
Earlier this week, Thom Tillis gave his exit interview to Jake Tapper at CNN. It was a soft-ball interview, as it should’ve been. He’s not asking to be elected to anything. He’s explaining why he’s leaving. Tapper focused on his record and reasons without asking about his contradictions.
First and foremost, Tillis wants us to know that he’s a traditional conservative who is more transactional than ideological. He calls himself an institutionalist and expressed a belief in defending the powers of the legislative branch. He implies that Congress should put a check on the executive branch.
He also downplayed his conflicts with Trump. He says he’s been a big supporter of the president and lays the blame on his advisors for giving him bad advice. He also says the latest dust up over the “big, beautiful bill” is not what led to his decision to forego a re-election campaign. He says that he was likely to have made that announcement in September, but Trump’s threatening posts encouraged him to pull the plug now.
That’s believable. He was struggling with almost everybody in the state and lacked a solid base of supporters. I’m sure the NRSC and state Republicans are glad he made the announcement sooner than later. They need to find a candidate and start the primary campaign.
Tillis also made the case for his leadership in the state Republican Party. Several times, he referred back to his time building the GOP before Republicans took power in the legislature in 2011. He gives himself a little too much credit, but what politician doesn’t? He sounds like he’s almost wistful for those days leading a group of rebels who toppled an entrenched Democratic establishment. Those times are clearly a highlight of his career.
Tillis, though, is still too deferential to Trump. Maybe he has to be while he’s still got a year and a half left in office, but he ignores that Trump is almost the opposite of everything he claims to be. He’s an institutionalist. Trump is an arsonist. Tillis is a party man. Trump is a cult figure. Tillis believes in free markets. Trump believes in tariffs. Tillis is a conservative. Trump is an authoritarian.
At one point, Tillis blames Democrats for the erosion of our institutions, highlighting their support for ending the filibuster. Mitch McConnell ended the filibuster for Supreme Court justices, not Democrats. Harry Reed nuked the filibuster for lower court judges after McConnell froze virtually every Obama appointee and refused to compromise like Democrats did before him.
Tillis says Democrats are facing demise because of litmus tests they must pass to get out of a primary. He seems oblivious to the fact that he’s leaving the US Senate because he probably can’t pass the litmus test necessary get out of a Republican primary. He sounds a little detached from reality when he says Republicans can “seize this moment to be the practical party.” That’s clearly not the direction the GOP is heading as they weaponize the Justice Department, imperil NATO, build concentration camps, and gut Medicaid.
Tillis blames Trump’s advisors for everything from the “big beautiful bill” to tariff debacles. He says several times that the president has gotten bad advice. That’s really a way of saying the president has bad judgment.
Tillis offers a weak defense of his votes to approve miscreants like Pete Hegseth and RFK, Jr. He says he probably wouldn’t have voted for them if knew then what he knows now. But he did know. Everybody knew. Tillis was just falling in line, trying to keep Donald Trump happy while knowingly putting some of the most important departments of government into the hands of incompetent sycophants, grifters, and conspiracy theorists.
In the end, Thom Tillis never takes any responsibility. He defends his record while describing himself as the type of Republican that is now essentially extinct in Congress. He can’t run for re-election because his party has moved so far away from him that he probably can’t win a primary. A self-described transactional player, he bargained away all of his own power to empower a would-be dictator and the people who surround him. For all his work, he got some tax cuts.
The GOP desperately needs someone standing athwart the party yelling “Stop!” but nobody is inclined to do so, certainly not Thom Tillis.
Tillis is a weak man who was given the power to help NC. He squandered it in service to the most corrupt and inept President in our history. That will be his legacy.
Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney stood up to Trump. Tillis is all BS. Now that he isn't running again, he should do the right thing and vote against Trump's awful desires. And he's wrong that Trump's henchmen are doing everything against Trump's wishes. They are doing exactly what Trump wants. Tillis is only very slightly less abhorrent than the rest of the Republicans in Congress who have abdicated their leadership. Tillis still needs to grow a spine. Or maybe he can quite now and let Josh Stein put a Democrat in his place.