{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.tuberville.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/tuberville-we-need-a-military-that-is-100-focused-on-protecting-our-country-and-enhancing-national-security/", "Tuberville: \u201cWe need a military that is 100% focused on protecting our country and enhancing national security.\u201d", "2024-12-04", "2024", "2024-12", "Republican", "Senate", "AL", "Tommy Tuberville", "T000278", "www.tuberville.senate.gov", "tuberville", "https://www.tuberville.senate.gov/press-releases/", "scraper", "WASHINGTON \u2013 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\u2019s nominee for Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth.\n\nRead Senator Tuberville\u2019s remarks below or watch on YouTube or Rumble.\n\n\u201cMadam President,\n\nI rise today to highlight some of the major victories that were included in the Senate version of the NDAA [\u2026] that passed out of the Senate Armed Services Committee almost six months ago. The Senate\u2019s version of this year\u2019s NDAA includes some excellent provisions, including a 4.5% pay raise for America\u2019s 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.\n\nAmong the Senate\u2019s NDAA victories, I also count my amendments which will help [re]focus the Pentagon on its stated mission of \u2018deter war and ensure our nation\u2019s security.\u2019 One of these amendments includes slashing all funding for the woke \u2018Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion\u2019 policies at the DOD. Another amendment prohibits the use of taxpayer dollars for any costs associated with funding gender transition surgeries.\n\nWe need a military that is 100% focused on protecting our country and enhancing national security\u2014not 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\u2019s leadership for putting together this excellent piece of legislation.\n\nThe 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.\n\nSo, 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?\n\nIf Senator Schumer really cared about our military, he would have brought the NDAA up for a vote almost six months ago. But instead, we\u2019ve 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\u2019ve 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.\n\nBut 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\u2019s radical-woke policies. Immediately after taking the White House, President Biden began to weaponize the DOD\u2014using it as yet another tool in the administration\u2019s arsenal to further its progressive agenda. One of the Biden administration\u2019s first moves was to mandate divisive \u2018Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion\u2019 training at the DOD. Picking right up where Barack Obama left off four years earlier.\n\nOn day one, the Biden Administration announced that the military would begin conducting training to \u2018have knowledge of systemic and institutional racism and bias against underserved communities.\u2019 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\u2019s 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\u2019 international security in an increasingly dangerous world, not on all these woke DEI initiatives. There\u2019s no place for it.\n\nAmericans want to fund the military to achieve this objective. That\u2019s what our taxpayers pay money for.\n\nWhich is why on November 5th, nearly 77 million Americans joined me [in] taking a stand to say, \u2018enough of this nonsense.\u2019 The American people gave President Trump a mandate to get Washington working for the people again. [We chose] President Trump because he isn\u2019t interested in the same old, same old in this town. A [breath of fresh] air. No more business as usual.\n\nPresident 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\u2019s battle-tested, and he\u2019s 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 \u2018in this for the war fighters, not for the warmongers.\u2019 Excellent quote.\n\nThat\u2019s exactly why the Military Industrial Complex is losing their minds. If confirmed, Pete will focus on rebuilding peace through strength\u2014putting America first and prioritizing America\u2019s 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?\n\nPete 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\u2019s been on the battlefield, shoulder-to-shoulder in the mud with the infantry? I\u2019m willing to bet young people would rather sign up [to follow] the second man in that list.\n\nWe need a drill sergeant, someone who\u2019s been in the trenches. That man is Pete Hegseth.\n\nThis is perfectly in line with President Trump\u2019s efforts to get the federal government\u2019s house in order. Pete will prioritize building an effective, streamlined Pentagon that can actually pass an audit, which they haven\u2019t done in seven years. He will target waste, fraud, abuse, and refocus the DOD workforce on its core mission. And this can\u2019t come soon enough.\n\nUnder 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\u2019t 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.\n\nI 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.\n\nI yield the floor.\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/tuberville-we-need-a-military-that-is-100-focused-on-protecting-our-country-and-enhancing-national-security/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.9660980217158794, "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"}