WASHINGTON – Yesterday, U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) joined the “Big Money Show” to discuss government funding negotiations and President Trump’s demand for an increase in the debt ceiling.
Excerpts from Senator Tuberville’s interview can be found below and his full interview can be watched on YouTube or Rumble.
RIGGS: “Republican Senator, Tommy Tuberville. Senator, it’s great to have you on the program today, and I want to get your reaction—I know what’s being considered right now. It might have some of those really wasteful items taken out because you’ve got a proposition of scaling that down, keeping the government running, and even raising the debt ceiling to keep things running smoothly, but what are the chances that all of this will be approved by both sides?”
TUBERVILLE: “Yeah. Well, number one, how does this happen? It’s failure to communicate. There was no communication, obviously, with people putting this together, especially all the people in the house. We didn’t see it until late. 1,500 pages, it should have been about 30, but we got way out of control. And I think Mike Johnson was trying to do the best he could, but he got way over his skis. He got way too much in there and basically, it’s out of control. But this is Washington D.C. at its best, just spend money at the end of the year. Everybody wants to go home, but now it’s time to put this thing together. You know, I’ve been up here four years, and we hadn’t done a budget yet. All we do is just keep kicking the can down the road and spending money like we’ve got it, and we don’t have anywhere broke.”
DeANGELIS: “Well Senator, we understand that House Republicans are meeting this afternoon. They’re working on another version of this continuing resolution. And there are reports that it includes what President-elect Trump wants to see happen, which is raising the debt ceiling. Senator, I understand in the past you’ve been staunchly against raising the debt ceiling. You voted against it. So, if this reaches you for a vote with the raise of the debt ceiling, how would you vote this time?”
TUBERVILLE: “Well, I’d vote for it this time because we’re at the end of it. And President Trump is coming in, and in spring, you’re gonna have to raise it anyway. So, let’s get it out of the way. Let’s do a clean CR. Let’s put the debt ceiling in there, get it out of the way, so they don’t have to worry about it once they get here. You know, the debt ceiling’s been busted seventy times in the last, what, thirty, forty years. It’s just a barometer of what you look at, of where you’re at, and gives the minority, actually, a little power to look at and say, ‘Hey, you know, if we’re gonna go in, go over this debt ceiling, you’re gonna have to give us something for that.’ But at the end of the day, yeah, we’re gonna we need to raise it for President Trump. Give his team of Scott Bessent and Kevin Hassett, the Secretary of Treasury group, a chance to drop our taxes because it’s very expensive now when you drop taxes in the short term. But that’s what we’re gonna have to do, and we’re gonna have to deregulate, we have to grow this country, and we gotta get it to an average of three percent growth a year. President Trump did that until COVID. President Biden hit it one time, but really had no chance on any of the other ones. We have gotta get some consistency here, but it starts with cutting money with the DOGE brothers.”
BRENBERG: “Your colleague, Senator Kennedy, has said, ‘Look, President-elect Trump should come to Washington. He should sit down with Speaker Johnson, sit down with John Thune, JD Vance, and hash this thing out.’ What’s interesting to me is President-elect Trump’s not gonna sign this bill. It’s President Biden who has to sign it, and he’s been completely cut out of everything. At this point, it’s like the President-elect is basically the President, Sir, is it not?”
TUBERVILLE: “Oh, definitely. President Biden’s been able—he’s been on vacation for a couple of months looking for the spotted owl down in the Amazon or something. But it’s just absolutely amazing to me that we’re trying to all do this, but the democrats are gonna fight back on every turn. They want everything they can possibly get in this CR. But, again, we need a clean CR.
We need to kick this thing down the road, or we need to just shut the government down and come back first week in January because nobody’s gonna miss a paycheck. Shut it down, let everybody get a calm, cool head, let President Trump and his team along with, as you said, the big four get together, work at it, get things done the right way. And let’s do what’s best for the American people. Right now, everybody’s in a in a tither trying to point fingers at each other. Let’s just get it done right for the American people and get going, get President Trump off in the right way in January the 20th.”
Senator Tommy Tuberville represents Alabama in the United States Senate and is a member of the Senate Armed Services, Agriculture, Veterans’ Affairs, and HELP Committees.
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