This Republican senator does not

WASHINGTON – Thom Tillis has always been a wild card.

However, with one year left in office, the outgoing Republican senator from North Carolina is increasing pressure on the Trump administration, in what could become a headache for his party if he joined with Democrats to impede the president’s agenda on Capitol Hill.

“What’s hysterical to me is how people think my independence is something new and it happened after I announced my retirement,” Tillis told News themezone this week. “Let’s just go back to the first administration. I disagreed fewer times, but I didn’t agree with the advice the president was following. The same thing happens here. We have to clean up the execution.”

However, no longer having to run for re-election in a battleground state has freed Tillis to leave behind an occasional irritant (and one that could back down in a battle with the president) to a frequent critic willing to directly challenge Trump appointees. He’s not as tough on the president as former Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) might be, but he’s the closest thing in the Senate during Trump’s second term: a committed conservative willing to break with the administration on a somewhat regular basis.

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Tillis has already threatened to ruin the path of any Trump nominee to the Federal Reserve Board over a Justice Department investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell that is seen as overtly political. As a member of the Senate Banking Committee, Tillis could prevent Trump from installing a loyal member to replace Powell, irritating the president, who is determined to cut interest rates faster, even at the risk of rising inflation.

“That’s why he will no longer be a senator,” Trump sniffed When asked about Tillis at an event in Michigan on Tuesday, he insisted that Powell should lower interest rates or resign.

In recent weeks, Tillis has criticized three of the Trump administration’s highest-profile allies. He called the idea of ​​the United States seizing Greenland “stupid” and criticized White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller for giving the president bad advice in a fiery Senate speech.

He has defended his colleague, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Arizona), from “ridiculous” attacks by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has sought to strip Kelly, a decorated veteran, of his rank and retirement pay after he warned U.S. troops not to follow illegal orders. And he has criticized Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem for rushing to condemn a woman killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minnesota before all the facts were known.

He also joined Democrats in successfully pushing for a plaque to be placed in the Senate honoring the police officers who protected the US Capitol from a mob of Trump supporters on January 6, 2021, contradicting the false narrative pushed by the White House that the Capitol Police were to blame for the riot.

The senator also hasn’t shied away from criticizing some of Trump’s legislative ideas, especially if they break with traditional free-market Republican views. Anyone who supports capping credit card interest rates, a long-standing Democratic proposal that Trump called for this week, “is not a conservative like I thought they were,” Tillis said Wednesday.

Yet for all his public breaks with Trump, Tillis does not join Romney or other never-Trump conservatives in criticizing the president’s character, and maintains that he still supports the president and his agenda. The problem, he maintains, is the people around Trump. By calling on his aides, Tillis believes he can play a constructive role in ultimately helping Trump be a better president.

“Who do you think the president might have the expertise to make some of these detailed decisions that he’s making? So, of course, it’s his advisers,” Tillis insisted to reporters on Capitol Hill this week.

“I don’t like the arrogance when someone thinks, just because they have a title, that they are more capable than they really are,” he added of Trump’s advisers.

A big gap in Tillis’ theory is that Trump himself is pushing to annex Greenland, a semi-autonomous territory that belongs to Denmark, a NATO ally.

But Tillis is not convinced that Trump’s rhetoric against Greenland merits congressional action. The senator said he is not ready to support bipartisan legislation introduced this week by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) that aims to block any funding for the Department of Defense or the Department of State from being used to acquire Greenland.

“I don’t think it’s a threat. I think the only threat is that the idiot gives this advice to the president,” he insisted to reporters Wednesday.

Tillis’ delicate dance with Trump was also on display during the president’s first term. In 2019, Tillis briefly faced primary threats after he spoke out against Trump declaring an emergency as a way to pay for construction of a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. He changed course after pressure from Trump allies and won re-election in 2020.

Since then, the former speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives has been involved in crafting bipartisan legislation on hot-button issues such as gay rights, guns and immigration.

Tillis’ willingness to break away from his party has not generated any anxiety within the Senate Republican conference, where he is generally well-liked.

“I just think he’s enjoying the freedom to speak his mind without any political repercussions because he’s not running,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), another bipartisan-minded lawmaker who has grown closer to Trump in recent months as he faces the threat of being unseated in a heated Republican primary this year. “If you had 100 senators who didn’t have to consider political considerations or consider re-election, I think you would hear a lot more about [limiting senators to serving] a term.”

“He’s a team player,” added Senator Shelley Moore Capito (RW.Va.), the number 3 Republican in the Senate. “Thom Tillis believes in Republican principles and has helped me and others along the way, so I don’t think he’s fundamentally changing.”

Democrats welcomed Tillis’ growing independence, even as they called for more Republicans to stand up to Trump and his growing encroachment on congressional powers.

“He’s one of the most skilled lawmakers in a generation or two,” said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), who is likely to become the next Democratic leader. “I think he’s more concerned about what’s going on in the country than his position in his conference, and I think his conference still likes him, but they find it annoying that he’s telling the truth.”