Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina isn't seeking reelection in November. He's retiring and his term ends in January. And he's spending his last four months in power to stab every Trump voter and supporter in the back.
Tillis just publicly endorsed impeaching Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
"He needs to go, whether it's impeachment or the most expedient route — just the president to replace him — would be great," Tillis told reporters, according to 100 Percent Fed Up. He described himself as one of Hegseth's "most vocal Republican critics in the Senate" — a title nobody in the Republican base was asking him to claim.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) introduced articles of impeachment against Hegseth to the shock of his fellow Republicans in the House. Speaker Mike Johnson responded by canceling votes scheduled for Thursday, pushing any impeachment action past the midterm elections. Massie, who lost his own primary after President Trump campaigned against him, wasn't subtle about why. "Why are we canceling session when there's so much important work to be done?" Massie said. "It's because they want to avoid voting on my Epstein legislation and the impeachment of Hegseth."
So Johnson shelved the vote. Massie wants the fight anyway. And Tillis — who doesn't even have a seat to lose — piled on from the Senate side.
"I have never witnessed more inept management of the brave men and women who serve our country," Tillis said, adding that he urged "the President to find a new leader at the Pentagon who will retain and empower our military talent rather than diminish it." He previously told Politico that firing Hegseth was on his "Christmas wish list."
The complaints against Hegseth read like a wish list of things Republican voters actually wanted done. He moved to rename the Department of Defense back to the Department of War. He pushed out entrenched military officials who'd spent years presiding over recruitment crises and DEI seminars. He directed military strikes on alleged drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean. He reinstated testosterone testing and brought back sex-neutral fitness tests for all combat soldiers. The charges against him amount to: he did what Trump sent him to do, and he didn't ask permission from Democrats.
Tillis's objection that Hegseth "misled Trump on Iran war dynamics" and sent forces into Iran conflicts without Congressional approval sounds like a process complaint wrapped around a policy disagreement. The senators who spent two decades rubber-stamping interventions under Bush and Obama discovered their Article I war powers right around the time a Defense Secretary started using the military the way the base wanted.
Massie, at least, is consistent — he's been an anti-intervention vote for years, and he told colleagues plainly: "I'm not playing this game. I am going to tell people what is going on up here." He also reminded the House that Congress's constitutional authority means "you can't even rename a post office without us."
Tillis has no such consistency to fall back on. He's a retiring senator who waited until his vote didn't matter to become brave. The Democrats get a Republican senator on their side of the Hegseth fight, and Tillis gets to audition for whatever lobbying firm or cable news green room comes calling in January.
He told reporters, "I'll let the House do what the House is gonna do." Then he made sure everyone knew exactly which side he was on.
The last Republican senator from North Carolina to spend his final months in office freelancing against his own party's president was Richard Burr. Tillis watched that playbook up close. He learned the moves.