Thomas Hawley Tuberville (/ˈtʌbərvɪl/;[1] born September 18, 1954) is an American politician and retired college football coach who is the senior United States senator from Alabama, a seat he has held since 2021.

[2] In his first political campaign, Tuberville won the Republican nomination for the 2020 Senate election in Alabama and defeated Democratic incumbent Doug Jones by over 20 points.

His protest of Defense Department policies on abortion temporarily deprived the Army,[9] Navy,[10] Air Force, and Marine Corps of confirmed top officers and delayed the filling of more than 450 other senior positions.

[13] He then went through the ranks at the University of Miami, beginning as graduate assistant and ending as defensive coordinator in 1993, winning the national championship three times during his tenure there (1986–1994).

[22] Tuberville left Ole Miss after the 1998 season to take the head coaching job at Auburn University in Alabama.

In 2005, despite losing the entire starting backfield from the unbeaten 2004 team to the first round of the NFL draft, Tuberville led Auburn to a 9–3 record, finishing the regular season with victories over rivals Georgia and Alabama.

[24][25][26] Tuberville coached 19 players who were selected in the NFL draft, including four first-round picks in 2004, with several others signing as free agents.

After his departure from Auburn, during the 2009 football season, Tuberville worked as an analyst for Buster Sports and ESPN, discussing the SEC and the Top 25 on various television shows and podcasts.

[31] On January 1, 2011, he became the second head coach in Texas Tech football history to win a bowl game in his first season—an accomplishment unmatched since DeWitt Weaver's first season in 1951–52.

[42] On December 9, a Lubbock Avalanche-Journal article pointed out that Cincinnati is only 30 miles (50 km) from Guilford, Indiana, home of Tuberville's wife, Suzanne.

[59] Foundation officials said the tax filings did not reflect volunteer labor and donated materials used to refurbish veterans' homes.

[60] In 2020, The New York Times reported that Tuberville campaign and foundation officials "produced internal records for 2018 that showed nearly $20,000 was raised for a temporary project to provide a retreat for veterans.

[5] In an Alabama Daily News interview after the election, Tuberville said that the European theater of World War II was fought "to free Europe of socialism" and erroneously that the three branches of the U.S. federal government were "the House, the Senate, and the executive."

[76][77] On November 26, 2020, Tuberville announced that his chief of staff would be Stephen Boyd, who had been serving as assistant attorney general for the Office of Legislative Affairs at the U.S. Department of Justice.

[90] Tuberville was among the 31 Senate Republicans who voted against final passage of the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023,[91] telling reporters, "This bill does not go nearly far enough to reform our broken budget".

"[93] After taking office in January 2021, Tuberville joined a group of Republican senators who announced they would formally object to counting electoral votes won by Democratic president-elect Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.

[96][97] No further objections to the electoral votes were debated and the count concluded on the morning of January 7, certifying Biden's victory over Trump.

[98] When Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization came before the Supreme Court in 2022, Tuberville signed an amicus brief supporting the overturning of Roe v. Wade and its federal protection of abortion.

[102] In February 2023, he co-sponsored a bill to prevent people with a history or diagnosis of gender dysphoria from serving in the U.S. military, with limited exceptions.

[105] On March 25, 2023, Tuberville complained publicly about a video showing Lieutenant Junior Grade Audrey Knutson, who identifies as nonbinary, reading a poem during a spoken-word event aboard the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford.

"[106][107] On March 29, 2024, Tuberville accused the Democratic Party of being a "Satanic cult" in response to a tweet by the New York Post about the banning of religious-themed designs from the White House Easter Egg art contest.

His comment came at a time of widespread backlash by right-wing to far-right politicians and pundits after Biden publicly acknowledged International Transgender Day of Visibility, which fell on the same date as Easter in 2024.

[109] In December 2022, after Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced an upcoming policy to allow pregnant service members leave and reimbursement of travel costs so that they may obtain legal abortions in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, Tuberville threatened to put a Senate hold on all military promotions in protest of the policy.

[110] The policy was instituted in February 2023, with Tuberville announcing a day later that he would hold all "civilian, flag, and general officer nominations" due to the "illegal expansion of DoD authority and gross misuse of taxpayer dollars" for abortions.

[129] On May 10, 2023, Birmingham-area radio station WBHM broadcast an interview in which Tuberville was asked whether he believed white nationalists should be allowed to serve in the military.

[137] Tuberville's refusal to accept the definition of a white nationalist drew heavy criticism from Democrats and Republican senators.

[142][143] In October 2023, Michael Hayden, a retired Air Force general and former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, responded to a social-media post asking whether Tuberville should be removed from his committee assignments by saying, "How about the human race?"

[144] Tuberville reported the comment to the United States Capitol Police, saying that Hayden had called for his "politically motivated assassination".

[146][147][148] Tuberville married Vicki Lynn Harris, also from Camden, Arkansas, and a graduate of Harmony Grove High School, on December 19, 1976.

[159] In August 2023, The Washington Post reported that campaign finance and property records suggest Tuberville lives in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida, instead of Auburn, as his office claims,[160] and has for almost two decades.