“Again, I don’t want to fight against my Republican colleagues. I think they mean well, they’re standing up for the military. I’m gonna tell you, it is very hard. They have put us in a hard place of standing up for unborn and standing up for military and we are for both,” he said. “Really the Democrats are not for either — they’re not for the unborn, and they’re not for the military.”

Tuberville said since the small group of Republicans turned against him last week, things between them have been “good.”

“You just you can’t let things could get to you personally. And again, I’ve coached all my life, and I’ve had my own fans hollering and throwing things at me, you know, when I was coaching when we didn’t play well, or when they didn’t agree with the decision, and that’s that’s what this country is about. But at the end of the day, as Republicans, we got to come together and fight for the unborn.”

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