The Hyde Amendment bans the use of federal funds to pay for abortion, except to save the life of the mother, or if the pregnancy comes from incest or rape. The Hyde Amendment went into effect in 1980. At that time, an estimated 300,000 abortions were paid for with federal funds.

Senators are allowed to slow down the process by putting a hold on business as usual. In this case, Tuberville, in March, put a hold on military appointments, which also affects military promotions, pay increases, and leadership issues. The Pentagon is frustrated over the backlog of 250 military appointments and growing. The Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin agrees with the new policy. He instigated it. This mess is on him. Austin never met a liberal policy he didn’t want to impose on the military.

Joe Biden, the most pro-abortion president ever, took some time to slam Tuberville during a fundraiser in the California home of Microsoft executive Kevin Scott last month.
Politico reports that Biden was “punching down” to criticize the senator from Alabama.

Biden, who usually spares no niceties in addressing fellow senators past and present, sharply needled Sen. TOMMY TUBERVILLE (R-Ala.) over his monthslong blockade of military promotions — an unusually aggressive protest targeting a new Pentagon policy reimbursing costs to servicewomen who must travel to seek abortions.

“It’s bizarre,” Biden said. “I don’t remember it happening before — and I’ve been around.”

And there are plenty more barbs where that came from, our colleagues Jennifer Haberkorn and Burgess Everett write this morning. The president has seized on the blockade, which “has earned a steady spot in Biden’s fundraising pitches, social media and official speeches,” they write.

Biden has also cheekily referred to him as “the former football coach from Alabama, who was a better coach than he’s a senator.” (To be clear for our persnickety SEC-football-loving readers: Tuberville coached at Auburn, not Alabama.)

For the first time in more than a century, the U.S. Marine Corps is without a Senate-confirmed commandant. At this rate, four of the eight sitting Joint Chiefs of Staff will retire without a confirmed successor in place.

Suddenly, Democrats are interested in national security because it involves a hot-button culture war issue. They say that military leaders can’t make long-term strategic decisions and it harms readiness. The hold also means salary increases are being held up and the same is true for relocating families to their assignments.

Military leaders who rarely weigh in on politics are starting to raise their voices in protest. “We need the Senate to do their job,” Gen. DAVID BERGER, the outgoing Marine Corps Commandant, told senators Monday. And Air Force Gen. C.Q. BROWN — the one senior officer whose promotion, to Joint Chiefs chair, isn’t being blocked by Tuberville — doubled down on that, arguing yesterday before the Senate Armed Services Committee that the blockade could cause a brain drain if talented officers decide to leave in frustration.

When does this end? No one knows. Neither the Defense Department nor Tuberville are backing down. It is reported that Tuberville once said he would remove the hold if the Senate held a vote on the abortion policy. Now he says it will take more than that – he wants the Pentagon to take out the abortion policy. Majority Leader Schumer wants to push it off on Mitch McConnell.

Senate Majority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER could file cloture on the various promotions to get around Tuberville. But (1) each nomination would eat up days of floor time, and (2) Schumer, too, is scared of edging down a slippery slope, turning military promotions a perennial hot potato.

Schumer yesterday put the onus on Minority Leader MITCH McCONNELL to convince Tuberville to back down. But while McConnell has publicly disagreed with Tuberville’s move, he isn’t known for strong-arming colleagues and doesn’t appear to have plans to start now.

Some Republicans are starting to cave. Surprise! No, it’s not a surprise. Just once it would be nice to see Republicans stand united for a conservative principle like Democrats do for their principles. John Thune, the Minority Whip, told reporters yesterday, “The ends, I agree with, but I think at some point the means to those ends is creating other challenges that are problematic long term.”

The main problem is not that a conservative senator is standing up for enforcement of the Hyde Amendment. It’s that Democrats can’t back down. They have painted themselves into a corner on abortion. Progressives in their party demand abortion up to the time of delivery. This would all be over if Schumer would call a vote and get it over with. I imagine that Tuberville would honor his original opinion that he will drop the hold if he gets a vote on the new policy. Everyone could save face. Schumer won’t do that, at least not any time soon, because he wants the campaign issue. Democrats raise millions of dollars off abortion arguments. Believe me, abortion will play an important part in the 2024 presidential election, just as it did in the 2022 midterm elections. Democrats successfully convinced voters that Republicans are extremists. They will do it again by pointing to Tuberville’s hold and claim the military is suffering. I feel for the inconvenience of not getting their raises in salary and relocation accommodations. Those are real problems for military families who didn’t ask to play a role in this fight.

Will Republicans be able to communicate effectively enough to get the message out that Austin and the Pentagon changed the rules and are trying to violate a decades old federal policy on abortion? I’d like to be optimistic but we’ve seen too many election cycles where Republicans prove how lousy they are at communicating with voters.

When all else fails, Democrats revert to name-calling. It’s happening to Tuberville. He stepped in it during a recent exchange with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on her show, The Source. The conversation was about Tuberville’s hold and then it morphed into Collins asking for clarification of remarks he made in an interview with an Alabama radio station in May. He was asked what he thought about white nationalists being allowed to serve in the military.

“Well, they call them that,” Tuberville said back then of people who oppose White nationalists. “I call them Americans.”

Say what, now, Tommy? They may be Americans but the Pentagon warns about white nationalists serving in the military. Leftists painted Tuberville as a supporter of white nationalists. It’s what they do. Tuberville’s office said his remarks were misunderstood. He tried to clear it up Monday with Collins.

“First of all, I’m totally against any type of racism, OK?” he said, offering up his 40-year football coaching resume when he was “around more minorities than anybody up here on this Hill,” as evidence.

His complaint, he said, is that after the January 6, 2021, insurrection, he did not like that Democrats in general and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer in particular were referring to people as racist, nationalist and White nationalist.

“White nationalists is just another word that they want to use, other than racism,” Tuberville told Collins.

He went on to make a hash of things. He’s a Republican. He isn’t good at communicating.

COLLINS: It’s not people who are White. It’s White nationalists.

TUBERVILLE: That have a few probably different beliefs.

COLLINS: You see the distinction, right?

TUBERVILLE: That have different beliefs. Now, if racism is one of those beliefs? I’m totally against it. I am totally against racism.

COLLINS: But that is a White –

TUBERVILLE: But there’s a lot of people that believe in different things.

COLLINS: A White nationalist is racist, Senator.

TUBERVILLE: Well, that’s your opinion. That’s your opinion. But if it’s racism?

COLLINS: It’s not an opinion.

TUBERVILLE: If it’s racism? I’m totally against it. I am totally against any type of race – any type of racism. I don’t care what it’s in.

We know what he is saying and so does she. However, she wasn’t going to accept his explanation, no matter what he said. Republicans are hateful, racist extremists and that’s how Republican politicians are painted. It comes from the top down, from Joe Biden and Kamala Harris telling voters in Georgia there would be Jim Crow 2.0 because of new election integrity reform laws.

Why do Republicans go on CNN and MSNBC? That is the real question. Joe Biden doesn’t go on Fox. Most Democrats avoid Fox like the plague. There’s a lesson there.