Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has become the latest candidate to support Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s (R-AL) protest regarding the Department of Defense’s reproductive healthcare policy.
The Pentagon announced in February it would reimburse the travel expenses incurred for service members or dependents who seek reproductive healthcare procedures not covered by the Military Health System, notably abortions, and have to travel across state lines to do so due to local laws. The policy was announced in response to the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade, which led a number of conservative states to impose laws restricting abortion access.
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Tuberville, who believes the policy violates federal law, began obstructing the Senate’s ability to pass military promotions and confirmations shortly after it was announced, and he remains dug in. Senate Democrats, who are in the majority, could negate his block of unanimous consent, which is how they pass most of these nominations in batches, by bringing individual nominations to the floor for a vote, but they haven’t done so yet.
Ramaswamy spoke with Tuberville on Thursday, which the Alabama senator’s office said was the first time he had spoken with one of the presidential candidates about his hold.
“I called Senator [Tuberville] earlier to thank him for his courageous stance on this issue,” Ramaswamy said on social media.
Tuberville’s communications director, Steven Stafford, told the Washington Examiner: “Coach had a good conversation with Vivek yesterday. Coach made clear that he has been a Trump guy since day one — he was the first senator to endorse Trump for 2024. But they discussed their shared concerns about the future of this country and their shared goal of defeating Joe Biden in next November’s election.”
Stafford noted that both Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and former Vice President Mike Pence have also “endorsed Coach’s strong stand against the woke Pentagon’s taxpayer funding of abortion, as conservatives across the country are uniting behind Coach’s leadership on this issue.”
Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley has been the only GOP presidential candidate to come out against Tuberville’s tactics, though she also didn’t endorse the Pentagon’s current policy.
“This just goes to show how messed up our country is. I mean, you look at the fact that the Department of Defense shouldn’t be doing this in the first place. But there’s got to be other ways to go about doing this,” she said on The Hugh Hewitt Show earlier this month. “They look at the fact that they’re, you know, dangling these promotions out there and using them as fodder. I mean, they’re looking at the fact that people don’t see these, you know, men and women who serve as heroes anymore. And that’s sad. And it’s terrible. And you know, I appreciate what Tuberville’s trying to do. I do. Like it’s totally wrong that the Department of Defense is doing this. But have we gotten so low that this is how we have to go about stopping it?”
Haley’s husband is currently deployed to Africa as a member of the South Carolina Army National Guard.
Pentagon officials have framed the debate as one about access to healthcare, arguing that service members should not have varying levels of reproductive healthcare based solely on where they’re stationed, which isn’t their choice. The DOD has said it will not budge while Tuberville has indicated the same.
Ramaswamy, in his social media post, criticized Gen. Charles Q. Brown, the secretary of the Air Force and President Joe Biden’s nominee to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for his emphasis on diversity and inclusion.
“Under General CQ Brown’s leadership, the Air Force is trying to reduce white male pilots from 86% of flyers down to 43% amidst a major recruiting crisis. Increasing racial discord will not help and will further degrade the mission, success, and safety of the brave men and women who serve this nation. As Commander-in-Chief, a president’s job is to keep our homeland safe and keep the men and women who defend it safe, too. We need a chairman who will make national defense about *defending* Americans again,” he said. “I urge the U.S. Senate to reject General Brown’s nomination. Not only should he not be promoted — his record shows he should be fired.”
Ramaswamy was referencing a memo Brown signed last year that included demographic breakdown targets, which was seized on by critics who argued he was in favor of having fewer white people in the military. When asked about it last month during a hearing in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee, he said the goal was for the demographics of the military to mirror that of the country.
An Air Force spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment regarding Ramaswamy’s criticism.
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To date, more than 300 general and flag officer nominations have been held up by the Senate, and there are roughly 650 more that will require Senate confirmation between now and the end of the year. The department has 83 three- and four-star nominations pending for positions already vacated or due to rotate within the next 150 days, deputy Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said earlier this week.
Three of the positions on the Joint Chief of Staff (the Marine Corps commandant, the chief naval officer, and the chief of staff of the Army) are now being filled by leaders in an acting capacity because they haven’t been confirmed. It’s the first time that three military services are operating without Senate-confirmed leadership simultaneously.
