WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) spoke on the Senate floor about the urgent need to pass the Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). In the speech, Sen. Tuberville highlighted key conservative wins in the NDAA, including slashing funding for gender transition surgeries and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs in the military. Sen. Tuberville emphasized the need for strong leadership in the Pentagon and expressed his continued support for President Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth.
Read Senator Tuberville’s remarks below or watch on YouTube or Rumble.
“Madam President,
I rise today to highlight some of the major victories that were included in the Senate version of the NDAA […] that passed out of the Senate Armed Services Committee almost six months ago. The Senate’s version of this year’s NDAA includes some excellent provisions, including a 4.5% pay raise for America’s military service members. This is a pay raise for the boots on the ground, not the top brass at the Pentagon. We secured powerful, new security initiatives in the Indo-Pacific. And provisions that advance our Counter-Unmanned Aircraft Systems technologies.
Among the Senate’s NDAA victories, I also count my amendments which will help [re]focus the Pentagon on its stated mission of ‘deter war and ensure our nation’s security.’ One of these amendments includes slashing all funding for the woke ‘Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion’ policies at the DOD. Another amendment prohibits the use of taxpayer dollars for any costs associated with funding gender transition surgeries.
We need a military that is 100% focused on protecting our country and enhancing national security—not implementing a woke Biden agenda. The military is not a social experiment; it should be a lethal fighting force feared by our enemies and made up of our best and brightest in this country. This is why I applaud the work of the Senate Armed Service Committee and Ranking Member Wicker’s leadership for putting together this excellent piece of legislation.
The Senate version of the NDAA received bipartisan support in Committee, getting 22 of the 25 votes. You seldom see Republicans and Democrats come together like this.
So, I ask: Why has Senator Schumer not brought this to the floor for the past six months? Why has the Senator from New York put a stop to good-faith efforts on setting our military up for success in the future?
If Senator Schumer really cared about our military, he would have brought the NDAA up for a vote almost six months ago. But instead, we’ve been prioritizing liberal judges for the final weeks he has as Majority Leader. Senate Democrats are more interested in burning taxpayer dollars on an unwinnable war in Ukraine than passing our military budget. Sadly, we’ve seen this time and again: leadership that would rather cater to the woke [Biden] administration agenda than ensuring our military is a lethal fighting force.
But putting a woke agenda over our national security is nothing new to this administration. Sadly, sadly, no institutions, not even our great military, are safe from being taken over by the Biden regime’s radical-woke policies. Immediately after taking the White House, President Biden began to weaponize the DOD—using it as yet another tool in the administration’s arsenal to further its progressive agenda. One of the Biden administration’s first moves was to mandate divisive ‘Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion’ training at the DOD. Picking right up where Barack Obama left off four years earlier.
On day one, the Biden Administration announced that the military would begin conducting training to ‘have knowledge of systemic and institutional racism and bias against underserved communities.’ This hateful ideology has no place in the United States, let alone the United States military. This is supposed to be the number one fighting force in the world. It is dangerous and insulting to waste our troop’s valuable time on political indoctrination such as this. We need a lethal killing machine to deter aggression from our adversaries. I want our military focused on protecting Americans’ international security in an increasingly dangerous world, not on all these woke DEI initiatives. There’s no place for it.
Americans want to fund the military to achieve this objective. That’s what our taxpayers pay money for.
Which is why on November 5th, nearly 77 million Americans joined me [in] taking a stand to say, ‘enough of this nonsense.’ The American people gave President Trump a mandate to get Washington working for the people again. [We chose] President Trump because he isn’t interested in the same old, same old in this town. A [breath of fresh] air. No more business as usual.
President Trump is returning to the White House and has nominated Pete Hegseth to serve as Secretary of Defense. I just met with Pete on Monday, and I have known him for a long time. And he is the man we need leading our military. Pete is smart, he’s battle-tested, and he’s prepared to lead. Pete has actually had a real job in the military on the battlefield. Not pushing paper in some stuffy room in the Pentagon. Just this morning, Pete posted on X that he is ‘in this for the war fighters, not for the warmongers.’ Excellent quote.
That’s exactly why the Military Industrial Complex is losing their minds. If confirmed, Pete will focus on rebuilding peace through strength—putting America first and prioritizing America’s military readiness. He will focus on lethality and maintaining our competitive edge. Not to mention getting our recruitment problems straightened out. And boy, do we have problems. With military recruitment tanking, what better way to inspire young men and women to join the most lethal fighting force in the world than by nominating a decorated veteran who served in two wars and is closer to their age?
Pete is someone who relates to them and looks like them. Who is more likely to inspire confidence in 18-to-21-year-olds in the military: old, out-of-touch, and arrogant military higher-ups or a younger guy who’s been on the battlefield, shoulder-to-shoulder in the mud with the infantry? I’m willing to bet young people would rather sign up [to follow] the second man in that list.
We need a drill sergeant, someone who’s been in the trenches. That man is Pete Hegseth.
This is perfectly in line with President Trump’s efforts to get the federal government’s house in order. Pete will prioritize building an effective, streamlined Pentagon that can actually pass an audit, which they haven’t done in seven years. He will target waste, fraud, abuse, and refocus the DOD workforce on its core mission. And this can’t come soon enough.
Under this administration, Russia has invaded Ukraine, Iran-backed Hamas brutally attacked Israel, Syria faces a revolution, and China is threatening to invade Taiwan and spread its influence across Africa and South America. We live in a dangerous world. America can’t afford this outdated type of leadership at the DOD to continue any longer. It could result in even more devastating consequences, especially as the outgoing administration has the United States teetering, teetering on the brink of World War III.
I look forward to the beginning of a new chapter in January of next year. We will finally turn the page on one of the most criminally bad administrations in the history of our country. But importantly, we will be entering into a new era, a new Golden Age of America. But in the meantime, I will continue to demand that Senator Schumer prioritize our troops and national security over partisan judges and funding foreign wars.
I yield the floor.”
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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