Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina has described his deciding vote to confirm Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in January 2025 as the biggest regret of his career, according to an upcoming memoir. In How to Lose Friends and Antagonize Presidents, set for release Tuesday, Tillis also expressed regret over not opposing Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s confirmation as Health and Human Services secretary during President Donald Trump’s second term.
Tillis writes that he was skeptical of allegations against Hegseth at the time, including claims about his management style, treatment of women, and excessive drinking. Hegseth has denied all allegations. The senator acknowledges in the book that he chose not to be the sole Republican opposing Trump’s nominees, fearing political repercussions. However, he now argues that many GOP colleagues shared his private reservations but publicly supported the confirmations.
Tillis, who announced last year he would not seek re-election, frames his critique as a warning about the direction of the Trump administration and the risks of unchecked executive power. He stops short of directly blaming Trump himself, instead attributing concerns to the president’s inner circle. "My beef is not with him, but the idiots he’s got working for him," Tillis writes. He also praises Trump as an "amazing political talent" while urging colleagues to push back against what he describes as a slippery slope toward authoritarianism.
The book’s publication coincides with Tillis’s final months in the Senate, where he has become increasingly vocal in his criticism of Trump’s policies, including the president’s sweeping tax and spending cuts package. Tillis’s public denunciations of Trump have intensified since he announced his retirement, aligning with a pattern among some Republicans who have grown more critical once their political futures were no longer tied to the party’s base.
In the memoir, Tillis claims at least 30 Republican colleagues privately expressed reservations about Trump’s actions but avoided public criticism. He writes that these colleagues feared backlash and instead delivered uniformly positive remarks to the press. The senator’s reflections add to a broader debate within the GOP about loyalty to Trump and the party’s future direction ahead of the 2026 elections.