Republican senators’ patience finally snapped on Wednesday night over Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s protest against the Pentagon’s policy on abortion for service members. Since February, the Alabama conservative has blocked routine military promotions over a Department of Defense policy reimbursing travel costs for troops seeking an abortion outside of the state where they’re stationed. On Wednesday night, several Republicans including Sens. Dan Sullivan, Lindsey Graham, and Joni Ernst enjoined Tuberville to end the deadlock in the interest of national security. They sought to force the issue by proposing votes on the Senate floor on individual officers whose promotions have stalled in the backlog, but Tuberville objected to each one. “Xi Jinping is loving this,” Sullivan said at one stage. “So is Putin. How dumb can we be, man?” Sullivan also said Tuberville is “100 percent wrong.” Graham noted that Tuberville blocked one advancement for a service member who had “zero” to do with the abortion policy. “You just denied this lady a promotion,” Graham thundered. “You did that.”
