Retiring Sen. Tillis warns of executive overreach, calls Trump advisers 'sycophants'

Thom Tillis is leaving the Senate with a warning. The 66-year-old Republican from North Carolina, who has served under four presidents and watched the executive branch grow steadily more powerful with each administration, believes the nation's system of checks and balances is in genuine peril. Without Congress standing firm as a co-equal branch of government, he says plainly, "we will have a sort of dictator king if we're not careful."

Tillis is not making these arguments quietly. In a new book titled "How to Lose Friends and Antagonize Presidents," he describes what he calls the "WTF moments" of Trump's second administration and levels harsh criticism at the advisers surrounding the president, calling them "sycophants." He argues that every recent White House—Democratic and Republican alike—has exploited Congress's willingness to cede power through executive orders. "I would say the same thing for Democratic-controlled Senate under Biden and Obama," he said. "We always make the mistake when our guy's in office of conveying power to the White House. And I've had a real problem with that because it almost always comes back to bite you." The pattern, he contends, has repeated across four administrations: constant escalation, Congress retreating, the executive branch advancing.

Tillis's exit from the Senate came after a breaking point in June 2025. He announced he would vote against Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act, arguing it would strip too many low-income North Carolinians of Medicaid coverage. Trump responded by calling him "a talker and complainer, not a doer" and threatened to back a primary challenger. Rather than fight for reelection, Tillis chose to retire. The relationship between the two men has remained strained—Tillis has since included profanity-laced private text exchanges with Trump in his book, details that leaked publicly. Yet even in departure, Tillis continues to engage. He recently called for Trump to fire Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a nominee Tillis himself voted to confirm at the start of this administration. He now calls that confirmation vote his "biggest regret." He has also been sharply critical of Department of Homeland Security Advisor Kristi Noem, whose handling of deaths in Minneapolis he attacked at a Senate hearing in March; she was fired two days later.

What emerges is a careful balancing act. Tillis says he wants Trump to succeed. He approves of the president's military strike on Iran. But he blames the advisers—Noem, Hegseth, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller—for failing to "look around corners" for the president, for being yes-men rather than counselors. "I think Noem and Hegseth are probably the poster children for men and women who should never have the authority they've been granted," he said.

The deeper problem, as Tillis describes it, is institutional silence. In his book, he writes that at least 30 Republican senators have privately expressed reservations about Trump's actions. But they stay quiet. They fear retaliation. They fear being targeted in a primary. "You're up for reelection? He'll target you in a primary," Tillis said. "And so look, you know what all martyrs have in common? They're dead." This culture of fear, he suggests, has weakened Congress's ability to function as a check on executive power. Had more senators broken ranks earlier, he believes, Republicans would face a better political environment heading into the midterms.

Instead, Tillis predicts an "electoral bloodbath" for his party. Bread-and-butter affordability issues are driving voters. And there is another risk he named: the possibility of a January 6-style reaction if Trump-backed candidates lose in the midterms. "I think there's a risk. I really do," he said. "It would be another unforced error if we do that." Tillis has been consistent on this point. He called the Capitol attack "despicable" and a threat to the peaceful transfer of power. Yet he voted against convicting Trump in the second impeachment trial, criticizing the process as rushed and politicized. The contradiction—condemning the act while declining to hold the president accountable—sits at the center of his tenure.

What Tillis is arguing, ultimately, is that Congress has forgotten its role. For 250 years, he said, the three branches have checked one another. That system has made American democracy durable. But durability can be lost quickly, and he worries it is being lost now. He calls himself the same kind of conservative he was in 2014, before Trump reshaped the Republican Party—pro-Second Amendment, pro-life, limited government, fiscal restraint. "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," he said. As he exits, he is urging his colleagues to do what he believes he has tried to do: stand up, speak plainly, and remember that Congress is not subordinate to the White House. Whether that message will be heard is an open question.