Former UN Ambassador and presidential candidate Nikki Haley apparently thinks Tommy Tuberville has a point with his destructive and dangerous blockade of military promotions. Here's Haley attacking the Department of Defense for their policy on women's reproductive rights following the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v Wade, and going against every military Secretary by taking up for Tuberville on this Sunday's State of the Union on CNN.
Tapper asked Haley why the Republican party is tolerating this, and Haley launched into this tirade pretending it's the DOD and the military that are politicizing the issue rather than Republicans, and promising to reverse the policy if we're ever unfortunate enough to have her sitting in the White House:
HALEY: First of all, Department of Defense never should have done this. I disagree with it, and I will put an end to it as president. You have to go through Congress. We have...
TAPPER: You're talking about the reimbursement policy for travel for abortion.
HALEY: Yes.
TAPPER: OK.
HALEY: Yes, because you have to do these things through Congress.
We have three branches of government for a reason. You can't slip something in there like that and think that Congress is not going to be upset. So, first, I will put an end to that, and you will handle it through the proper channels. Secondly, we don't need to be using military families as political pawns. That's a mistake.
These -- the military members and families, they sacrifice enough. They don't need to be a pawn in Congress. But look at the political games that continue to play. Chuck Schumer could still get this done if he went through and listed each member and had Congress vote on each member.
Right now, he's saying...
TAPPER: But, Ambassador, do you know what that would do? I mean, do you really want to have -- I mean, the tradition is, generally speaking, that the Senate just votes unanimous consent for 300 people to be promoted.
Oh, you think the military is political now. You really want to have the U.S. Senate voting on somebody being promoted to major, to lieutenant colonel, to colonel, to ambassador -- I mean, to admiral? I mean, every single person is going to have their social media posts scrubbed.
You really want, like, in the U.S. military, Bernie Sanders, Joe Manchin, like, everybody's going to decide everybody's promotions? This is how we're going to do promotions from now on?
HALEY: Well, if you're going to talk about tradition, shouldn't Department of Defense do things the right way, so we're never in this mess to start with?
Let's -- I mean, let's call it like we see it. Department of Defense started this. I'm not saying Senator Tuberville is right in doing this, because I don't want to use them as pawns. But if you love our military, if you are so adamant about it, then go and make Congress, Republicans and Democrats, have to go through person by person.
Do you honestly think they won't say, OK, this is ridiculous, let's put an end to it?
TAPPER: Well, I...
HALEY: They will. But show -- show your -- show your true grit by going out there and saying, fine, if you all are going to play the military for the pawns like this, let's go member by member.
Let's make them pay the price. Let's make them do their job. Let's make them suffer so that they know what they're doing to these military families. This isn't about making it convenient for Congress. This is about making sure you're doing right by members of the military. This is making sure you hold the Department of Defense accountable.
Let's call that what it is, Jake, because, right now, everybody's saying, oh, but do you really want Congress doing this? You know what I want Congress to do is their job.
TAPPER: Right.
HALEY: I want Congress to do their job. I want them to deal with inflation. I want them to deal with gas prices and groceries. I want them to deal with the lack of transparency in schools.
I want them to deal with the fact that, yes, military members are being used as pawns, and they need to make sure that these families don't suffer. I want them to do their job. And the majority of Americans see that government's not working for the people. It's the people working for government.
And it's got to stop, including these political games that they play.
The only ones playing games here are Republicans. Making them vote on every single nomination is the same nonsense Tuberville has been calling for over and over again. Tapper is correct about how ridiculous this assertion is, but he let her ramble on and didn't challenge her and just moved onto the next subject.
