WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said in an interview this week that Sen. Thom Tillis, a centrist Republican who has sometimes broken with the president, “already quit” the Senate and “wouldn’t be a factor” in confirming his nominees.
But Tillis is still there. As a member of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, he has the practical ability to single-handedly block Kevin Warsh, Trump’s nominee to replace Jerome Powell as chair of the Federal Reserve.
Warsh’s confirmation hearing is scheduled for next week, and he cannot be confirmed without Tillis’ vote as long as Democrats remain unified against Trump’s pick. In an extensive interview, Tillis called Warsh “a perfect candidate,” then immediately undercut the nomination by saying he would not support confirmation until the Trump administration ends its federal criminal probe into Powell. Misryoum newsroom reported Tillis blasted the investigation, arguing Powell did nothing wrong.
A federal judge last month blocked subpoenas in the probe, citing “essentially zero evidence.” Tillis said he’s taking the president at his word that he was not involved in opening the investigation, even as Trump has criticized and threatened to fire Powell after Powell refused pressure to cut interest rates. Instead, Tillis suggested “somebody in DOJ” was going after Powell to “maybe garner favor from somebody in the White House.”
There’s a kind of blunt logic to Tillis’ stance, even if he can’t resist a jab at the optics. He said he would vote for Warsh only when he sees a specific DOJ conclusion — not ahead of it — and then he added, “and not for the remaining … 64 days in my tenure in the U.S. Senate.” One can hear the exhaustion in the phrasing, like he’s been asked the same question too many times.
Tillis also didn’t just argue about the Fed. He pushed back on critics who say the May expiration of Powell’s term means Warsh should proceed anyway. “Because I don’t want to reward bad behavior,” Tillis said. He’s retiring at the end of the year and told Misryoum he’s “lost” his filter while discussing everything from the war with Iran—he said he’s unclear “what the strategic objectives are”—to Trump’s AI-generated Jesus meme, which Tillis described as the president taking the “doctor” angle rather than portraying himself as the son of God.
The most personal part, though, was Trump’s fight with the pope. Tillis, who is Catholic, said he cannot comprehend the argument that has followed Pope Leo XIV’s comments on the war with Iran. “To say soft on crime or soft on the border… but not to the pope of the Catholic Church,” he said. Then he broadened it into what sounded like a plea for basic manners in politics: “I, for one, think apology is an underused in art and politics,” Tillis added. “When you’re wrong, you’re wrong… just get past it. Move on. This president has done so many positive things that I want to focus on.”
On Iran, Tillis said that at the start he gave Trump “latitude” on the operation and supported voting against multiple efforts from Democrats and Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky to rein in military actions. Now, nearly seven weeks into the conflict, he’s more concerned that the administration hasn’t clearly laid out its goals. “What’s concerning me now is we’re coming up on the 45-day mark,” he said. He argued that sixty days matters because of the war powers resolution, and he said he’s “not quite clear what the strategic objectives are.” Beyond that 60-day mark, Tillis said, “it’s going to be difficult to get my support” to continue the conflict—an admission that, for all his talk of candidates and apologies, keeps circling back to the same thing: leverage, timing, and unanswered questions that don’t go away.
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