The Congress is filled with Republican lawmakers who are too dim-witted, ignorant, and spineless to cross Donald Trump. The voters who sent them to D.C. were aware of their moral and intellectual incapacities. It has never been a secret that Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri is a white nationalist and conspiratorialist nut; no one mistakes Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama for a man of keen even modest intellect. But those lawmakers who style themselves as thoughtful “moderates,” yet continually betray their constituents and fail to screw up the courage to counter a despotic, dangerous, and racist president deserve special opprobrium.
Included in that group is Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), who is currently hawking his book on his way out the door of a Senate career marked by repeated instances of abject cowardice and hypocrisy.
Paige Masten writes about Tillis’ confession that he “regrets” his vote to confirm Pete Hegseth when he knew Hegseth to be unfit:
[Tillis] was concerned about his lack of qualifications, as well as allegations about his management style, treatment of women and excessive alcohol use. After doing his due diligence, Tillis found “compelling evidence” that those allegations did, in fact, have substance. Nothing was able to convince him that Hegseth was the right guy for the job….
“My vote would be the one to sink him, and in the first weeks of a new administration, for a president I supported and for whom this meant so much, I just couldn’t do it,” Tillis wrote. “When the time came, I voted yes.”
Wut?! Why not uphold his oath of office and keep out of power someone so clearly unqualified for a critical post? Why not summon the courage to do the right thing? It remains a mystery why he lacked the decency to defend the troops, the country, and the Constitution.
But Tillis has been a habitual coward. Masten also relays the account of his capitulation to confirmation of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. for secretary of Health and Human Services:
Tillis had “serious doubts” about Kennedy’s qualifications, and his own conversations with Kennedy did little to assuage them. Still, though, Tillis wanted a “good reason” to vote against the nomination, because apparently Kennedy’s inexperience and questionable judgment weren’t enough. Tillis told his Republican colleagues, some of whom were medical doctors, that he would be happy to join them in opposition to Kennedy if they gave him an excuse to do so. But none of them had the courage to vote no, so Tillis didn’t, either. “I wasn’t going to be the lone voice in the wilderness keeping the president’s pick from getting across the finish line,” Tillis wrote. “I had no intention of letting my colleagues outsource their courage to me while they pretended to go along with the questionable nomination President Trump had put forward.”
He had no intention of doing the right thing because everyone else was behaving despicably. That’s the bottom line.
Tillis shares the blame for a reckless, illegal war that Hegseth has waged; the deaths of American service personnel and innocent Iranian civilians — including dozens of schoolgirls who were murdered by the strikes; the extrajudicial killings on the high seas of suspected drug runners; the existential damage to the military’s reputation; and the billions in material losses incurred in an irresponsible war. He is also complicit in upending the lives of hundreds and thousands of people, Americans and others, who suffered physical injuries or saw their careers undeservedly and prematurely ended because of Hegseth’s blustery incompetence.
Tillis also bears the responsibility for the measles deaths and illnesses enabled under RFK Jr.’s watch, for the generational damage to our health system, and for the loss of thousands of skilled doctors, researchers, scientists, and public health officials forced out under the manifestly unqualified and dangerous HHS secretary Tillis installed.
But how much does Tillis truly regret? And when did he develop this pang of conscience? Tillis could have demanded these officials’ removal, sought to hold them in contempt for refusing to cooperate with congressional investigations, or voted against the Iran War (before he finally broke with Trump in September). He did none of those things, so count me as utterly unimpressed by any belated political deathbed confession.
Even worse, Tillis showed precisely the same level of moral cowardice even after announcing his retirement when, despite replete evidence of Todd Blanche’s unfitness, he voted to confirm him for attorney general. He did so over the objections of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims, who have pleaded to end the coverup and follow the law to disclose the files of his pedophile racket. Tillis has learned nothing from past episodes of moral cravenness. He was presented with the opportunity to thwart a deputy attorney general who refused to follow the law, participated in the coverup, helped concoct a Jan. 6 slush fund/immunity scam for Trump, pursued baseless, vindictive prosecutions, presided over the debasement and corruption of the Justice Department, and showed every indication he would be a political pawn of the president. Instead, Tillis rubber-stamped his nomination, shedding crocodile tears that his vote would bring criticism. As it should.
Tillis would like us to think he has “regrets.” But if those regrets were sincere, we would have seen some evidence of a change of heart, or some modicum of political spine. We have seen none of that and, indeed, when presented with chances to make amends by standing up to Trump and his MAGA party, he caved. Again. So spare us the talk of “regrets.”
Tillis’s legacy will be one of betrayal, cravenness, and hypocrisy. The only ones with some legitimate claim to “regrets” may be the voters of North Carolina who last elected him, hoping he’d show some fidelity to them or to his oath of office. At least they have a chance to make amends by voting against Republicans in November.
