Sen. Tommy Tuberville on College Football and Budget Insanity

CLAY: We are joined now by Senator Tommy Tuberville from the great state of Alabama. Senator, I appreciate you giving us some time. I know it’s been a crazy day and days and weeks that are coming in the Senate. We’re going to get into the budget process and everything else here in a moment. But first, you coached in Ole Miss. You coached at Auburn. You also coached in the Big 12 at Texas Tech. What do you think about Texas and Oklahoma joining the SEC?

SEN. TUBERVILLE: I think it’s very interesting. I’m kind of surprised. But you know Texas would really want to be in. I was a little bit surprised about Oklahoma, and will still be surprised if they will be able to pull out of Oklahoma without Oklahoma State. It’s hard to divide schools like that, but sometimes the legislature gets involved and sometimes it doesn’t.

But it will obviously enhance the SEC. Now, it will make it tougher. It will probably bring more TV money, which is what they’re looking at with this NIL coming up and all the extra costs. So, I think it’s good. I think it’s good. I hate it for the Big 12. I coached at Texas Tech. They will have to scramble to see what will happen, but I’m not sure SEC is done taking schools. They might continue on, but we’ll see what happens.

BUCK: Senator, it’s Buck, here. I want to know what your sense is of how this process of the budget is moving along. Yesterday, we said on the show, there was that breaking news about bipartisan agreement. But now we’ve got Sinema saying she won’t go along with the $3.5 trillion, and we don’t even know what is in this. But what are you seeing and hearing, and what should we be focused on, in terms of what really feels like the only piece of the Biden agenda, from a legislative perspective, that could still happen?

SEN. TUBERVILLE: Well, first of all, every American should know, this is the reckless, tax-and-spend agenda they’ve had. I’ve never seen anything like it. Of course, I’m just a normal American and someone who has been up here six months and I’m shocked by what’s going on on the other side and all the spending they want, all the new programs they want to start. You know, when you start a program up here in Washington D.C., they never go away.

They say, “Oh, it’s gonna be a year, two years,” and they last forever, and we’re gonna put more and more people on a paycheck. They don’t want anybody to work. They want to continue working towards socialism and Marxism. That’s the direction they’re headed. But I think you’re seeing Sinema and Manchin looking at the situation going, “Wait a minute. This is getting out of hand. I know that we’ve all voted together as Democrats in the past…”

I know Sinema has probably has got a number in her head of what she wants to do and how far she wants to go, and I know Joe Manchin does. I don’t think they’re on the same agenda. So we’ll have to wait and see what happens there. But we have to have a true infrastructure bill.

All the mess they got in this thing, I’ve looked at some of the things they’ve been talking about. Number one, it’s laughable what they want to put in there. I just don’t understand it. They’re not going to get $3.5 trillion. That’s not going to happen. They’re gonna probably try to get at least half of that and we’ll see what happens from there.

BUCK: Senator, do you have…? I just thought it was interesting. You said you’ve only been out there six months, and you mentioned Sinema and Manchin who seem to be the most reasonable of the Democrats. Do you have any kind of relationship with either of those people at all? I mean, do you sit around and talk with them in any way that would be sort of a collegial nature, or is it very exclusionary Republicans and Democrats in the Senate so far in your experience?

SEN. TUBERVILLE: No. With probably about a dozen, we sit down and talk and tell jokes and have fun when we’re off the floor and business is not going on. We’ve gone to parties together and we’re quite cordial. But that’s not a lot. And, you know, there’s a group in the Democratic Party that’s on the far, far left that, of course, I’m not even talking to any of them.

And I’ve been here six months. It’s just the divide here is what had surprised me more than anything, the divide not just in between Republicans and Democrats, but also the divide, really, of what the Democrats are looking at with two or three separate groups. You know, the liberals, the basically Marxists and communists — and, you know, the tax-and-spend folks. I mean, it’s just… I hope we just wake up and understand what we’re doing to the future of this country and to the kids, our grandkids, that are going to pay for all this stuff.

CLAY: Name, image, and likeness. I know you’ve been working on it. It’s a big story. All 50 states trying to figure out how to pay college kids. Different rules, different places. Is Congress going to pass a bill here? Should they?

SEN. TUBERVILLE: I wish we would stay out of it, but it looks like the federal government and the Commerce Committee is going to have to do something to make sure we balance this thing up. The NCAA can’t seem to get the job done, can’t seem to do their job and get everybody just to agree to one thing. But I’ve talked to the Commerce Committee. Of course, I’ve been in the business for 40 years and know a little bit about it.

I’ve talked to the ranking member, and the chairman — madam chair — of the committee, and we’ve worked a little bit on it together. But what we have to have, Clay, is we have to have equality in terms of everybody doing it the same way. If you don’t have a rule, and you don’t compete for championships, everybody has to go by the same rules, and this is a rule that scares me.

I think it’s more of an experiment than anything. I think they’re looking at this. And I was a coach for years, and I wanted to give as much money to every player, man and woman, in every sport we possibly could. But it’s almost impossible. I mean, there might be a half a dozen to a dozen teams that can really afford the things that’s coming down the pike. But there’s a lot of teams that can’t.

We can’t ruin athletics in this country, especially high school and college. If we do that… That’s one of the true things we’re holding on to, where people learn discipline, they learn values, they learn how to work together. And we’ve got to be able to hold on to that. And when we get politics involved, things start to disintegrate a little bit. But when you look at this going? My goodness. This is just an opportunity to do things that we couldn’t do. We couldn’t even come close to doing some of these things that they’re allowed to do now.

BUCK: Senator, getting back to politics for a second: Are you concerned that given the inability, it seems, of the Biden White House to get their agenda through on Capitol Hill that there may be some of the more extreme measures that have been talked about all along here, like, for example, getting rid of the filibuster so that then they can ram through the agenda? How confident should we be that the handful — or, really, just a couple — of Democrats that have been a bulwark against eliminating the filibuster will hold the line on that?

SEN. TUBERVILLE: Yeah. I don’t think that will ever happen. And, again, talking to Manchin and Sinema and visiting with them about what they believe about this country and the process, both have said to me quite consistently that they want to keep the process. They do not want to cross that line and allow the Senate to turn into the House where it’s just the majority.

And if we do that, there’s going to be some huge problems. There will be some changes back and forth. Sooner or later, the Republicans are gonna get football back, and if you break the filibuster, then it’s going to be total chaos when the Republicans take over — and the American people don’t deserve that. They deserve less government, less decisions made up here.

You know, we could go home for about three months; it wouldn’t hurt my feelings, because it would save the American taxpayers money. And all we want to do up here is spend money. And that’s not what we’re up here for. We’re up here to help. And we’ve done very little help with the pandemic, with the borders, with crime, all the things that are going on. That’s what we should be talking about. That’s what we should be working on, but we’re worried about spending money.

And that’s not what we need to do right now. Inflation is getting ready to hit us right between the eyes. It’s already started and it’s going to get worse. There’s no way we can stop it. You have your old pal out there, spending $100 billion a day or a week on all these Treasury bills, and things are going to go sideways on us, and when it does, we’re at a 0% interest rates! Where do we go from there? We got nowhere to go. Europe tried that and it didn’t work. We’ve gotta be very careful of what we’re doing, and if inflation keeps going, we’re all going to be in trouble.

CLAY: Last question for you, Senator. I want to know: More anger in the state of Alabama when you were coaching college football or now that you’re a politician? How would you compare the vibe at those two different jobs?

SEN. TUBERVILLE: (chuckles) Well, there’s a divide in both of that in coaching college football. But at the end of the day, you look each other in the eyes and say, “Hey, you did the best for what you were supposed to be doing for your team.” Up here, it’s two separate teams and it’s two separate Americas.

I mean, we’re not fighting for the flag. We’re not fighting for the anthem. We’re not fighting for the Constitution here. We’re fighting each other on a different type of America, and that’s not what this country is supposed to be. If we start dividing it and if we continue to keep dividing it, you know where we’re headed and it’s not going to be pretty. And we have got to all come together, quit dividing each other.

Get away from this stuff we’re teaching in these schools to the kids. That’s one reason I’m up here is because of education, because I’ve seen how we’ve downgraded: thirty-seventh in the world in math. Now, that makes a lot of sense. The United States of America. China number one. Education is what put us here and education is what is going to ruin us if we continue down this path of teaching kids something about division and about hate.

BUCK: Senator, thanks so much for joining us from the great state of Alabama. We appreciate it.

SEN. TUBERVILLE: Thank you, guys.