MORGAN MURPHY: How Tommy Tuberville Sacked The Pentagon’s Abortion Scam

It was the most cynical and fraudulent scheme in Washington… until Friday.

For the past two years, the U.S. Department of Defense funded all-expense paid trips for service members or their dependents who wanted an abortion for any reason, at any point in a pregnancy. No questions asked. No ethical guardrails. No worries about the morality of using taxpayer dollars to fund what many Americans find morally reprehensible.

Thankfully, President Trump and Secretary Pete Hegseth crushed the illegal power-grab this week.

The change was a resounding victory for one man who dared to fight the Pentagon, Biden’s White House, the D.C. media morass and nearly every wannabe general in the swamp: Tommy Tuberville.

For two years, Tuberville stood in the breach against the Biden White House. He was ridiculed, harassed and shunned, all of which he took with his usual affability. “Awe hell,” he told me one afternoon after being jeered in the halls of the Senate Russell building, “Try losing an SEC game one Saturday. I’ve been called worse. At least nobody’s thrown a beer bottle at my head here in the Senate.”

When Tuberville came to Washington in January 2021, the former Auburn football coach was well regarded and even liked by many Democrats behind closed doors. I should know, as he brought me on as his National Security Advisor soon after taking office.

I saw firsthand how Tuberville’s fame and general affability was hard for most people to resist. When the man walks down the hall, he greets every janitor, security guard, and staffer along the way, often by name. When people asked me what it was like working for “Coach,” as he prefers to be called, I’d often compare him to another coach, the lovable Ted Lasso.

That all changed in June of 2022.

After the leaked U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that summer, the Department of Defense magically deduced that overturning Roe v. Wade would “have significant implications for…the readiness of the Force.”

To anyone who knows the military, that just didn’t make sense. Until 2022, the Pentagon funded less than 20 abortions per year in cases of rape, incest or life of the mother. Under Austin’s new policy, the Pentagon told me it estimated taxpayer-funded abortions would zoom to 4,100 per year, an increase of 20,500%.

Tuberville saw straight through the ruse for what it was: an illegal power grab by the executive branch. He repeatedly warned the Department of Defense in letter after letter to change course. He reached out to the Secretary of Defense again and again, and even offered to come meet him at his Pentagon office. What makes this more remarkable is that Tuberville voted to confirm Austin and sat on the Pentagon’s oversight committee.

Coach’s outreach went unanswered by Lloyd Austin, who seemed more interested in helping Democrats nab suburban female swing voters than, oh, little things such as the Constitution, Congress, and the DoD’s own rules.

After being ignored for months, Coach directed me to warn the Pentagon in no uncertain terms: implement this illegal order, and Senator Tuberville would place a hold on all generals and admirals, gumming up promotions for the military’s most senior ranks. Austin ignored that warning, too.

So Tuberville followed through on his pledge, blocking every admiral and general appointment in the United States military. He held that position for nearly a year, spending many late nights on the Senate floor arguing that Article I, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution gives Congress, not the Department of Defense, the ability to write laws.  “ cannot and must not legislate from the E-ring,” as Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) said supporting Coach’s stand.

Washington, D.C., immediately freaked out.

Democrats suddenly tried to portray themselves as great champions of the military brass. Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren claimed the holds impacted “military readiness” and the hurt families of officers making hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. Never mind that she herself consistently votes against authorization of the entire military through the National Defense Authorization Act.

Others were even more hypocritical, blasting Tuberville’s holds on military members as “unprecedented.” Turns out, some of Coach’s most ardent critics had threatened to place holds themselves, such as Colorado Democratic Sen. Michael Bennett. In 2020, Sen. Tammy Duckworth blocked 1,100 military promotions so she could make sure Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman got promoted to colonel.

In fact, the “unprecedented” practice dates all the way back to George Washington’s first term, where it was employed by senators in the first six months of the chamber’s history.

Still, politicians seldom lets facts get in the way of a good story.

Even many Republicans fretted about Coach’s lone stand. “Why won’t he just let it go?” I was often asked, “It’s bad politics —we’re going to lose votes.”

But Alabama’s senior senator stuck to his guns, holding 400+ generals and admirals until December 2023. When Coach released the holds, President Joe Biden said, “In the end, this was all pointless.”

As usual, the 46th president was wrong. In the end, Coach’s holds raised such a stink that only 12 service members took advantage of the policy. And the senator’s brave stand made certain that the Pentagon’s abortion policy was among the first overturned by Secretary Hegseth on his first week in office.

Other conservatives should take a page from Coach’s playbook: winners stick to their principles and play the long game.

Morgan Murphy is military thought leader, former press secretary to the Secretary of Defense and national security advisor in the U.S. Senate.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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