Trump wrongly says Thom Tillis is out, as Fed fight escalates

Trump widened a fight inside his own party when he suggested in a Fox News interview with Maria Bartiromo that Thom Tillis was no longer in Congress. Tillis is still serving in the U.S. Senate and will stay there until his term ends in January 2027 after deciding not to seek reelection.

That matters because Tillis has become one of Trump’s sharpest Republican critics on the Federal Reserve battle. The North Carolina senator has said he will keep blocking Trump’s Fed nominees until the Justice Department’s criminal investigation into Fed Chair Jerome Powell is resolved, a stance he cast as a defense of central bank independence. Trump’s pick to lead the Fed is Kevin Warsh, and Tillis has warned that he will oppose all Fed nominees as long as the probe continues. With the Senate Banking Committee operating under narrow margins, even one Republican holdout could complicate the confirmation path.

Tillis also suggested Warsh may need to decide whether to move ahead at all. In recent remarks, he said Warsh “is going to have to decide” whether to proceed with the nomination because of possible restrictions tied to the confirmation process. The warning underscored how Tillis is using the remaining power of his seat to press both the White House and the nominee, even as Trump has tried to act as if the senator were already gone.

The split did not stop at monetary policy. Tillis separately said Trump should apologize for attacking Pope Leo XIV, the first U.S.-born pope, after Trump posted on Truth Social that the pope was “weak on crime” and “terrible for foreign policy” following Leo’s criticism of U.S. policy on Iran. Trump refused to apologize. He also brushed off backlash over a now-deleted post that depicted him as Jesus, saying he had thought the image showed him as a doctor.

Together, the episodes showed the limits of Republican defiance and the leverage still available to senators willing to challenge Trump on substance and tone. Tillis has not left the chamber yet, and he is using the time he has left to test how much independence a Republican senator can still claim.