Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) appears to be teetering on the edge of dropping his sweeping blockade against high-level military confirmations, which would bring his nearly 10-month standoff to a close just as his Republican colleagues were beginning to murmur about forcing his hand.
The far-right Alabama senator, speaking to reporters on Thursday, suggested that he would allow the promotions through “in the very near future,” even as early as next week—but that he would continue to bar nominees he considers “woke.”
“I think that we need to make sure that people that are our generals and admirals should be vetted to some degree,” Tuberville said, according to CNN, “but also understand that we need to get these people promoted, and it’s been a long time for some of them.” He did not mention that he was the sole reason for that delay.
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Tuberville launched his blockade in protest of a Pentagon policy that ensures abortion access, including time off and travel reimbursement, for service members. The blockade has held up more than 350 nominations since February. This week, however, the senator began singing a markedly different tune. On Tuesday, he reportedly told his Republican colleagues at a closed door lunch that he was formulating an exit strategy.
“Listen, everyone. I got y’all into this mess. I’m gonna get you out,” he said, according to Punchbowl News.
A day later, the senator told Politico that he was considering backing down “soon, but not today.”
“Trying to get some kind of resolution before we get home for Christmas, we’ve got a couple of weeks,” he added. “We’ve got to do this the right way. It’s been 10 months. I want to get this over with too, if we do it the right way.”
Tuberville’s change of heart comes shortly after it was reported that fed-up Senate Democrats had begun plotting to outmaneuver him. Earlier this month, the Majority Leader Chuck Schumer led the chamber’s Democrats, along with Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), in crafting a resolution to circumvent Tuberville. The resolution would allow a temporary Senate process change in order to “swiftly confirm” the nominated military leaders as a bloc.
Tuberville on Thursday cast doubt on Schumer’s chances of amassing enough support to ram the resolution through.
“I saw today that Senator Schumer says he’s going ahead with the resolution. I don’t think he’s got the votes, so we’ll talk again today and probably Tuesday on the resolution,” he said.
But Tuberville’s actions have been met with frustration from both sides of the aisle, with members of his own party increasingly willing to criticize him for causing a “national security problem” by gumming up the works. Several Republican senators, including Dan Sullivan (AL) and Joni Ernst (IA), have taken to the floor to rail against the blockade.
The Alabama senator said he’d had “real good discussions” with his colleagues about the “proper way” to overcome the impasse, and suggested he planned to sit down with “a couple of” Democrats in the coming days.
“We do want to stand up for life and the taxpayers not having anything to do with abortion, and get these people that need to be promoted, promoted,” he added.
