'Holding the military hostage': Tommy Tuberville accused of putting armed forces at risk

Republicans try to position themselves as the party that's "strong on defense," but recent stunts by MAGA extremists have rendered that meaningless, a Washington Post columnist suggests.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) has been holding up hundreds of military nominations to protest defense secretary Lloyd Austin’s mandate to pay for service members or their family members to travel for abortion care if they live in states where that's not allowed – all while blaming Democrats for endangering national security, reported Washington Post columnist Max Boot.

"Tuberville seems to think it is not the former president but the current one who endangers U.S. national security," Boot wrote. "He blames President Biden and Pentagon leaders for supposedly 'ruining' the armed forces. 'Something’s going wrong in our military,' he told reporters last month."

The college football coach-turned-senator has placed around 200 nominations on hold using an arcane Senate rule after losing a floor vote on his resolution prohibiting the Department of Veterans Affairs from providing abortions, and other senators are constrained by the chambers unwritten rules to let the situation continue.

"So why is Tuberville allowed to get away with his mindless obstructionism?" Boot wrote. "The problem comes down to the frustrating traditions of the Senate."

Senate staffers are hoping Tuberville would introduce an antiabortion amendment to the defense authorization bill and then withdraw his hold when it was defeated, but he doesn't sound likely to do that anytime soon -- even as key defense positions turn over in the coming months.

"Austin has made clear he has no intention of changing departmental policy to suit one senator because that would only encourage more holds in the future, and Tuberville seems indifferent to the harm he is doing by holding the military hostage," Boot wrote. "So the impasse continues to drag on with no end in sight after more than three months. It’s hard to imagine a clearer illustration of how anti-military MAGA ideology is in practice."