![Rear Admiral Derek Trinque posing for a picture](https://thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Picture2-1200x675.jpg)
Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville has caught a lot of flak from Democrats, legacy media (I repeat myself), and establishment Republicans for his ongoing protest of the Pentagon’s abortion policy. To stop the Pentagon from using U.S. taxpayer money to cover military members’ travel expenses to get abortions, the Republican senator has used his position on the Senate Armed Services Committee to slow-walk President Biden’s military nominations, leading to a backlog of pending promotions.
While Tuberville’s critics have baselessly claimed his protest is harming “military readiness,” a deep dive into the background of nominees such as Navy Rear Adm. (lower half) Derek Trinque shows just how valid the senator’s protest is.
In a thread posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Wednesday, the American Accountability Foundation revealed how Trinque — whose promotion was announced by the Defense Department in February — has routinely promoted radical, left-wing views and denigrated those who hold non-leftist opinions, particularly as it relates to Covid.
On Aug. 17, 2021, for example, Trinque “endorsed” an Aug. 2, 2021, New York Times article that encouraged insurance companies to “penaliz[e]” individuals who chose not to get the Covid shot. The tweet came a day after Trinque lamented Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee’s Aug. 16, 2021, executive order allowing parents to opt their child out of their local school mask mandate.
In his tweet, Trinque wrote: “Sigh. We are never going to kick this thing.” Despite the rear admiral’s alarmism, children are the least at-risk demographic when it comes to Covid.
But Trinque’s obsession with Covid mandates didn’t stop there. In fact, the rear admiral was a big supporter of Biden’s military Covid vaccine mandate. He even recorded a video for the Navy encouraging his fellow sailors to get the experimental (and risky) jab months before the mandate was enacted.
“I can’t promise you that if you get the shot, you don’t have to wear a mask. I can’t promise you that you’ll be able to go to liberty ports,” Trinque said. “What I can tell you is that when you get immunized, you protect yourself, you protect those around you [and] you reduce the possibility that your unit will be rendered combat-ineffective by the pandemic.”
In addition to espousing other crazy thoughts about Covid, Trinque appears to be a big fan of Dr. Anthony Fauci. In response to a January 2021 Daily Mail article reporting that Fauci is the “HIGHEST PAID employee in the federal government,” the rear admiral claimed the report “appears to be a really weak attempt to make [him] feel bad” and further opined that Americans “are getting quite a bargain here.”
It’s not just Covid in which Trinque exemplifies left-wing radicalism, however. On numerous occasions, Trinque has displayed an obsession with tearing down Confederate monuments and installations named after Confederate figures. In a February 9, 2021, tweet, for instance, Trinque claimed “driving through the south can be depressing” due to the prevalence of “Confederate flags, Fort Lee, and JEB Stuart memorial highway.”
Regarding Marxist organizations such as Black Lives Matter, Trinque issued a tweet a few days after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol suggesting there is a “difference” between the latter and BLM’s violent rioting in the summer of 2020. He also demanded, “Leaders: your people need to hear from you re: the attack on the Capitol.”
In more recent months, the Biden nominee promoted an April 2022 press release from the Brooklyn Public Library announcing the launch of “Books Unbanned,” an initiative designed to combat parental efforts to keep pornographic works out of libraries and further legacy media’s phony “book ban” narrative. Trinque has since made his X account private, effectively barring the public from viewing his posts.