Thom Tillis Unloads on Hegseth, Ken Paxton in Weekend Tantrum as GOP’s Establishment Wing Faces Extinction

Like every Republican who loudly announces their retirement and bemoans the passing of the establishment in doing so, North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis is making sure to burn as many bridges with President Donald Trump and his administration as the media will allow him to get coverage for.

That was at least twice this past weekend, both in an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union.” (For if one were to ever pick a venue to burn bridges in when you’re burning them inside the Beltway, it would be the Sunday morning current affairs chat show: Those remnants of a different age now only watched by politicos and wonks, while the rest of the world orders DoorDash and binges on”The Obscenely Rich Hockey-Wife Housewives of Fort Lauderdale.”)

In one of his rants, he decided to go after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, calling him a man who made “Kristi Noem look like a five-star recruit,” and Texas Senate Republican candidate Ken Paxton an undeserving “failure” who would be “nothing but an anchor on our conference” in the upper chamber.

The first came when Jake Tapper asked Tillis if he was “advised well” by the head of the Pentagon on the Iran issue.

“No, I actually — if you take a look at the assessment that Hegseth gave — at the end of the day, regardless of who collected the information, Hegseth owns it by being secretary of Defense,” he said.

“When you tell the president that you have ‘obliterated’ Iran and you’re in a position to pretty much dictate terms, and now you see what we have, when you see Hegseth pull back on operations in Poland, when Ukraine — when Russia is raping, killing, murdering, torturing countless people in Ukraine, when you see these mistakes made by Hegseth, I have — I actually — I think, with all these mistakes in total, it’s beginning to make Kristi Noem look like a five-star recruit,” he added.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth “makes Kristi Noem look like a 5 star recruit”

– Senator Tom Tillis (R-NC) on U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. @atrupar (2026) pic.twitter.com/vpBOyCv6KE

— The Intellectualist (@highbrow_nobrow) May 24, 2026

As for Paxton, he’s the odds-on favorite in the Senate runoff in Texas on Tuesday over incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in what’s been a brutal race where Cornyn has based the majority of his attacks on Paxton on issues of character. (Cornyn, meanwhile, is mostly disliked by the Republican base for being more adept at climbing the leadership ladder in the GOP than in actually doing the work he has been elected, repeatedly, by Texans to do.)

“To call Paxton ethically challenged is to call Jeffrey Dahmer suffering from an eating disorder,” he said.

“When they go to the polls on Tuesday, I hope that they know that they have got a great American who deserves reelection, and the other guy [referring to Paxton] is going to be nothing but an anchor on our conference for as long as he’s in the U.S. Senate,” Tillis added.

“He is a failure. He doesn’t deserve to be in the U.S. Senate,” he said of Paxton.

Tillis: “To call Paxton ‘ethically challenged’ is to call Jeffrey Dahmer suffering from an eating disorder. He’s gonna be an anchor on our caucus” pic.twitter.com/YFEQskghvU

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 24, 2026

In case you’re wondering what this is all about, Tillis broke with Trump over the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and has been having a tiff with virtually everyone to the right of Bill Kristol since. He also seems to have lost all contact with reality and insists on doing every media hit wearing a bolo tie, so seldom a good sign.

Anyhow, this has culminated, over the past few weeks, in this message from Donald Trump:

People don’t remember that Thom Tillis, the weak and ineffective Senator from the Great State of North Carolina, a State I won, including primaries, 6 consecutive times, didn’t have the courage to fight it out in the Senate, remain in place, and run again for office, a thing he desperately wanted to do. I called him a “Nitpicker,” always fighting against the Republican Party, and ME, mostly on things that didn’t matter. When I told him that I would not, under any circumstances, endorse him for another run, too much work and drama (he couldn’t have won, anyway!), he immediately quit the race and publicly announced that he was going to “retire.” I said, “Wow, great news, that was easy!” The media said how brave he was to take me on, but he wasn’t brave, he was just the opposite – HE WAS A QUITTER! Now he can have all the fun he wants for a few months, with some of his RINO friends, screwing the Republican Party. In the end it will only get bigger, and better, and stronger, than ever before!!! President DJT

And this riposte:

Mr. President, completely agree about having a lot of fun over these next seven months.

But nitpicking? Some of your advisors are telling you to support things like:

– Using billions of taxpayer dollars to compensate convicted felons and thugs who attacked police. (Ed… pic.twitter.com/P9nvBrazOy

— Senator Thom Tillis (@SenThomTillis) May 22, 2026

Look, I get that Tillis isn’t the first guy to make a name off the Not That Kind of Republican™ grift, and he won’t be the last. That being said, he’s more proof that the establishment is dying slowly, but not quietly.

After the midterms, Republicans will be free of Tillis, Mitch McConnell, Bill Cassidy, and perhaps even Cornyn. It’ll be addition by subtraction in the short term if the GOP can keep those seats, and in the long term, even if they can’t. Bon voyage, and have fun trying to find some bridges still unburnt.

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