A MAGA senator running for governor had a reporter escorted out of a campaign dinner after being pressed about a pricey old promise.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) told staffers "Get him out" on Tuesday night when a Lagniappe reporter asked about his 2020 pledge to donate his congressional salary to Alabama veterans and their families, the Mobile outlet reported. Sheriff's deputies then escorted the reporter from the event.
Tuberville, the GOP candidate for governor, has spent October crisscrossing the state and was hosting a meet-and-greet dinner at Moe's Original BBQ. The Mobile County GOP had billed the gathering as open to the public, and Tuberville has regularly fielded reporters' questions before such events. Lagniappe said it had also been left off the media invite list for a recent Tuberville appearance in Daphne, Alabama.
While the reporter waited to speak with the senator, press secretary Jonathan Eberle stepped in to shut it down.
"We're not doing press today," Eberle said. "We're not taking questions."
Standing within earshot of Tuberville, the reporter asked the senator directly whether he would answer a question and began raising the salary vow. Tuberville responded by ordering him removed, and campaign strategist Jon Gray whistled for Mobile County Sheriff's deputies. The reporter left without incident.
During his 2020 Senate run, Tuberville told voters again and again that he would give away "every dime" of his $174,000 salary to Alabama veterans, their widows and their children. A Lagniappe investigation in June found nothing showing he ever made good on that vow, which would now add up to more than $1 million.
Tuesday's ejection came just five days after Tuberville was asked about the same pledge at an Oct. 15 campaign stop in Guntersville. There, he appeared to blame tax requirements for keeping him from donating the money, and he challenged his Democratic opponent, former Sen. Doug Jones, to make public what he called his "bank returns." He offered no evidence that he had kept to his original promise.
"I said that back in 2020, and I hope everybody believed it," Tuberville told reporters at the Guntersville stop, according to 1819 News.
Alabama Republican gubernatorial candidate Tommy Tuberville had law enforcement escort me out of tonight's Mobile campaign event while I tried to ask him a question.https://t.co/B1wlipCNMl https://t.co/eNy5jo7ALi
— Scott Johnson (@johnson_scottb) October 20, 2026