WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican Sen. Thom Tillis says in a new book that his decision to vote to confirm Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in January 2025 is the “biggest regret of my career” and that he also “should have blocked” Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from serving as Health and Human Services secretary early in President Donald Trump’s second term.
Read more: North Carolina Republican Sen. Tillis won’t seek re-election after opposing Trump bill
In “How to Lose Friends and Stand Up to a President,” published on Tuesday, the North Carolina senator defended his decision to not want to be “the only voice in the wilderness” blocking a Trump nominee from being confirmed. But he made clear that he had always been skeptical of accusations about Hegseth’s chaotic management style, treatment of women and excessive drinking – all of which Hegsth denied.
“I know, and there are others like me, Republicans who agreed to comply with the Trump team’s early demands, no matter how ridiculous, thinking that failure to do so would mean the end of their political careers, and now they find that things have gone too far,” Tillis wrote.
He wrote that he could count at least 30 Republican colleagues who “expressed reservations (to put it mildly) about many of the president’s private actions. Then, when reporters showed up with cameras and microphones, they had nothing but good things to say.”
Tillis, who announced last year that he would not run for re-election at a “turning point” in the president’s sweeping tax cuts and spending cuts, would publish the book in his final months in office. He joins a long list of Republicans who have stepped up their public condemnation of Trump once their political losses diminished.
Still, Tillis deflected all blame from Trump, saying, “My beef is not with him, it’s with the idiots he works for.” He called the president “an amazing political genius.”
At the same time, he warned that the United States could slide toward authoritarianism and urged his colleagues to “woke up” and push back against Trump more often for their own political gain. He said executive branch overreach is unworkable and will “bite the majority party in the butt” sooner or later.
Tillis also predicted a “bloodbath” for Republicans in the November midterm elections.
“All the while, we had multiple opportunities to get off the road and avoid the huge bronze monster chasing us,” he wrote.
Regret voting for Hegseth and Kennedy
The book is full of expletives and condemnations. He criticized Trump’s tariffs, aggressive immigration raids that Tillis called “intentional chaos” and the war with Iran that he initially supported. He said the war could only end if willing countries formed an alliance and Trump told “Pete Hegseth to go away.”
Tillis delayed Hegseth’s confirmation vote until the late night of January 24, 2025, while he weighed his decision in conversations with the White House, people who had worked with Hegseth and Hegseth himself. Finally, he said he could not substantiate the worst allegations and would support Hegseth’s confirmation. His vote brought the total to 50-50, with Vice President J.D. Vance breaking the tie.
Of voting for Kennedy, Tillis wrote: “I suppose it’s easy to say it now, but I was the one who had to live with that vote and the Kennedy presidency that wreaked havoc on the country as a result.”
In both votes, he said he didn’t want to be the deciding factor.
“I have no intention of asking my colleagues to outsource their courage to me while they pretend to agree with President Trump’s questionable nomination,” he wrote.
Tillis said that if you oppose Trump on everything, “you lose all leverage.” “If you go against him and lose, you’re in a worse position.”
In the book, he is highly critical of several other Trump’s initial Cabinet picks, including former Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
Tillis describes his ‘breaking point’ with tax bill
Tillis unexpectedly announced in June 2025 that he would not run for re-election, at which time he stepped up his criticism of Trump and his “Beautiful Act” of tax cuts and spending. Trump attacked Tillis on social media after Tillis said he could not support the bill to cut Medicaid. Tillis said he thought to himself: “I’m done.”
“Everyone reaches a breaking point,” he wrote.
He texted the president asking him to find a replacement in the Senate, to which Trump responded: “I am! DJT.”
In May 2026, Trump attacked Tillis again, calling him a “quitter!” on social media, among other insults.
Tillis ended the book with a profanity-laced text that he sent to the president in response.
“I care about you failing, and now we are failing,” Tillis wrote in a letter to Trump.
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