{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.tuberville.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/icymi-tuberville-joins-kudlow-to-discuss-meeting-with-secdef-nominee/", "ICYMI:\u00a0Tuberville\u00a0Joins Kudlow to Discuss Meeting with SecDef Nominee", "2024-12-03", "2024", "2024-12", "Republican", "Senate", "AL", "Tommy Tuberville", "T000278", "www.tuberville.senate.gov", "tuberville", "https://www.tuberville.senate.gov/press-releases/", "scraper", "WASHINGTON \u2013 Yesterday,U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) joined \u201cKudlow\u201d on Fox Business Network to discuss President-elect Donald Trump\u2019s nomination of Pete Hegseth to be the U.S. Secretary of Defense. Earlier that day, Senator Tuberville had met with Pete Hegseth to discuss his vision for the Pentagon. Senator Tuberville also discussed the nomination of Kash Patel to be the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.\n\nExcerpts from Senator Tuberville\u2019s interview can be found below and his full interview can be found on Rumble or YouTube.\n\nON MEETING WITH MR. PETE HEGSETH:\n\nKUDLOW: \u201cAlrighty. Senator Tommy Tuberville has just come from a meeting with Pete Hegseth on Capitol Hill just a few moments ago. Mr. Hegseth nominated to be Defense Secretary. Senator Tuberville, as always, sir, great to see you. So, give us your, you know, give us your capsule on Pete Hegseth. What do you think here? Right choice, wrong choice. How do you see it?\u201d\n\nTUBERVILLE: \u201c100% right choice, Larry. President Trump\u2019s not\u2014he\u2019s not interested in business as usual because it\u2019s gotten us in trouble. Pete is a patriot. He understands the military. [He\u2019s served] twenty years, but he\u2019s done other stuff too. He\u2019s been in business. He\u2019s well educated, well spoken. But what I like about him, Larry, is he\u2019s a [younger] age. He\u2019s going in, running our military, and we need somebody the age\u2014close to the age of a lot of these warfighters that we have that they can relate [to]. This is a different military. This is a different time. This is a different era. And we need to build our military back because we have really degraded our military over the years because of the woke, the DEI, the critical race theory, all these things are being pushed at all of our warfighters, and they\u2019re getting out right and left. We\u2019ve got to build it back and Pete\u2019s got to do it, Larry.\u201d\n\nKUDLOW: \u201cYeah, 100%. You know, look, I read in the left-wing media you know, all these attempts to smear Pete Hegseth. And I also read in conservative media that there are police reports that essentially let him off the hook. Okay? It\u2019s much ado about nothing many years ago. Again, it\u2019s more ankle-biting coming from the left. It\u2019s very much like the other stuff we\u2019ve seen. So, you think that\u2019s gonna be an issue in the in the Senate hearings? I mean, to me, it\u2019s open and shut for heaven sakes. The police report is this. It says nothing happened. They didn\u2019t bring any charges. Now let\u2019s get to the agenda you just talked about.\u201d [\u2026]\n\nTUBERVILLE: \u201cExactly. And you can read a lot about that. And you just said, Larry, the thing about Pete is he\u2019s well-spoken. It\u2019s all out there. People can look at it, but a lot of this stuff was years ago. Now again, you got to be responsible for your actions, but Pete has done everything he possibly can do to get it out there to talk to people. Again, when we get to the hearings, probably somewhere around January 9th or 10th, Larry, it\u2019s gonna be about the military. It\u2019s not gonna be about his past. [\u2026] Now the Democrats are gonna do everything they can to destroy probably one of the better people that we\u2019ve ever had in as the possible appointee of Secretary of Defense. But that\u2019s all they have. And they\u2019re gonna try to destroy him. It\u2019s not gonna work. He\u2019s gonna work well with the military. He\u2019s gonna build it back. He\u2019s the type of person we have to have for all military, not just the Army, the Navy, the Air Force. He was in the Marines. He did exactly what he needed to do when he first stepped into this role saying, \u2018Listen, we need to work together,\u2019 and the Democrats can work with us if they want to, but if not, that\u2019ll be fine. Pete Hegseth and the Republican Party can push this, and we can get our military back to the way it should be.\u201d\n\nON NOMINATION OF KASH PATEL FOR DIRECTOR OF THE FBI:\n\nKUDLOW: \u201cAnd Senator Tuberville I\u2019ll just add, he\u2019s a highly decorated veteran. As I recall, two Bronze Stars. Fought in two\u2014I believe two theaters of war\u2014combat service, by the way. We haven\u2019t had that in quite some time. So, my other point is this: you\u2019re gonna get to these hearings. I don\u2019t see why the FBI in its present condition \u2013 [\u2026] I don\u2019t see why they should be allowed to vet anybody. They don\u2019t deserve it. They haven\u2019t earned it. Putting in Kash Patel and Pam Bondi and others to clean the corrupt stables of the Justice Department and the FBI. Why can\u2019t the Senate\u2014without the FBI\u2014let the Senate do its own job with its own staff and come up with its own questions? That\u2019s my last question to you, sir.\u201d\n\nTUBERVILLE: \u201cWe pretty much do that anyway, Larry. We\u2019re not gonna listen to the Fake Bureau of Investigation. They\u2019ve been off the rails now for the last four or five years. We need to make sure we do our own due diligence, and we\u2019re doing that. We\u2019re not gonna listen to a bunch of people that are gonna go after political appointees or former presidents and raid people\u2019s homes, try to put people in jail. It is ridiculous. Kash Patel will be an excellent FBI director. He\u2019s the type of person that we need, Larry. Larry, if you look at all the appointees, most of the people are younger, they\u2019re diverse. President Trump knows exactly what he\u2019s doing. He\u2019s gonna need these people who\u2019ll be working 15, 16, 17 hours a day, if not more. And these are the type of people that he\u2019s picking because we got a lot of hard work to do and a lot of hills to overcome.\u201d\n\nKUDLOW: \u201cYes sir. Senator Tommy Tuberville. Thank you, sir. We appreciate your wisdom, as always.\u201d\n\nSenator Tommy Tuberville represents Alabama in the United States Senate and is a member of the Senate Armed Services, Agriculture, Veterans\u2019 Affairs, and HELP Committees.\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T19:07:19Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.tuberville.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/icymi-tuberville-joins-kudlow-to-discuss-meeting-with-secdef-nominee/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.0992248319089413, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}