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Thom Tillis isn’t in rebellion mode against President Donald Trump or Republican leadership. He’s simply making clear that he won’t tolerate disrespect from Trump — or anyone else.
The North Carolinian, who announced his retirement in the middle of last month’s grueling debate over Trump’s massive tax and spending cuts bill, is no longer beholden to Trump or the broader world of electoral politics.
He’s not planning on using his perches on three powerful committees to undercut the GOP: He’s preparing to support Trump’s package of extra federal cuts and to advance controversial judicial nominee Emil Bove.
But Tillis also contends that the president is getting bad advice on everything from Medicaid cuts to tariffs, and he’s warning Trump against antagonizing him. It could make for a very interesting next 18 months.
“That’s President Trump’s choice,” Tillis told Semafor in an interview in his office on Tuesday, when asked whether he’ll be a thorn in the president’s side. “I’ve tried to defer to him and show him respect, but I do have a habit of mirroring the behavior that I’m presented with.”
Tillis pointed to a recent confrontation with a bystander who confronted him about his opposition to Trump nominee Ed Martin: “You can just ask the poor guy in the Washington National Airport about seven weeks ago what happens when you get up in this former trailer park resident’s face. There’s no human being on the face of the planet whose behavior I wouldn’t mirror if it’s disrespectful.”
Since his election to the Senate, Tillis has emerged as one of the most active legislators on the floor and one of the most blunt-talking off of it. In quintessential fashion, he’s already worried about his party’s prospects of holding onto his seat.
Anticipating a challenging environment in North Carolina that could make it tough for his potential successors, Tillis had a warning for the president’s daughter-in-law, who’s considering a run.
If Trump’s popularity becomes a drag on the party, he said, “I’d probably say Lara Trump should consider that.”
He’s also quite frustrated with the “amateurs” surrounding Trump in the White House, arguing that many of Trump’s staffers are undermining him.
“The president is getting bad advice from maybe well-intentioned people who have no experience with execution,” Tillis said, calling the April tariffs a “dud” and “objectively a failure” — a prime example of what he says is a White House staff that has fallen short.
“He’s got people working for him that may have convinced him that they live and breathe him, but they’re just surfing a wave for the next hill. I’m not,” Tillis said. “He has nothing that I want. I’m here purely for the purpose of producing good policy and getting more Republicans elected.”
Tillis’ last contact with Trump involved that same message: It came as they texted about the senator’s potential retirement amid his opposition to the steep Medicaid cuts tucked into the party’s megabill.
“‘Mr. President, I hope I’m able to prove to you that I have your best interest at heart anytime I disagree with you. Because I firmly believe that you have people advising you who do not have that as a priority. I do,‘” Tillis said, paraphrasing his message to Trump weeks ago.
White House spokesman Steven Cheung said: “The president has built a world-class team and he is delivering results for the American people every day. That’s why America is the hottest it’s ever been.”
Several Republican senators said in interviews they expected Tillis to be outspoken during his remaining time in office but not to sabotage Trump or his agenda. They pointed to his party-line stances during the Senate’s “vote-a-rama” on the tax cuts bill and his experience as a statehouse leader.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., predicted Tillis would “vote for the people of North Carolina. But we’ll find out pretty quick.”
Still, plenty of Republicans complicated the president’s life on their way into retirement. Former Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., tried to use his deciding vote on the Judiciary Committee to overturn Trump’s first-term tariffs, while former Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., deemed the White House an “adult day care center.”
The ultimate blow came from two retiring GOP senators who voted to convict Trump in his 2021 impeachment trial.
One GOP senator privately said many of their colleagues are hoping Tillis doesn’t become a Trump foil like former Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah.
Tillis’ response: “If the president were to say something about me the way he did about Mitt Romney, people could only hope that I would behave like Mitt Romney. Let’s just put it that way. I don’t take a pass on anybody flexing with me.”
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Tillis’ career arc is dizzying. He flipped the North Carolina statehouse in 2010, defeated a Senate incumbent in 2014, won a challenging reelection in 2020, and emerged as an effective bipartisan dealmaker during Joe Biden’s presidency.
He took as much heat as he generated this year, however, starting with his deciding vote to confirm Pete Hegseth as defense secretary in January amid allegations of excessive drinking and sexual misconduct.
Tillis found those charges against Hegseth “interesting” but uncorroborated and said he deferred some of the vetting on the Pentagon chief’s capability to the Senate Armed Services Committee.
“We now know that the committee was probably a little bit generous on how well he could run a large, complex organization,” Tillis said.
A few months later, though, Tillis found a nominee he couldn’t stomach: DC federal prosecutor nominee Ed Martin. While Tillis empathized with the idea that the “idiots” who had entered the Capitol on Jan. 6 had been overprosecuted, he drew a line at the pardon of violent offenders that Trump issued and Martin supported.
Tillis told Semafor that any nominee with similar views that comes through his committee will get the same treatment.
“The only real red line that I have … has to do with anyone who condoned the January 6 attack,” Tillis said. “If you’re coming before any of my committees, and I can deny cloture, you’re never going to get confirmed over the next 18 months. That’s a red line. January 6 is a big red line for me.”
The tax bill presented an even bigger challenge. As soon as the Senate released harsher cuts to Medicaid than the House considered in June, Tillis soured on the bill. That was a problem because Tillis is on the whip team, tasked with helping leaders scrounge up votes for legislation.
He said he found Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., on the Senate floor and told him “it probably makes sense for me to get off” the team. Before long, Tillis was in contact with Trump, whom he told that his vote probably wasn’t necessary to pass the legislation.
Trump later criticized Tillis on Truth Social anyway.
“If somebody wants to know why I’m not running, it’s because some bonehead told him to post something and pretend like that was going to affect me,” Tillis said. “It affected me in a way that said: ‘I’m done with this bullshit.’
“And I got 18 months to try and do good, up to and including helping the president be successful,” he added. “On my terms.”
Room for Disagreement
Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., made the counterintuitive argument that Tillis could also feel more free to vote with Republicans, since he doesn’t have a general election in a swing state to think about.
“Some might say he may be looking for a way to redeem himself among his colleagues,” he said. “He might feel like he does have more liberty to be more of a party guy.”
Burgess’s view
Tillis has leverage, and he knows it: He sits at the center of Trump’s agenda on the Finance, Banking, and Judiciary Committees.
Other than getting his state’s Lumbee Tribe recognized, he said has no other significant priority to insist on.
For now, at least.
“I don’t have anything in mind, but I’d be silly not to know the Senate rules, the committee rules, and the other devices that I could potentially leverage. But I’m not going to hold my conference hostage,” Tillis said.
Notable
- North Carolina is already preparing for the fallout from the Medicaid cuts in the megabill Tillis opposed, per The New York Times.
- Lara Trump is expected to clear the field in a primary if she does run to succeed Tillis, The Hill reported.