Thom Tillis Thinks He’s The Most Important Man In America

Americans have known since summer 2025 that Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., planned to jump ship from the Senate. It was his recent leap across the Senate subway track that affirmed the best place for him is anywhere but Congress.

Okay the jump itself was not that problematic. To some, including 60 Minutes interviewer Ross Douthat, Tillis’ bounce from one people mover platform to another could even be considered an impressive feat for a 66-year-old man. What’s not impressive is that Tillis’ little stunt was the hardest he’s worked in months.

Even worse, Tillis only did it in a 60 Minutes interview in an effort to promote his new book, which vilifies his party leader, effective Republicans, and the conservative voters who elected them.

“In the second Trump administration, though, there’s been too little legislative work for an energetic senator,” CBS’ Ross Douthat claimed.

Notably missing from this description is that the reason the GOP trifecta controlling the federal government can’t seem to get anything done is because the Republican Senate and Sen. Thom Tillis specifically have proved to be an obstacle to one of President Donald Trump’s biggest legislative priorities: the SAVE America Act.

The accompanying CBS article and 60 Minutes segment aren’t much better. In addition to fawning over Tillis’ hops, Douthat and his co-writers uncritically accept that the 2026 “Doggi Gras Pawrade” pioneer’s career is defined by him walking the “tightrope” between criticizing Trump and wanting the president to “succeed.”

Tillis provides no evidence to back that claim and CBS doesn’t ask for it.

Never mind that it was Tillis who helped the Senate GOP stall the SAVE America Act against Trump’s will, tanked Trump’s D.C. attorney pick and then hid from his role, scrambled to salvage Democrats’ green energy bailouts, tried to entrench Obamacare’s taxes on health, attempted to give amnesty to illegal aliens, and whined about JD Vance’s America First foreign policy. As Federalist Staff Writer Shawn Fleetwood previously documented, Tillis also insulted his voters by supporting bills that rewrote the definition of marriage, gave Democrats some of their gun control wants, allowed trans-identifying individuals in the military, mad women eligible for the draft, and threw taxpayer money at Ukraine. And he did so without remorse.

“Sometimes those bipartisan initiatives got me into trouble with my own party, but I wouldn’t have changed a single one,” Tillis wrote in his June 2025 retirement statement.

Instead, the North Carolinian expressed regret to CBS at confirming Trump’s cabinet, most specifically Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. Tillis also droned on about the danger of a “dictator king” and spent a significant part of the interview on the “despicable” January 6, 2021 Capitol chaos. At one point, Tillis claimed without evidence that Trump supporters might riot if president-backed candidates lose their midterm elections.

“The only difference between me and a lotta people that call themselves true conservatives is I got a long list of things that were ratified and they don’t,” Tillis told CBS.

In How to Lose Friends and Antagonize Presidents: The Trouble with Sycophants, Courage Outsourcing, and Partisan Groupthink, Tillis pretends his ire is directed at “presidents.” This claim is claim refuted by his cover alone, which features pictures of several Trump admin officials and allies, but no Trump.

The book description is far worse than Tillis’ title and the cringe-y cover combined. In the span of just 166 words, Tillis dubs Trump administration officials “grifting sycophants and useful idiots” and refers to the president’s allies as “spineless Republican yes-men (and -women)” and “weirdos of the MAGA world.” He even claims to have devised the terms “MAGATS,” even though it’s been used by chronically online Democrats for the better part of the last decade.

It’s clear from Tillis’ description and media tour attitude that the real target of his mudslinging is not Trump, the cabinet, or the Senate, but the people who voted for Trump.

Tillis portrays himself as a hero who is fighting an uphill battle to “keep the American experiment from going off the rails.” There’s nothing special, however, about Tillis’ tired Trump bashing, especially when his attacks on the Make America Great Again coalition are indistinguishable from those fomented by corporate media and Democrats.

This isn’t the first time Tillis took aim at his base. And even though his time in the Senate is limited, it likely won’t be his last. From the time Tillis took office in 2015 to his retirement, he’s cared more about attention from the hoaxing media than his base.

Tillis should be falling over himself to please his voters, not sell them on his self-proclaimed GOP stardom. Instead, he built his brand around being an obstacle the people who have kept his party relevant and electable. Tillis claims that Washington’s poisonous partisanship ultimately pushed him out of office, but perhaps, as he describes in his new book, the real nail in his congressional career was the backstabbing and bashing of the people who elected him in the first place.

Jordan Boyd is an award-winning staff writer at The Federalist and producer of “The Federalist Radio Hour.” Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on X @jordanboydtx.