Rosen: “Tommy Tuberville and his extreme views are putting our entire nation’s security at risk because they don’t want a woman to travel.”
Watch Senator Rosen’s full interview here.
WASHINGTON, DC – Today on MSNBC, U.S. Senator Jacky Rosen (D-NV) called out Senator Tuberville (R-AL) for his reckless and extreme anti-choice blockade of senior military promotions that is jeopardizing national security and military readiness. Senator Rosen pointed out that the Warfare Center at Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas is currently without a commander because of this hold, threatening the United States’ ability to train pilots for combat. She also urged Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to help end this dangerous hold, just as she recently did in a letter with colleagues.
Below is an excerpt of the exchange:
CABRERA: Let’s switch gears and talk about your colleague Tommy Tuberville and his ongoing military blockade. You and your colleagues sent a letter to Mitch Mcconnell urging him to step in here. We’re talking about almost 300 military positions that are impacted right now. Promotions that people are waiting on. So far, nothing has changed. What do you plan to do next in this fight?
ROSEN: Well, first of all, let me explain why this is so reckless. Tommy Tuberville knows overall you can’t win a game – he was a coach – you can’t win a game without your key players. Well, he’s holding up promotions in key positions in our military across the nation because of his extreme views. [The] Department of Defense just created a rule for the ability for women to travel for reproductive health care. So, he’s holding up nominations, like the Commander of our Warfare Center at Nellis Air Force Base, the crown jewel of the Air Force, where we train every Air Force pilot not just in America but around the world. We have people’s lives that are on hold – their kids who need to start schools, their families. And let me tell you, most importantly that our adversaries are watching, looking for any cracks, any vulnerability we have.
[…]
CABRERA: Senator Tuberville is doing this over an abortion policy from the department of defense that pays for women to get health care in other states, including abortions…
ROSEN: It doesn’t pay for women to get an abortion. It allows the women the right to travel to get the reproductive health care they need. It does not pay for that health care. It allows them to travel.
These men and women, and our women who serve proudly in the military, they get deployed away from their families, away from their friends, in places, wherever they need to go, wherever they need to serve, and if those places don’t allow them to get the care they need, they deserve the right to go somewhere and get that care. And that’s what Tommy Tuberville and his extreme views are putting our entire nation’s security at risk because they don’t want a woman to travel.
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