Tuberville Speaks at Confirmation Hearing for Department of Labor Secretary Nominee

WASHINGTON - Today, U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) spoke with Keith Sonderling, President Trump's nominee to be Secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor. During the hearing, Sen. Tuberville and Mr. Sonderling discussed the efforts the Trump administration is taking to root out waste, fraud, and abuse of federal tax dollars, as well as expanding 401(k) retirement investments to include cryptocurrency.

Excerpts from Sen. Tuberville's remarks can be found below or viewed on YouTube or Rumble.

ON WASTE, FRAUD, AND ABUSE OF TAXPAYER DOLLARS

TUBERVILLE: "Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Sonderling, welcome. Glad you're here. I haven't seen this many Gators in a long time in one spot. I think I recognize a few throwing stuff at me when I used to coach down there. You know, I can't think of other than Jordan-Hare Stadium-"

SONDERLING: "It was Senator Moody doing that."

TUBERVILLE: "Yeah. Other than Jordan-Hare Stadium and Bryant-Denny Stadium, The Swamp, Ben Hill Griffin [Stadium], is a hard place to play. And I really enjoyed kicking y'all's ass when I came down there […] but welcome. And thanks for what you've done. You've done an outstanding job. We're looking forward for you to continue that. You know, you're a member of Vice President Vance's task force team to try to stop this abysmal amount of fraud and money being stolen from the taxpayers. $100 million an hour the last I heard. I can't imagine that. And, so, you're on that task force. Are you working with the states? How are you collaborating with the states to get this done to stop this damn fraud?"

SONDERLING: "So, my role on the task force is related to unemployment insurance fraud, and Department of Labor plays a significant role in making sure that there's no fraud because all fraud is a theft on taxpayer dollars. And what we saw in the unemployment system during COVID time, $135 billion was stolen. Gone. Stolen by crime, stolen by foreign actors. Social security numbers were being stolen. Millions of dollars were going out to people in jail, to dead people. Somebody who was born in the year 2154 successfully applied for unemployment insurance and was able to get it.

So, countless stories like that hurts the American workers who actually need that money. So, under the Vice President's leadership on the task force, we have the license now to finally stop this and go after states that are not complying. So, I sent a letter to 53 governors and governors of territories, basically saying that we are tired of the fraud, and we want you to put these measures in for the fraud to stop. And if you don't, then there's going to be consequences, and there's never been consequences before, and President Trump is allowing us to do that.

So, more importantly, we're telling the states verify first, and pay later. Stop paying first and verifying later, and that's how much money has gone out. So, really pushing on the states to get the technology to verify who they are, and we're trying to help them. We're building a centralized system called unemployment.gov that Alabama is helping us with. And we see, you know, Alabama is an amazing example.

You know, they've really gone after this. And when they had improper payments, the last two years, they got 100 percent of it back. They have some of the lowest fraud and improper payment rates in the country because they're verifying. They're going and making sure that person is alive, that person lives in Alabama, that person worked in Alabama, they're going to the employer: 'this person worked for you? Or is this a fraudster in China?' And they're doing it, and it's showing results.

And not only that, they're following up with employers: 'is this person even eligible for it?'. And that's not to what happening, you know, specifically in Democrat states like New York that is still paying $2 million out every single day. So, our inspector general, Anthony D'Espacito, we have a partnership together. So, I'm doing the front-end side where we're gonna make sure states like Alabama has done, put in those controls, and then we're gonna go after those criminals. We're gonna go after the frauds with criminal prosecutions through our IG. So, this is one of the most important things we could do with the Department of Labor is stop the theft of taxpayer dollars."

TUBERVILLE: "Yeah, I think AI is gonna be the key. I think it's gonna be the savior for fraud. There's no way humans can mentally keep up with $5 trillion a year. We can't do it.

I don't care how smart you are. And so, we have to have machines to do that. And we got to stop it. We're over $40 trillion in debt. It's ridiculous. And we're talking about AI earlier with Senator Hawley. I'll be, hopefully, governor next year of Alabama. We're gonna start in elementary school teaching our kids AI. We can talk about AI. All we want if we don't teach it, it's not gonna work.

So, we have to learn it at a young age, and we're already preparing for that for young kids in elementary school all the way up to high school. And they have to learn to use it the right way, ethically. And that's the future. Our education system is abysmal right now. It's going to heck in a handbasket. I worked [in] it for 35 years. I know our federal government's being broken because all this fraud, but we have to be able to educate our kids in this AI."

SONDERLING: "Education needs to lead the jobs."

ON RETIREMENT FUNDS

TUBERVILLE: "Couple of other things. I just wanna say, you know, we have this 401[k] plan that we're trying to get through for retirement funds, through private equity, cryptocurrency, one of my bills called the Financial [Freedom] Act, and we're trying to get it through committee. And what does all this mean for the average American and the retirement accounts if we can pass a bill like this where they can actually get something out of the retirement?"

SONDERLING: "We're very working very hard at the Department of Labor to make sure that 401(k) plans have access to alternative investments just like union pensions do, just like state pensions do. Right now, the 401(k) market is largely in index funds, and those workers deserve private assets. They deserve diversification just like somebody with a pension plan. So, this is one of my top initiatives to make sure that there's parity now between the pension system and the 401(k) system to be able to diversify for individuals, you know, who just have a 401(k), to get into those private markets that were previously only for accredited investors.

This is how President Trump is gonna make America wealthy again by allowing everyone to democratize that access, allow everyone these opportunities outside of just very conservative index funds. And at the department, we don't push one fund over the other. We lay the mutual framework and let the employers decide under their fiduciary obligations, which is the best for their employees."

ON H-1B VISA PROGRAM

TUBERVILLE: "You don't have to answer this question, but I just want to throw it out there. Our H-1B program sucks. Okay? Microsoft is firing people and hiring foreign labor and that's wrong. And we have to hire American workers, and I hope you're on top of that. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. […]"

Senator Tommy Tuberville represents Alabama in the United States Senate and is a member of the Senate Armed Services, Agriculture, Veterans' Affairs, HELP and Aging Committees.

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