Biden Mocks GOP Senator For Touting Broadband Funding He Opposed

President Joe Biden on Wednesday mocked Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) for celebrating that his state got more than $1 billion in broadband funding from the bipartisan infrastructure bill ― which Tuberville voted against.

“See you at the groundbreaking,” Biden tweeted.

The president included a quoted tweet from Tuberville on Tuesday in which the senator touted that Alabama was getting $1.4 billion for expanding broadband access to underserved areas.

“Great to see Alabama receive crucial funds to boost ongoing broadband efforts,” Tuberville tweeted.

This money is coming from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a sweeping bipartisan law that included a historic $65 billion investment in expanding high-speed, affordable broadband. Biden signed it into law in November 2021.

When the bill came before the Senate in August 2021, Tuberville voted no.

Biden dinged the Alabama senator again later Wednesday, during a speech in Chicago about his economic plan.

Some people “strenuously opposed” the infrastructure package when it was making its way through Congress, he said.

“There’s a guy named Tuberville, senator from Alabama, who announced that he strongly opposed the legislation. Now he’s hailing its passage,” the president said, while also reading Tuberville’s tweet aloud.

Biden paused briefly afterward to make the sign of the cross, drawing laughter and applause from the crowd. 

The president went on to mock Tuberville for a third time, at another event in Chicago. This time, it was at a joint campaign fundraiser with the Democratic National Committee.

“I told him, ‘I’ll see you at the groundbreaking,’” Biden said of Tuberville, to a room of about 220 donors, according to a White House pool report.

Tuberville spokesperson Steven Stafford told HuffPost on Tuesday that there’s no hypocrisy in the senator hailing the benefits of legislation he opposed.

“Coach voted against the infrastructure bill because it wasted Alabamians’ tax dollars,” he said of Tuberville, who was a college football coach until 2016. “But now that it is law of the land, the people of Alabama deserve their fair share.”