Tuberville finally caves and lifts hold on the vast majority of military promotions
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- Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville announced an end to his hold on hundreds of military promotions.
- He began the hold earlier this year after the Pentagon adjusted its abortion policies.
- Republicans, Democrats, and military leaders alike have each said he's damaged military readiness.
Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville announced on Tuesday that he'll lift his hold on promotions for the vast majority of the hundreds of service members.
Tuberville made the announcement to reporters after speaking with Republican senators in a lunch meeting, noting he's lifting the hold only for nominations for three-star generals and below.
He added that Republicans aren't getting anything in return from Democrats for lifting the block, and told a reporter he doesn't regret the months-long hold.
"We didn't get the win that we wanted," Tuberville said. "We've still got the bad policy."
The senator from Alabama initiated his hold earlier this year in response to the Department of Defense allowing service members to get reimbursed to travel out of state for abortion-related care after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.
Since then, he's singlehandedly blocked more than 400 members of the military from being promoted via a Senate vote. He previously prevented the Navy, Army, and Marines from promoting officials to executive leadership positions, though later acquiesced under pressure.
In late November, the former college football coach-turned-politician said in an interview that he believes the US currently has "the weakest military that we've had in probably a year in my lifetime," attributing much of it to the "wokeness" he claimed is "infiltrating" US defense forces.
After months of service members getting blocked from receiving promotions, the secretaries of the Navy, Army, and Air Force each spoke out in September against Tuberville.
"I would argue that Tommy Tuberville, what he's actually doing, is he's playing Russian roulette with the very lives of our service members by denying them the opportunity to have the most experienced combat leaders in those positions to lead them in times of peace and in times of combat," Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro said.
Some of Tuberville's Republican colleagues have joined Democrats in recent months in opposition to his hold. At the beginning of November, several GOP senators who are veterans railed against Tuberville for hours on the Senate floor as he blocked promotions for more than 60 service members individually nominated for promotion.
About two weeks later, Democrats in the Senate Rules Committee unanimously voted to advance a resolution allowing the Senate to confirm the many stalled nominations, though not a single Republican voted in support.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, however, never brought the resolution to a vote on the Senate floor, where it would've needed 60 votes to pass despite pledging to soon after the powerful rules committee voted.
At the end of November, Tuberville signaled his willingness to end his block except for "woke" service members.
"We need to make sure that people that are our generals and admirals should be vetted to some degree, but also understand that we need to get these people promoted, and it's been a long time for some of them," he said.