The country faces a perilous condition from four years of Joe Biden governance and has what Tuberville, the Republican senator from Alabama, calls a final chance for self-correction under the coming Donald Trump administration.
For Tuberville, tax reform, the southern border and rebuilding military strength are all important goals that need immediate attention. But nothing ranks higher than education, the former college football coach says.
“We’ve got to get God back in our schools, talk about families and that we’ve got two genders. We’ve got to do everything possible to get back to common sense, but we’ve got to teach these kids to read, to write, civics, history, science – the basic things – because as we speak, half the kids in this country can’t read past the sixth-grade level,” Tuberville said on Washington Watch Wednesday.
Trump will take office in January with Republican control in both legislative chambers. The GOP margin in the House is expected to remain slim, but Republicans were able to flip the Senate in spite of a recount in the Pennsylvania race between incumbent Democrat Bob Casey and Republican challenger David McCormick.
“Everyone understands there is absolutely no mathematical way that the recount that’s taking place now could have any effect on the outcome of this election,” attorney Ron Coleman said on American Family Radio Thursday. Coleman is participating in the recount mandated by the State of Pennsylvania for races decided by margins of 0.5% or less.
Including the anticipation of a McCormick victory, Republicans would have 53 seats, a three-seat majority.
Eager sheriff and new deputies
“A new sheriff is going to be in town, his name is Donald Trump, along with his deputies, Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk,” Tuberville said.
Ramaswamy, a one-time opponent of Trump’s in the GOP nomination race, and Musk, the tech billionaire, will lead a new division called the Department of Government Efficiency.
“They are fired up about coming and starting to throw stink bombs in all these buildings in Washington, DC, saying, ‘Get out, let’s do the accounting, and let’s find out where the taxpayers’ money is going, we’re tired of spending it,’” Tuberville said.
Tuberville, coming from a profession where head coaches are routinely terminated, has long derided bureaucracy in Washington he says is “ten layers deep” because “they never fire anybody.”
Inefficiency that would merit a coach firing in the real world was demonstrated last week by the Department of Defense, which failed its audit for the seventh-straight season. At the end of the day last Friday, the Pentagon released findings that showed it was unable to account for all of its $824-million budget. Officials say they are making progress and believe they can balance their budget in another four years.
Tuberville says the Republican trifecta this election season represents one last chance to restore America to fiscal stability and common sense.
“We don’t have another chance. This will be the last chance in your and my lifetimes that we will have a chance to save this country,” he told show host Tony Perkins.
Democrats, in dire straits after the election, are fighting to salvage something in the form of Casey’s Senate seat. The result has been lawsuits from both parties working to gain an upper hand in the recount.
Ahead of the recount, which began Wednesday, Pennsylvania’s state Supreme Court in a 4-3 ruling earlier this week said counties cannot count incorrectly dated or undated ballots.
The decision singled out election boards in Bucks County, Montgomery County and Philadelphia County when it said they “SHALL COMPLY with the prior rulings of this Court in which we have clarified” the process for counting mail-in and absentee ballots.
Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor, supported the court’s decision.
"Any insinuation that our laws can be ignored or do not matter is irresponsible and does damage to faith in our electoral process," he said. "The rule of law matters in Pennsylvania. … It is critical for counties in both parties to respect it with both their rhetoric and their actions."
Coleman told show host Jenna Ellis the Pennsylvania recount is a “vanity project” for Marc Elias, an elections attorney for the Democratic Party.
“I’m sure [Elias] pressed on Sen. Casey, not that I’m sure he needed all that much convincing. These people think that the world revolves around them,” Coleman said.
Trump needs to work fast
The clock for change is ticking. Trump, with rapid-fire nominations and appointments of his team, understands this, Tuberville said.
“President Trump is going to hit the ground running, and we have to put everybody on notice that you have to be accountable for every dime; and if you get that money, you spend it the right way, you spend it on the American people, you protect the American people and you do everything you possibly can to give us a chance, an opportunity to lower taxes where people here can live a lot better life,” he said.
Education is ripe for change, Tuberville says, whether that means doing away with the Department of Education, as Trump has pledged, or working to reform a flawed system.
“You’ve got these teachers’ unions that are sucking the American people dry on $27,000 a student per year, which is what we spend. It’s almost twice as much as any other country, and our kids are being cheated out of an education. We’re 29th in the world in education when we should be number one,” Tuberville said.
