Veteran says too late for GOP to stop Tuberville blockade: 'Scared to death of a primary'

Former Missouri Secretary of State Jason Kander (D) — who also served in Afghanistan as a member of the Army National Guard — recently opined that America's polarized politics is the primary reason for Sen. Tommy Tuberville's (R-AL) months-long blockade of military leadership promotions.

During an appearance on the Daily Beast's New Abnormal podcast, Kander argued that Tuberville's hold has already crossed the Rubicon, and that the Alabama senator has dug in too far that he now "can't see the top."

"I think he’s embarrassed," Kander said. "A lot of people have tried to give him a graceful exit from this hole that he’s dug and he’s passed so many of those exits that now he has no choice to just force the Senate to go around him."

Tuberville has been holding up nearly 400 promotions for senior-level military leadership positions across all four branches for the bulk of 2023 thanks to Senate rules that allow a lone member to block a nominee's confirmation. Alabama's senior senator has pledged to continue the hold until the Pentagon reverses its policy of reimbursing the travel costs of service members who have to travel out of their home states to terminate their pregnancies. Four Republican senators recently tried to push through the confirmations in a late-night battle with Tuberville, but were unsuccessful.

Kander told the Beast that because Tuberville's hold is based on the hot-button issue of abortion, Republicans are in a "tricky" position if they oppose him too vociferously.

"They’re afraid of two things. One, they’re afraid of upsetting a member of their caucus, who then turns on them. And two, because we’ve become so polarized, they’re all scared to death of a primary and the underlying thing that Tuberville is talking about, or trying to make this about, is abortion," Kander said. "I think they’re really scared of looking like they voted the wrong way on abortion in a Republican primary."

Ending Tuberville's hold may come down to a 60-member vote engineered by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ). Sinema has reportedly been leveraging her relationships with Senate Republicans over the past four months in order to convince nine of them to vote with Democrats to officially end the blockade and fully confirm the promotions.

READ MORE: Kyrsten Sinema has 'quietly worked for four months' to get votes needed to break Tuberville's blockade