Tommy Tuberville Says Coaching College Football Was Just as Taxing as Leading the Military

Senator Tommy Tuberville does not have a lot of fans these days—on either side of the aisle—thanks to his ridiculous blockade on military nominations and promotions, which he continues to hold up because he’s mad about reproductive rights. On Wednesday, for instance, members of his own party called his now monthslong stunt “a national security suicide mission” that is doing “great damage to our military.” And after comments he made on Thursday, he’s unlikely to convince more people to come over to his side! 

Speaking to reporters about the apparent heart attack suffered on Sunday by Marine Corps commandant General Eric Smith—which Army veteran and Senate Armed Services Committee chair Jack Reed said he believed was in part due to being overworked as a result of Tuberville’s blockade—the senator from Alabama scoffed at the idea that he had anything to do with it. “The Marine Corps commandant probably got 2,000 people working for him,” Tuberville said. “Jack Reed blamed me for his heart attack. Come on, give me a break. This guy is going to work 18-20 hours a day, no matter what. That’s what we do. I did that for years.”

You might be under the impression that Tuberville actually served in the military, but that is not the case. In fact, Tuberville has no military experience whatsoever. When he said, “I did that for years,” he was presumably referring to his job as a college football coach, which he held before becoming a senator in 2021. (He has nevertheless also said things like “there is nobody more military than me.”) As Insider notes, while Tuberville was coaching football, Smith—who Reed says was doing two jobs at once at the time of his heart attack—was earning a Purple Heart. 

Since being elected in 2020, Tubverville has made a name for himself not just as a guy who has left hundreds of military jobs in limbo, but as an idiot and apologist for white nationalists. Shortly after his victory over Doug Jones, he claimed that the three branches of government were “the House, the Senate, and the executive” and that World War II was a fight against socialism. Later, he insisted that white nationalists are not racist before begrudgingly reversing course. 

Mike Johnson says he’s good friends with Marjorie Taylor Greene, which pretty much tells you all you need to know