Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville argued Monday that his Republican Senate colleagues who oppose president-elect Donald Trump’s nominees are defying the wishes of their own constituents, who flocked to the polls for Trump.

“I don’t understand it,” he said in a Monday phone interview with The Daily Wire. “The American people gave him a mandate. This is his team now. He needs the opportunity to put the people around him that are gonna help him with his agenda. Who are we to say that we know more about these people than Trump?”

There’s quite a few senators who are not fans of Trump, he noted, including several Republicans.

“I went through the first process with Biden when I first got here,” he added. “There were zero Democrats that voted against any of his nominees. Zero. We got three or four of these nominees fighting to get all the Republican votes. They’re fighting hard and they’re having to go see senators more than once. It makes no sense to me whatsoever.”

Tuberville appeared to refer to Pete Hegseth’s second meeting with Republican Sen. Joni Ernst (IA) on Monday. Hegseth has been one of Trump’s most controversial picks, facing an avalanche of allegations from Democrats and the media about sexual misconduct and excessive drinking. Tuberville argued that since Trump had hand picked his nominees himself, Trump deserves to have Republicans back his choices.

“We’ve got people in the Republican side, for some reason they’re trying to push the envelope too much,” he remarked. “I’m gonna take President Trump’s word that the people he picked are vetted and they’re the type of people that he needs but it’s just hard to watch what’s going on up here because it’s Republicans versus the Democrats and the media and they gang up on us up here.”

(Photo by Matt McClain/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

“But again, everybody’s got to make their own decision,” he commented. “These senators that are representing these states that President Trump won very easily, I think that to me that says, hey, give him the team he wants and let him go with it because we’re not gonna have very long. We’re gonna have a 2 years. It’s gonna be very tough and he needs people fighting for him on every side to beat the Democrats, right?”

Ernst said Monday evening that she would “support Pete” through the confirmation process.

Asked why Democrats display such unity in getting their president’s nominees through, while Republicans do not, Tuberville commented: “I’d say the leadership.”

“You got leadership in the Democratic side that basically says you vote this way or it’s gonna be the highway. You won’t get any campaign money or you’re gonna be, you’re gonna be primaried. On our side, you’re your own person, which you should be. But for instance, I represent the people of Alabama. I don’t represent me and the people sent me up here and I looked at the amount of votes that President Trump got out of Alabama…I’m on President Trump’s side.”

Tuberville also met with Trump’s nominee for Education Secretary, Linda McMahon, ahead of his conversation with The Daily Wire. He said that he was “enthusiastic about her approach,” and emphasizing the need for real education within the United States following years of woke, racial, and ideological content in schools.

“We gotta get back to teaching and educating our kids and give them a chance to survive,” he said, “and she’s totally on board with that. She understands it. We talked about school choice, we talk about homeschool, we talk about workforce development, higher education, I could talk all day about education because that’s pretty much what I’ve done my entire life. So, we’re going to work with her very hard and hopefully we can make things work and get better and better and get our kids back to being educated.”