Senator Tuberville on the Budget and Buck’s First SEC Game
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CLAY: We bring in now one of the two senators from the great state of Alabama. He is Tommy Tuberville. He’s also a former SEC football coach at both Ole Miss and Auburn. And, Senator, we’ll get to a budget question in a moment for you ’cause I know Joe Biden’s about to meet with the House.
They’re gonna talk about whether or not the infrastructure bill can pass and what that might mean for the budget. But I want to give you an opportunity to tell Buck… First of all, he’s never been to a college football game before, Senator. What is he in store for with Ole Miss going up against Alabama tomorrow?
SEN. TUBERVILLE: Oh, my gosh. Buck’s never been to a college football game? (laughing) He’s getting ready to get his eyes opened.
CLAY: (laughing)
SEN. TUBERVILLE: It will be… Buck, you’ve probably been to a pro game, but it’s nothing like college football.
BUCK: Yes, sir. Many pro games.
SEN. TUBERVILLE: Yes. Especially in the South, big rival game. Ole Miss and Alabama are not too far apart. Fans can drive over. They’ve already started tailgating, I’m sure.
BUCK: Oh, yeah.
SEN. TUBERVILLE: I’ll tell you, last year was a great game, and so high expectations for Ole Miss to play Alabama. But playing in Tuscaloosa is a whole different animal, I’ll tell you.
BUCK: Well, I’m excited, sir, and Clay is a great tour guide for all things going on before and during the game. So we’re gonna have a fun time, but we got people listening all across the country. We still don’t know what’s gonna happen here with the budget. We’ve got Bernie Sanders saying that two senators shouldn’t be able to shut the whole thing down.
I was apparently of the mistaken impression that you need at least 50 votes to get something done in the Senate. Bernie Sanders seems to feel otherwise, at least in theory. What’s gonna happen here? Is there a real possibility in your mind that they’re not gonna pass any reconciliation bill as it stands right now or are they just haggling over the price?
SEN. TUBERVILLE: Well, they’re haggling over the price. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, thank goodness for them, ’cause they’re moderates and there’s not many moderates left. The socialist side of the party, especially in the House, is running the House, and they won’t give in. I think they got like 97 of ’em in the socialist caucus over there.
They call it “progressive,” but it’s just they don’t want to call it socialist, but it is. So they’ve got a huge divide. There’s nobody fighting for the American people. They’re fighting for themselves. And it’s just unfortunate. And Joe Biden is gonna take the three- or four-mile trek over to the Capitol, and he has zero pull with Congress.
His popularity is dropping off the map. AOC can send out one tweet and get more backing in 10 minutes than Joe Biden can, so I don’t… He’s just wasting his time going over there. But they’ll get something worked out. The bipartisan bill will end up passing. That was some… Even some of the people — I didn’t vote for it because we don’t have pay-fors.
We don’t know how to pay for it, and it’s not all infrastructure. It’s “human infrastructure,” and I haven’t… I been looking in Webster dictionary and hadn’t found out what that means. But it is… I mean, it’s a total debacle. And they think they have an 80% majority in both the House and the Senate, and they got three or four more people in the House than the Republicans, and it’s 50-50 Senate.
So they got their fingers crossed, but Joe Manchin’s gonna hold in there. Kyrsten Sinema’s gonna hold in there. The House, I think over there, they’re just in disarray. I’m enjoying watching this ’cause they’ve been walking around like, you know, they can get anything done. But they’ve got a weak president, and they got a bunch of socialists trying to run and you noticed make two countries, make two Americas, and we’re not gonna allow that to happen.
CLAY: Senator, you told us, I remember — a few months ago, I think — that you thought Joe Manchin’s number would be around one and a half trillion, that he would be okay with. What are you expecting for Kyrsten Sinema to do? Do you have any sense for where her number is? ‘Cause Joe Manchin, senator from West Virginia, talked outside the Capitol to a lot of press and got his story out there. Senator Sinema has been relatively quiet. Do you have any sense inside the Senate of what her perspective is on this bill?
SEN. TUBERVILLE: Yeah, I talk to both of them every day. And the difference in Joe is he has been a governor, he’s been out there, he understands it. But he’s told ’em. He’s told me, he’s told everybody, “Hey, I’ll go for about 1.5.” Now, he might inch it up a little bit just to get the infrastructure bill passed. I don’t… He won’t go much higher. He understands it will blow the country up.
Kyrsten Sinema does not like to get out front. She does not like to be the person that does all the media. Matter of fact, she’s in Phoenix today. She’s not in town, and they’re trying to work this out. So I think that the Democrats have bitten off more than they can chew here. And it’s just a shame that there’s no…
Some of the moderates — there are actually moderates in this country in the Democratic Party — they’re afraid to speak out ’cause they’re afraid to get their hand slapped by the progressives. They’re scared of ’em. So it will be interesting next week. Nancy Pelosi’s… She doesn’t have the magic wand. She thought she could just snap her fingers and they’d all jump to attention.
But that’s not happening. But we gotta keep ’em from ruining the country, because we can’t have that much money pumped into our economy because what will happen is inflation will go sky-high. But they don’t care. They just want to have control.
BUCK: We’re speaking to Senator Tuberville of the great state of Alabama where Clay and I are currently sitting. Senator, we’ve been discussing all this on the show today but just in general for months now, what feels like two Americas increasingly, where one is embracing return to normalcy, freedom, what it means to be an American more circa 2019.
And the other, as we’ve been discussing today — with Gavin Newsom’s vaccine mandate for children in schools, New York City’s vaccine passport mandates — it feels like there’s just a polarization occurring here. Do you think if this continues on and are you worried about that or are they gonna get tired of it and things will all start to feel more normal soon? What do you see happening?
SEN. TUBERVILLE: I’m hoping at the end of the day that the group on the left, the progressives, see that, hey, they can’t do it like this. We got the moderates are getting in the way. And then we all start working together to bring one America together. They know they only got a short period of time because at least in the House next year, they’re gonna get blown out of the water.
That happens normally anyways the first year of a new president, loses the House. But the crazy stuff they’ve done at the border and all this crime and then the economy and what we did — what they did — in Afghanistan. People are really, really mad. And so they know they gotta get it done right now or they’ll never get it done.
We’re just thankful for people like Sinema and Manchin who’ll stand up for the American people because they’re the ones standing in the way right now. They got a big truck coming after ’em. I hope they can hold ’em off.
CLAY: Senator, I appreciate your time. I know how busy you are. I appreciate you welcoming Buck. We’re gonna have a good time in Tuscaloosa. Thank you for joining us.
