WASHINGTON (CN) — The U.S. Air Force general tapped to lead the Joint Chiefs of Staff slammed political jockeying in the Senate that has held up the promotion of more than 250 senior military officers.
“We will lose talent,” predicted General Charles Brown Jr., responding to a question from Senator Elizabeth Warren.
“My concern there is future retention," Brown continued, "because we have our more junior officers who now look up and say, ‘If that’s the challenge I might have to deal with in the future, I want to balance between my family and serving in a senior position.’”
The issue that so dominated Tuesday's assembly of the Senate Armed Services Committee, a hearing called to consider Brown's nomination, stems from Senator Tommy Tuberville’s insistence since March that the committee consider military promotions one-by-one rather than in batches — what Congress calls unanimous consent — causing a substantial backlog.
Tuberville, a Republican committee member from Alabama, announced the power play over his objection to a Defense Department policy to reimburse personnel and their dependents for any travel expenses related to abortion services if they are stationed in states that ban or restrict the procedure.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin signed off on the policy in response to the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, ending 50 years of federal abortion protections in the United States.
Tuberville himself did not address his policy objections Tuesday, as his colleagues recounted its toll to date on the country's armed forces.
General David Berger stepped down from his Marine Corps commandant post on Monday and while General Eric Smith, the assistant commandant, has been nominated as Berger's successor, he is forced to serve in an acting capacity while that nomination hangs in limbo.
Virginia Senator Tim Kaine, a Democrat, balked Tuesday that the Marines have done nothing to be “punished,” “disrespected” or “have their leadership hobbled in this way.”
Kaine said if he disagreed with a military policy, he “would never even contemplate taking out my disappointment and punishing people who have volunteered to wear the uniform of this country.”
“People who volunteer to serve in the military do so knowing that their life will be at risk,” he said. “But if they do so thinking ‘not only will my life be at risk, but do I want to run the risk that a member of the Senate being unhappy with a policy I had nothing to do with may choose to block my career,’ that might be a risk that people might choose not to undertake.”
Warren chastised Tuberville for what she called “reckless action.”
“The families of these service members are held at a stand still,” the Massachusetts Democrat said. “They’re unsure about where to enroll their kids in school or whether they need to arrange a move across the country."
Brown, who has been chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force since 2020, faced other questions at the hearing around the military’s budget, its capacity to support Ukraine and Taiwan, and pressures to compete on cybersecurity and technology fronts. Among criticisms of the the nominee, Republicans focused Tuesday on Brown's signature of an August 2022 memo that they portrayed as outlining goals for the military based on race.
Senator Eric Schmitt, a Missouri Republican, said the memo highlighted “this obsession with race-based politics being injected into our military,” while Senator Ted Budd, a Republican from North Carolina, said such diversity, equity and inclusion policies “deter rather than encourage people to serve.”
“I have heard from many young and qualified individuals from North Carolina who are hesitant to join a force they see as extremely political and defined by DEI policies,” Budd said. “I think that we should be suspect of any policies that give advantages to some groups at the expense of others.”
The general, who is Black, disputed the Republicans' characterizations of the memo. Noting that the military is “a merit-based organization,” Brown said its intent is solely to increase outreach to a wide swath of people, not to advocate for lowering standards to meet a quota. That mindset, he added, is shared across leadership.
“I didn’t want to be the best African American F-16 pilot. I wanted to be the best F-16 pilot,” he said. “I did not want to be provided a position or promotion based on my background. I wanted it based on the quality of my work.”
Brown's nomination generally appeared to receive some bipartisan support. He is scheduled to testify before the committee again at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday.
Republican Senator Joni Ernst, of Iowa, asked the general how he would keep political discourse out of the military.
“I would stay nonpartisan and nonpolitical with how I approach the position of chairman,” he responded. “We need to stay out of politics and stay nonpartisan and nonpolitical, while at the same time advocate that our civilian leadership is not going to bring us into political situations.”
Follow @TheNolanStout
Subscribe to Closing Arguments
Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.
