Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., told Newsmax on Tuesday that the saga surrounding Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is proof that there is "no respect" for Joe Biden as president, even within his own administration.
Further, Tuberville found it ironic that an administration — including Austin — that repeatedly criticized his holds on military promotions over the Pentagon's abortion policy as weak-legging military readiness went four days last week with the country's defense secretary AWOL. And Biden didn't know.
"This puts us in danger. Thank God our enemies didn't take advantage of it," Tuberville told "Rob Schmitt Tonight."
Austin was admitted to the intensive care unit of Walter Reed Army Medical Center on Jan. 1 and nobody — including Biden — knew about it until four days later. Further, the White House came out to say that Biden didn't even know until Tuesday that Austin had prostate cancer.
"It's embarrassing. It's outrageous that the head of the largest military in history has been hospitalized for a week. He didn't tell anybody," Tuberville told Schmitt. "You know what that tells me? There's no respect for Joe Biden being the president of the United States. Somebody was told, I promise you that. But they didn't tell Biden because, you know, he's the Rodney Dangerfield of being president. [Gets] no respect."
Tuberville, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, recently ended his holds on military promotions. He stood down the barrel of criticism from the gamut of officials in the Biden administration over military readiness for nearly a year.
"These people just spent months lecturing me about acting officials, these promotions I've been holding for abortions, they been telling me, 'Senator Tuberville's holding back on military readiness,' and we have an AWOL secretary of defense that doesn't tell anybody," Tuberville said. "I mean, it's absolutely amazing what these clowns are doing, and it puts people in harm's way."
"At the end of the day, this is Joe Biden's responsibility. He should have been fired," Tuberville said. "[Donald] Trump would have fired him the first time he heard about it. And even though we feel bad about him being sick, you've got to do your job. Your job is to communicate. Tell people to take over. I've got problems and everything.
"It's just amazing."
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Mark Swanson ✉
Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.
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