Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's claim military readiness could be affected by Senate nomination blocks show "their feathers are ruffled a little bit," according to Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., on Newsmax.
Tuberville defended his call to block senior military nominations over his opposition to the Pentagon's abortion policy.
"American taxpayers are on the hook for funding abortions in the military," Tuberville told "National Report." "Now that we've already had an abortion policy, this is not about abortion. This is about extending abortion limits, making it more accessible to dependents in the families and transportation."
Austin warned earlier this week that blocking the senior military nominations for promotions "creates a ripple effect with the force that makes us far less ready than we need to be," ABC News reported.
Tuberville started blocking military nominations last month over the Pentagon's policy that covers costs for service members seeking abortions in states other than where they are stationed if their base is located in a state where the procedure is banned.
"We had a hearing about four or five months ago, after about six months of asking for a hearing," he said. "We heard they were going to change this policy, so I wrote a letter back November, December, and Secretary Austin said, 'Let's sit down and talk about this.'
"Last I looked, you weren't elected to Congress. We were. We do the laws here and you do what we tell you to do when you are talking about policy."
Meanwhile, the Army missed its recruitment goals last year and Tuberville blamed that on "woke policies" young men and women are rejecting.
"Our priorities are wrong," he said. "We're supposed to be building a killing machine that protects the national security of the U.S. and our allies and we're doing just the opposite," Tuberville lamented. "This administration is tearing this country apart."
The military has also lost thousands of fighters who were ejected over refusing to get COVID vaccines, and "we're going to miss this year the same way because nobody wants to get in this woke military that Joe Biden and Secretary Austin have created."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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