Republican senators abandoned their re-election campaign instead of lying about Trump’s devastating damage to Medicaid.
Thom Tillis (R-NC) took an elevator in Washington, DC on June 30, 2025 at the U.S. Capitol.
(Alex Wong / Getty Images)
Former North Carolina House Speaker Thom Tillis has been a modest and responsible Republican in the U.S. Senate since 2015, facing challenges. The Trump White House is increasing pressure on Congress to develop a dangerous agenda, the president calls it a “big bill.” (The bill was approved by the Senate Tuesday after Vice President JD Vance broke the 50-50 tie vote.) Tillis knows that the bill’s Medicaid cuts will “cause tens of thousands of North Carolina’s money, including our hospitals and rural communities.” But he also knows that speaking out loud and rebelling against Trump could trigger a toxic magazine rebound.
Tillis has two options. He can lie and stay in Trump’s good form.
Or he could tell the truth and arouse Trump’s anger.
Tillis chose the truth, and that was his end. In a Republican Party that no longer tolerate dissent, North Carolina terminated his political career.
Tillis is not an election dilettante with powerless will. He has been a political agent for decades. He remains one of the most savvy and experienced Republicans in the Senate. So his story tells us everything we need to know about the development of the big old party to the rubber stamps of Trump and Trumpism.
Tillis not only made the ethical and practical arguments to re-engineer the Big Beauty Act to protect Medicaid. He tried to warn Republican senators about the danger the bill posed now, using a backward door statement at a Republican luncheon last week detailing how Medicaid cuts would destroy red states, and Republican support for those cuts “could cost us the losses of both cuts in 2026”.
Current Problem
This is an accurate depiction of the human and political costs of the bill. But when he asked fellow Republicans to choose the well-being and political reality of their own voters rather than Trump’s self-travel, Tillis found little of their well-being.
Without a Republican team ready to stand up and negotiate a better bill with Trump, Tillis found himself isolated. The president found his goal of political revenge. Trump announced on social media. “I will meet them in the next few weeks to find someone who will correctly represent the great people of North Carolina and the United States of America.”
North Carolina is a swing state that has developed a statewide voting model for most recent governors, attorney generals and other positions. But its Republican base is even more extreme than Trump, with major Republican voters in the state recently supporting some of the most extreme candidates in the United States. Tillis takes this threat seriously. He knew he was unlikely to survive the main challenge of Trump’s support, so he decided to jump before the inevitable push.
Within hours of Trump’s main threat, Tillis, who had been frustrated by the chaos of Trump’s second term, announced that he would not seek a third term. “In the past few years, it has become increasingly obvious that leaders who are willing to embrace a bipartisan system, compromise and demonstrate independent thinking are becoming an endangered species,” Tillis said on Sunday.
It is a subtle statement that he is not ready to bow to the Republican president, who ruled the party as a worship of personality.
Tillis found himself one of the rarest breeds, and Republican senators were free to speak out their thoughts and declared: “This bill in its current form would betray Donald J. Trump’s promises, which is inevitable. [when he met with Republican members of the Senate Finance Committee]. “We can pursue waste, fraud and abuse on any plan,” he said. Tillis, at best, portrayed Trump as a fraudster for the White House aide, advised White House health care experts to refuse to tell the president that, on a hasty schedule, the version of the “large beautiful bill” would hurt those who are eligible and eligible for Medicaid. ”
“So, I told 663,000 [North Carolina] When President Trump is in two or three years, people have delayed Medicaid because the funds no longer exist, guys? “Tillis asked: “I don’t think the people in the White House told him that the effect of this bill is to break the promise…”
Tillis is right. It is safe to say that many of his Republican colleagues are aware of this reality. But they are more prepared to break promises and “harm those who are eligible and eligible for Medicaid” than trans-Trump. They vote accordingly. Finally, only Tillis, Rand Paul (R-KY) and Susan Collins (R-ME) joined the Senate Democrats voted “No” to the bill.
In this way, Republicans confirmed their assessment of U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who called Trump’s big bill “the worst legislation in modern American history.” After Tillis announced his resignation, Sanders said: “I disagree with North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis.
More nation
Back in New York City, Mamdani’s victory also shows that even billionaires don’t always get what they want.
Katrina Vanden Heuvel
The new detention center in Florida will open this week and will have some common ground with Nazi concentration camps.
Joan Walsh
The Supreme Court ruled from an emergency that the Trump administration could temporarily send immigrants to third-party countries that they have no contact with.
Sasha Abramsky
Elie Mystal argues in a weekly newsletter that the Democrats who can beat Maga are not those who can win the New York Times approval.
Elie Mystal
