Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) said Thursday that an ongoing GOP blockade of hundreds of President Joe Biden’s military nominees may actually be a good thing for America since Biden has been trying to bring more diversity into the nation’s military.
In an interview with conservative radio show host Hugh Hewitt, Scott, who is running for president, was asked if he supports Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) in blocking more than 300 military nominations in protest of the Pentagon’s policy on providing abortion-related travel. Tuberville has been leaning on Senate procedural rules since February to derail their confirmations.
Scott replied that it may actually be a good thing that Tuberville is singlehandedly preventing hundreds of U.S. military posts from being filled.
“Under President Biden, holding up promotions is not necessarily a bad thing,” said the South Carolina Republican.
“What we’ve seen in the top brass in today’s military is too much focus on … [diversity, equity and inclusion] and gender issues, vaccine mandates, as opposed to war fighting, lethality, and making sure that the resources and the equipment and the training that we need,” he said. ”We may have been a little bit better off slowing down the promotions and slowing down a greater social experimentation within the ranks of our military.”
Scott used that vague, coded language again in the interview, saying, “We need to purge the social experimentation out of the military.” Presumably, what he is actually saying is that military leaders shouldn’t allow transgender people to serve openly in the military and to receive medically necessary gender-affirming care.
A Scott campaign spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on why the Republican senator thinks it would be good for the U.S. military at all to leave hundreds of military posts unfilled and why Biden’s efforts to bring more diversity and equity into the U.S. military is a reason to do so.
A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Scott, who has been out on the presidential campaign trail for months and yet is polling in the low single-digits, missed all of this week’s Senate votes to confirm a handful of top military leaders that Tuberville didn’t object to.
Tuberville has infuriated top military brass with his blockade, with some saying he is aiding U.S. adversaries with his political move.