Senator Tommy Tuberville & Why He Is Holding Up Military Nominations
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$45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three-month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speeds lower above 40 gigabytes. See details. All right, boys and girls, we are back with another edition of the Ben Domenech Podcast brought to you by Fox News. You can check out all of our podcasts at foxnewspodcast.com. I hope that you'll rate, review, and subscribe to this one and share it with a friend if you find it of interest.

Today, I have a special guest, Senator Tommy Tuberville, the former 60, you know, amazingly successful college football coach is a relatively new senator, but he's already made a name for himself with a very tough and prominent stand where he's refused to back off of holds that he's placed in terms of military promotions in response to the Biden administration wanting to expand military payments for for

taxpayer-funded abortions. It's an issue where a lot of people seem to be pushing him to cave, and he's refused to do so. It's kind of an interesting stand for a senator who hasn't been there very long, and I wanted to talk to him about that, as well as his legislation protecting athletes who are currently going through the name, image, and likeness experience in college sports in ways that are proving to be quite uneven and where rules are not yet standardized.

We also talk a little bit about sports gambling and what he anticipates about this college football season. And, you know, I think that just talking to somebody who has not been in Washington that long is an eye-opening experience because he comes at things from a perspective that takes the Constitution and the actual rules seriously, as opposed to dismissing them the way that some people have who've been around Washington for a long time. Senator Tommy Tuberville coming up next.

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Reporting live from under my blanket, I'm Susan Curtis with Dunkin' at Home. Breaking news, pumpkin spice iced and hot coffees are back. I'll pass it to Mr. Curtis with his blanket for the full story. That is so right, Susan. You know, it's never too early to get in a spicy mood. I'm talking cinnamony goodness that's so tasty, people don't want to leave their blankets either. Back to you. No, back to you. All you. The home with Dunkin' Pumpkin Spice is where you want to be.

Coach, thanks so much for taking the time to join me today. Yes, sir. Glad to be on, Ben. I want to talk to you, obviously, about a number of different things and not just the world of college football. But obviously, you know, you have been in the news over the past chunk of time here because of your work in holding up military promotions over a number of issues. I wanted to just ask you first off why you chose to make this stand.

Well, Ben, I've been here for almost three years and I've seen a lot of things happen coming from this administration, not just from the White House, but also the Pentagon, from the DOJ, the entire Washington, D.C. crowd from the Democratic side. And everything they do is they kind of circumvent the Constitution and they look for any avenue which to change to their thoughts. And they don't think about the

the American citizen or the taxpayer at all. And so I'm on the Armed Services Committee and I put up with a lot of this woke-ism that they've got in the military now and listen to all these

people talk about the things that they're teaching they're supposedly not supposed to be teaching but when they came down with this and basically said we're going you know since ro wade we're just going to change this and uh that was voted by the way in 1985 by biden and the democrats to have a policy of rape incest and health of the mom uh for the military uh it was voted on and passed and it's been fine for 30 years but now they want to change it with a memo because

They feel like that they were slighted with Roe Wade because they can handle all the federal employees. Well, we're not going to go around the Constitution here. If they want to do that, that's fine. Change the policy back and let's vote on it. And let's see what the American people say. American people need to have a say with this because it's their money that they're spending.

You know, one of the things we talk about and experience in Washington over and over again is the fact that voting on things is actually not in the interests of elected representatives and senators. It's a lot easier and a lot more politically safe to simply outsource decision making to unelected bureaucrats to make those decisions for them. Is this sort of the perfect example of that? Just, you know, sort of.

rule via memo and faceless bureaucracy versus actually having to take a stand and put your name next to a policy?

even Republicans and Democrats, they don't want to have their name put on anything that is controversial. And obviously abortion is controversial. But also going against the Constitution is very controversial. We all need to start fighting back. Here's a problem that I see, and we just saw this with what they're doing, coming and just going at former President Donald Trump with everything they have. We don't fight back very often.

And we're going to have to get out of that norm. When we come back in September, if we don't come with basically what I call guns blazing, a fighting back to everything that they're trying to do, we're going to have huge problems. I don't know if we can, even if we get a Republican president back in and a Senate, we can get this mess straightened out because

As we speak, the enemy is at the gate and we have huge problems. I mean, the American taxpayer don't realize what basically $33 trillion in debt means. They don't realize the border, what they're doing at the border. They don't realize what's going on with the crime in this country. And most of all, they don't realize, people don't really realize what they're doing with our energy.

You cannot run a country or a world without fossil fuels. It is impossible. But these idiots are trying to push it on the American people, and it's not feasible. We can't do it. And we're going to really put the American taxpayer and people across this world in harm's way if we continue down this path.

You know, in response to some of the criticism that you've gotten from the kind of pro-military folks on the right, some of whom have raised concerns that this is going to have some effect on the force, you know, you certainly have gotten a lot of backup from people who care a great deal about the functioning military. You know, I profiled Mark Wayne Mullen recently. He's an interesting guy and obviously cares a lot about this. He backed you up. Tom Cotton backed you up.

So what do you say to the people who say that, you know, oh, this is creating risk for our military because various promotions aren't happening and they don't particularly seem to care about the fact that you can actually move folks through regular order? Ben, you would be shocked if you knew how many people call me or caught me on the street or came to somewhere I was speaking that have been military before.

either retired or still in military going coach you stick with what you're doing you are exactly right our readiness is not a problem if it was really a problem they'd change it back because they would really be worried about it but you stick with what you're doing we've got way too many generals we've got 44 four stars we had seven during world war ii and we are so top heavy i'm not doing it for that yeah you know i don't want to get involved in that part

But I do want to do it and also be backed up for the people of this country. And we are getting so much support. It's growing every day. I don't think Schumer and Secretary Austin, the Defense Department or Biden really understand what they're digging up here. They're digging up a can of worms.

that's gonna backfire on them, 'cause I'm not changing my mind. We're not gonna have any promotion. Now, I wanna tell people, listen to this, I'm not holding promotions up. I'm holding up a group of people. They can do them one at a time, which takes about three hours on the floor to do one. Now, we're off for six weeks up here, okay? We're not doing anything. And Schumer's out raising money because he's afraid if he doesn't win this next election, he's gonna lose all the power in the Senate.

They could care less about the military or about the Constitution, about the taxpayers of this country. The Democrats want to keep power, number one, bottom line. And then they want to go after Donald Trump with all these all these indictments because they can't afford him to get in because they know he will.

totally turn this thing around and get the country back on the right track. You know, you've only been, as you said, you know, in the Senate for three years now. Since arriving, what have you learned about the sort of nature of the Senate that surprises you as sort of an outsider coming into this with your eyes open for the first time? Well, you know, being here for the first year and a half, I saw even few Republicans.

We spent $6 trillion more than what we had been. $6 trillion. We didn't need another COVID bill, but they did it because the Democrats, they knew they had the ball in their court and they were going to do anything possible to just spend more money. Then we turned around and we did an infrastructure bill, which they called it infrastructure, and half of it's going to billionaires and millionaires that make all this electric EV stuff, you know, the old Solyndra syndrome of giving money to people who

that they can make money. Now, if this would have been $1.2 trillion infrastructure that would have fixed our roads, bridges, and our water systems across this country, I'm all in. But I didn't read that in the bill, okay? I read it in the bill of, hey, you know, this is going to help everybody get reelected. And then we did the CHIPS Act, which to me, we're a constitutional republic, a democracy that doesn't pick winners and losers.

hey, we got people that we're giving billions of dollars to, to supposedly help them build chips. And they're making billions of dollars before we even give it to them. So it just amazes me how we spend the taxpayers money without even looking at the 32 trillion we're already in debt. And now we're getting ready to spend more trillions. We're in Ukraine, which is a disaster. I mean, I could go on and on about what's going on. But this is

it's way out of control ben and we've got no leadership up here in terms of the democrats they just want to take our country in another direction and folks you better be careful what you do in this next election i don't care if you're a democrat independent republican you better look out for this country because if you don't you're going to lose what you've been able to have for 247 years last question on this point before we shift to look at sports in the nil the

ramifications in terms of these issues, I think, is most activated in Washington. Because what you just said earlier about

current or former military folks coming up to you that's certainly all I hear from the people who I know who are either currently or recently served uh they they couldn't give a rip about the the lack of generals you know or a temporary hold up you know in in these types of senior folks and that to me is just kind of a a level of vision that you lack if you've been around Washington for as long as some people have which is a lot of folks that you're up against

If this had to do with sergeants and second lieutenants and captains and majors, hey, I wouldn't be doing this because those are the people that we need. These generals and admirals,

you know uh they set in that pentagon over there and act like they do something they all run around in these black suvs with all the security we need to go back to building a military that's ready to fight then we we couldn't fight a war right now we could not fight a war right now we're talking about well china's coming they're our adversary they're not our adversary i mean the way we are right now we would be in tough shape because

because even Biden said the other day, we don't have any munitions to give to Ukraine, but he's coming up with $24 billion to do something with. We're not going to buy munitions because nobody has any. I don't know where the $24 billion is going to. So, yeah, I tell you, I'm all military. My dad was military. He died on active duty.

I believe in this country. I believe in a strong, hard, tough military. But this military is going in the same direction. The FBI, the DOJ, the CIA, and our education system is going woke, and it's going directly opposite of what this country needs to go. So let's talk a little bit about your legislation to address this.

the NIL issues in college sports, the PASS Act, you know, they're obviously, you know, sort of the NIL, the whole creation of this system, you know, has completely upended and transformed things in college sports. What do you believe are some of the changes that need to be made in order to protect the interests of student athletes? You know, Joe Manchin and I sat down about a year ago and

with coaches and athletic direction president and we worked on it for a year doing exactly what you said get everybody on the same page that's what we got to do every state has got to have the same basic blocking and tackling rules in other words when it comes to recruiting giving money contracts uh of uh

When you want to transfer right now, it's a wild west. If you want a good player, you go out and buy one. I'm fine for players making money because I know what players go through. It's hard to do two full-time jobs. If you go to college and play football,

your academics is full time and then you got to run do football which is even harder meetings and all those things so i'm for men and women making money but i think they all should make some money i think it should be spread out i don't think one player on the team that's a great quarterback making three or four million dollars

To me, that's wrong. That is dead wrong. And so Joe Manchin, what we did is we tried to put five or six basic things together where every state, including California, I think there's still a state, maybe there are, but they go by different rules than everybody else.

Everybody does the same thing. I'll tell you, give me one example, Ben. There are some states that can go out and offer a kid in the ninth grade $50,000, $100,000 saying, three years you come to our place, we'll pay you each year until you get to that point. Well, what in the world? The Supreme Court didn't mean that.

name, image, and likeness for you to go out and be able to pay kids that were 15 years old. And then when he gets to be a senior, well, we're not going to do that because you didn't do exactly what we thought you'd do. These contracts are not being upheld.

players are taking advantage of. And then you've got poor old guys over and ladies that are working their tail off next to somebody that's making a lot of money and they're not making anything. So I think we've got to find a way to spread the money out, but here's what's going to happen. The money is going to go to football and basketball. What's going to happen to, to Olympic sports and women's sports. You're going to lose it. They need money to survive. And right now they get their money from, uh, basketball football because they're the only sport that makes money.

And if you don't give it to the football players, then you're not going to win. You don't make money. But if you give it to football players there, you don't have money that goes to women's sports and Olympic sports. They're not going to survive. And that's not what the education system is about. Tell me how you think the conference situation is going to shake out. We're in this sort of weird period of transition. Where do you think we're going to end up? Yeah, I'm worried about it because everybody's worried.

what's driving all this, Ben? It's money. You know, television, ESPN is giving all this money out. Everybody's looking for, well, I can go to this conference, I can get $20 million a year. I can go to this conference, I can get $30 million. I think what you need to have is you need to probably have football just pull out of the NCAA system

and let basketball and the rest of the sports stay in the NCAA and let them work their own conferences. And then you take football and then you divide up conferences. And that way you get your commissioner to run it. You put everybody in the same category. You make your own rules. You don't worry about the other sports.

But you do share in the profits with the other sports. So I'm worried about the conferences. I know you've seen it over the years that some of these schools love to be in the SEC because, you know, in the future, they're going to be making $50 million, $60 million a year. When I was in the SEC, it was $20 million. I mean, look at how it's changed. So it's all about money, unfortunately. You've got to have money to make things work.

But right now we're on the cusp of losing education to all of our athletes and losing college sports as we know it.

you know it's it seems to me that this is such an important time and period of this transition that you talk about with espn and everything else and basically with cord cutting happening and people shifting to really live sports being the only sure bet in television uh getting this right seems enormously important to me obviously espn just made the decision to jump into gambling to a much greater degree with this deal with penn entertainment

What are your concerns, if any, about the nature of the sort of system that's set up for gambling on sports in America? Yeah, it wasn't a day or a week went by. We didn't do it daily, but we always had to bring up something, whether it was in individual meetings or team meetings, about gambling.

Because players can make a difference in a game. I can remember years ago, Northwestern had a running back that fumbled on purpose going into the end zone. I don't know if you remember that. And there was a huge deal about that. You know, gambling's there. We've all seen it. We know how big it is for the NFL. And it's even big for college sports. If we're going to do this,

I mean, ESPN needs to really get involved in educating athletes, educating people about what you can do and what you can't do. You can't just throw it out there and expect the rules not to be broken. They will be broken to a certain degree, but we can't let it get so out of hand that it will destroy the sports. But I mean, we're walking on pins and needles here now, but we've all seen it coming with all the apps and things that are going on. But gambling is huge.

And it's huge in college sports. There's no doubt. Last question for you. And thank you so much for being generous with your time. You know, you you look at the landscape of college football right now in particular. What's the most interesting trend that you see going on in college football or in the approaches that different teams are using? Oh, you know, of course, getting away from the NIL, I've seen so much change.

And the way that offenses and defenses have been played in the last 10 years, everybody's going to these spread offenses, no running backs. It's not a physical game anymore. It's more of a finesse game. Used to, you'd take your best player in high school, and then they'd graduate to college, and they'd put that best player at tailback.

And, you know, you'd be a physical team. You'd run downhill and do all the, now they're putting their best player in high school, even though he might not be able to throw, they put him at quarterback and these quarterbacks just run around and make plays. And it's just a, it's a softer game. There's still a lot of physical teams out there. It's you, you, because of that, you've had to change your defense. You put in a lot smaller guys on defense, more athletic guys on defense. You've really eliminated the big guy defensively, because if you can't run, you're,

you can't play because you got to be able to chase that, that quarterback down or the running back down in the backfield, those little small receivers on the outside, you got to be involved. So it has really changed in the last 10 years with all these spread offenses and, and it's made the defensive change, but I think it's, I think it's made it fun because there's been a lot more points scored. Now, if you don't score 40 points, you don't really don't have a chance to win, but, uh,

But it's all going all the way down into the peewee teams and the high school teams. And it's changed. College football has changed because of the spread of offenses. But there's a lot of good things because of that. It's involved a lot more people.

As a proud owner of a Barstool Sports Overs Club jacket, I approve of a lot of those changes. But I can hear you. You missed the big guys. You missed that slobber knocker back in the day. Great stuff. Thank you so much, Coach, for taking the time to join me today. All right, Ben. Thank you.

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That was coach Tommy Tuberville. Thank you for listening as always to the Ben Domenech podcast. I hope that you get a lot out of these podcasts. I certainly enjoy the variety of interviews that I'm able to do in this format. We'll be back soon with more to dive back into the fray. Listen ad free with a Fox news podcast, plus subscription on Apple podcasts and Amazon prime members can listen to this show ad free on the Amazon music app.

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