Speaking during an appearance on Fox Business Network’s “Kudlow,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) went nuclear on the Senate Parliamentarian, who has been throwing out key parts of the BBB under the Byrd Rule, and argued that it is high time Senate Republicans get on board with deposing the deep state hack.
As background, Sen. Tuberville’s sound-off on Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough was sparked by MacDonough’s decision to start cutting out some parts of the BBB that MAGA heartily supports, such as deregulating suppressors and ending welfare benefits for illegal aliens, under the Byrd Rule.
The Byrd Rule disallows adding extraneous legislation to a reconciliation bill, which is supposed to be purely about spending. Namely, the rule is meant to ensure that reconciliation bills, which bypass much of the usual legislative process and can be passed with a mere simple majority, focus purely on budgetary matters, not “extraneous” policy changes. As the BBB is a reconciliation bill, the Byrd rule is relevant.
In any case, Sen. Tuberville was furious over her decision to start tossing things out under the Byrd Rule and argued that it is high time she be fired by Senate Republicans for her obvious inconsistency. He said, “[I] said today she’s got to be gone. We’ve got to fire her. And this is the reason why: She doesn’t put apples to apples.”
Continuing, and explaining what he meant by that with a few examples of commonsense, budgetary matters that the woke Senate Parliamentarian struck out of the BBB, Sen. Tuberville said, “One thing she lets in. The next thing that kind of compares to it — nah, it’s out. She struck out a provision that says illegals can’t get Medicare — struck that out. Illegals can’t get student loans — she struck that out. Taxpayers don’t have to pay for transitions for minors — she struck that out.”
Building on that, he noted that his call for the Senate Parliamentarian to be fired wasn’t entirely out of left field, as such has happened before, during recent memory, in fact, in the midst of the reconciliation process. He said, “Who in their right mind would strike that out of this bill? So, yes — you know, Trent Lott fired the parliamentarian in 2001 in a reconciliation process.”
Concluding, Sen. Tuberville argued that MacDonough has, in constantly changing around the bill and cutting key, MAGA-liked provisions in a biased way as she has done so, partisanship has entered an office that really needs to be non-biased. He said, “It needs to be done again. We don’t need this partisanship. We need people to do their job. They’re not elected. They’re hired as an employee. Do your job, and don’t get politics involved.”
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Sen. Tuberville also sounded off on the matter in a post on X in which he noted that Trump has a mandate and no bureaucrat should be allowed to stand in the way of it. He said, “Did Harry Reid’s Senate Parliamentarian not get the memo? President Trump’s landslide victory was a MANDATE from 77 million Americans. The One Big Beautiful Bill delivers on that mandate. The Parliamentarian is trying to UNDERMINE the President’s mandate and should be fired.”