After President Donald Trump called him out last June over his opposition to the “Big Beautiful Bill, and suggested he should be primaried, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) announced he would not seek reelection for a possible third term.
“In Washington over the last few years, it’s become increasingly evident that leaders who are willing to embrace bipartisanship, compromise, and demonstrate independent thinking are becoming an endangered species,” he wrote in a statement at the time, while adding that “Too many elected officials are motivated by pure raw politics who really don’t give a damn about the people they promised to represent on the campaign trail.”
Ironically, some former supporters of Tillis would argue that such words apply to the senator himself, after other actions taken by him against the Trump administration, including the combative circus that played out Tuesday between Tillis and DHS Sec. Kristi Noem.
SEE ALSO: North Carolina Sen. Tillis Censured at State GOP Convention Over Votes for Progressive Policies
As RedState reported, Noem squared off against a number of senators during the Senate Judiciary Department of Homeland Security Oversight Hearing, with retiring Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) getting stuffed by Noem on issues like DACA and human trafficking.
But it was a combative exchange between Noem and another retiring senator, Thom Tillis (R-NC), that has perhaps gotten the most attention, with an unhinged Tillis apparently using the hearing in part to settle old grudges against Trump on his way out the door:
For some reason, Thom Tillis, a Republican, is excoriating @sec_noem over the dog-shooting anecdote in her memoir
This, just days after having a dog parade at the Senate office building. pic.twitter.com/FkqRgrYnxV
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) March 3, 2026
GOP Senator Thom Tillis is screaming at DHS Sec Noem over ICE operations: “Numbers don’t matter! Quality matters! Quality, not quantity! What we’ve seen is a disaster!” pic.twitter.com/DMOg3MFnpd
— TheBlaze (@theblaze) March 3, 2026
This all happened, of course, on the same day North Carolina voters are voting in the primaries to decide who the nominees are in the Senate race to replace Tillis.
Some folks speculated that the real reason Tillis was so hostile to Noem was not out of any genuine concern for how DHS was being run, but was more related to the SAVE America Act:
SAVE ACT: Republican Senator Thom Tillis is one of the primary roadblocks to passage of the Save America Act. As a result his office is receiving 100s of calls a day from voters calling for his head. Now he’s taking it out on Trump and Sec. Kristi Noem. pic.twitter.com/shBIZOQD0T
— @amuse (@amuse) March 3, 2026
Whatever the case may be, it’s worth contrasting how Tillis treated Noem versus how he treated Biden DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas:
Watch very carefully to see if you can spot the difference in how “Republican” Thom Tillis treats the DHS Secretary who allowed 15M unvetted illegal aliens in the U.S. versus the one who is trying to deport them pic.twitter.com/H76jk4ECbT
— Corey Inganamort 🪚🌴🪚 (@TheBirdWords) March 3, 2026
This is why it’s good that Tillis is retiring. Not necessarily because he’ll grill a Republican cabinet secretary, but because he won’t do the same thing to one from the opposing party over matters of grave importance to our republic, like allowing criminal illegal immigrants to pour into our country, where some of them turn around and commit violence against innocent people – including right here in North Carolina.
Editor’s Note: ICE and CBP continue to put themselves in harm’s way in order to protect America’s sovereignty and to keep our streets safe.
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