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Thom Tillis isn’t done yet with Donald Trump’s nominees

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2 months ago

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Thom Tillis took on President Donald Trump’s administration in a monthslong battle to quash the criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell — and won.

Now he’s urging those around the president to take his latest ultimatum seriously — that he won’t confirm for attorney general anyone who excuses the events of Jan. 6, 2021.

“Hopefully they’ll take me at my word when I say anybody who equivocated on the Jan. 6 rioters, I just can’t support,” the North Carolina Republican said about Justice Department nominees.

Tillis has major leverage as a member of the Judiciary Committee, where Republicans have a one-vote advantage and he can exercise an effective veto.

That’s exactly what Tillis did in the Senate Banking Committee with would-be Powell successor Kevin Warsh — until Wednesday, when he cast a vote allowing Warsh to move to the floor for confirmation next month.

He did so only after a three-month stalemate over the Justice Department’s investigation into whether Powell lied to Congress during a Senate hearing last year — a probe that Tillis warned was an attempt by Trump advisors to target the independence of the Federal Reserve.

A flurry of 11th-hour negotiations led to U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro announcing last week she was closing the probe, with Tillis describing in an interview how he “spoke to people in DOJ several times over the course of a few days” around the time of the announcement. He also said he was “also sort of bouncing off where Chair Powell was, too,” though he declined to say if he spoke directly to Powell.

It was a rare instance of a sitting senator successfully using leverage against an administration of his own party and coming out on top.

“Every single member of the conference has the same option,” Tillis said about whether other GOP colleagues could replicate his model. “I’ve seen people do silly things like blanket holds and stuff like that that are not sustainable.”

In the hours after the committee vote Wednesday, Tillis again spoke out against the whitewashing of Jan. 6, recounting Wednesday how he was the last senator to leave the chamber the day a mob of Trump supporters temporarily suspended the counting of the 2020 Electoral College vote. He previously sank Ed Martin’s U.S. attorney nomination because of his previous comments related to the riot and his work defending those who took part in it.

“I’ll scrub it when a nominee comes forward, and I’ll apply the Martin standard,” Tillis said of any pick to succeed ousted Attorney General Pam Bondi. “By the way, I don’t think Martin is employed by the DOJ anymore, either, is he?”

There are some differences between the situation with Powell and the vacancy atop the Justice Department.

Hanging over the Fed chair negotiations was a May 15 end date for Powell’s term, Trump’s determination to replace him and the administration’s realization that TIllis was not about to back down from his pledge to keep his hold as long as the criminal investigation was ongoing.

“I think they understood if we didn’t get it done today, tomorrow, this week, that he wouldn’t be seated by the time the term expires,” Tillis said of the administration.

There is not the same pressure to fill the AG post. Todd Blanche, who was confirmed last year as deputy attorney general, is now serving as acting attorney general, and he is free under federal law to serve at least into late October.

Some argue he could essentially serve indefinitely, with many pointing to the tenure of former Deputy Labor Secretary Julie Su, who served as acting secretary for nearly two years under former President Joe Biden.

That could effectively mean Trump could wait out Tillis, who is retiring and will relinquish his seat in January — though that would also risk a potential Democratic midterm takeover of the Senate majority.

Tillis said Wednesday he would be sticking to his principles regardless of how the attorney general vacancy plays out. He said his fight to protect Powell and how it was resolved this week was “very important” for ensuring the Federal Reserve’s independence.

Tillis also linked the months-long fight to another hotly debated topic: the fate of the chamber’s 60-vote legislative filibuster that Trump wants to see axed. Like most GOP senators, Tillis wants it to stay.

“Then a simple majority would have been enough to discharge [Warsh] from committee,” Tillis said, noting that the organization of the Senate — including the makeup of committees — is done by consensus due to the filibuster.

Tillis is in a unique position. Due to his impending retirement, he is free of political consequences, and he’s on a host of key committees that give him an outsized role in several of the administration’s priorities. He has been increasingly outspoken about decisions within the Trump administration and from corners of the party he disagrees with — though he’s been careful to stress that he believes he has a respectful relationship with Trump and wants him to be successful.

Trump, for his part, suggested Tillis had already left the Senate in a Fox News interview last week where he was pressed on the Warsh blockade: “You know Thom Tillis is no longer a senator, right? He quit.” Tillis quipped back at the time, “I’m not dead yet.”

On Wednesday, Tillis urged the administration to share more information with Congress on its Iran strategy, questioned whether a “first-semester law student” would believe the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey was credible and urged the House to “recognize reality” and end the Department of Homeland Security shutdown.

“We own the shutdown right now because we can’t get the House to vote on something that 100 senators voted on,” Tillis said. “The American people are not dumb, and they know that the holdup now is not Democrats in the House. It’s Republicans.”

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Congress

Mitch McConnell is still in the hospital after medical episode, his office says

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2 days ago

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July 2, 2026

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Sen. Mitch McConnell remains hospitalized, his office said in a statement Thursday — without offering details about a recent medical episode that has renewed concern about the health of the former Republican majority leader.

McConnell “continues his recovery in the hospital” and “continues to improve,” his office said.

“Senator McConnell appreciates the outpouring of support he’s receiving while he continues his recovery in the hospital,” the statement said. “The Senator continues to improve, and is working closely with his staff on Kentucky and Senate matters while the Senate is out of session.”

The statement did not explain why he was hospitalized last month.

The update comes after multiple outlets reported details of a first responder dispatch call indicating emergency medical personnel responded to McConnell’s home last month to treat an unconscious person who had experienced “cardiac arrest.”

Blue Light News has not independently verified the dispatch call.

The 84-year-old senator, who is retiring at the end of this term, has experienced multiple medical incidents in recent years. On two occasions in 2023, he froze while speaking with reporters. He has also suffered multiple falls and temporarily used a wheelchair, a move his office described at the time as a precautionary measure.

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House Ethics says it doesn’t have information to share on lawmaker sexual misconduct settlements

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2 days ago

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July 2, 2026

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The House adopted a resolution Tuesday requiring the House Ethics Committee to release information on taxpayer funds used to pay out sexual misconduct settlements with lawmakers — but the committee now says it has no information it can share.

In a statement Thursday, the committee reiterated it does not manage sexual harassment lawsuits or their settlements; taxpayers have not footed the bill for those payments since 2018.

Since that time, according to the statement, “the Committee has not been notified of any awards or settlements relating to allegations of sexual harassment, sexual abuse, or other sexual misconduct by a Member.”

Instead, the bipartisan Ethics Committee said it was up to the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights to publicly release a list of each member who has received settlements for sexual misconduct allegations, as mandated by the resolution championed by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.).

The committee, in the Thursday statement, said it “fully supports the release of information about sexual misconduct settlements and calls on OCWR to abide by [the resolution] and make publicly available information about Member sexual misconduct matters resulting in payment of taxpayer funds.”

Massie, in a text message Thursday, said “OCWR can release it.”

The OCWR did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The bipartisan Ethics Committee has been under pressure in recent months to show it takes allegations of sexual misconduct against colleagues seriously. Two former House members — Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) and Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) — were forced to resign earlier this year amid serious accusations against them.

The renewed reckoning has prompted new questions about whether the House is up to the task of policing its own. The resolution earlier this week was adopted nearly unanimously, with just one member, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), voting “present.”

House Ethics Chair Michael Guest (R-Miss.) said in an interview earlier this week that while he would support Massie’s resolution, the relevant “information was already out in the public domain.”

Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.

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AOC endorses El-Sayed in Michigan Senate race

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2 days ago

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July 2, 2026

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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) endorsed Abdul El-Sayed’s campaign for Michigan’s open Senate seat on Thursday, a decision that comes as progressives look to capitalize off a series of recent high-profile primary victories in New York, Colorado and elsewhere.

Her endorsement could provide El-Sayed with a critical boost just over a month before the state’s Aug. 4 primary. The former public health official is locked in a heated contest against Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow for the right to take on Republican Mike Rogers in the general election.

It also comes as El-Sayed has risen to the top of the pack in recent public polling.

Virtually any Democratic path to flipping the Senate in this year’s midterms would see the party hold the open Michigan Senate seat, with two-term Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) retiring at the end of his term.

The race has emerged as perhaps the largest battleground over the ideological future of the party. El-Sayed, who unsuccessfully ran for governor in 2018, has collected endorsements from progressives, while Stevens has the tacit backing of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, with AIPAC also boosting her candidacy.

El-Sayed, Ocasio-Cortez said in an interview with The New York Times, is her party’s best chance.

“Despite our ideological differences and whatever disagreements there are in the party, every single one of us sees this moment as existential,” she said. “And I think many people are willing to put aside differences in order to give us the best chance at winning. And I think that Abdul gives us that right now.”

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