'Cowards and fools': Tillis unloads on Trump in profane private message

U.S. Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) attends the committee vote on U.S. President Donald Trump's nomination of Todd Blanche to be U.S. attorney general, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 4, 2026. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz

North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis privately unloaded on President Donald Trump in a profane message, telling him that any direct threat of a primary challenge would have been met with an immediate and unmistakable response.

“If you had ever threatened me directly with a primary, I would have immediately told you to f—— yourself, and I would have announced my retirement immediately,” Tillis wrote to Trump on June 6, according to an image of the exchange shared by Politico. “Save those threats and head games for cowards and fools,” he added.

The exchange is part of a series of private messages disclosed ahead of the release of Tillis’ memoir, How to Lose Friends and Antagonize Presidents, due out Oct. 6. In the book, the retiring senator describes his increasingly combative relationship with Trump and his frustration with the people around the president.

Tillis’ June message pushed back directly on Trump’s claim that he had driven the North Carolina senator into retirement.

“As I have said before, you NEVER threatened me with a primary challenge,” Tillis wrote. “I get that you may have me confused with so many Republicans that you have threatened in the past, but NEVER me.”

The message came after Trump publicly attacked Tillis during a dispute over the president’s nomination for Todd Blanche to serve as attorney general. Tillis had said he would not support Blanche unless he condemned the Jan. 6 rioters who assaulted police officers at the Capitol.

Trump responded by calling Tillis “a loser” and claiming the senator was leaving because Trump would not support him. “He’s just an angry man because he’s not going to be a senator any longer,” Trump told reporters in June.

Tillis has given a different account. He announced in June 2025 that he would not seek another term after opposing Trump’s sweeping tax and spending bill, particularly over its Medicaid provisions. He later said he had already been leaning toward retirement and that the clash gave him an opportunity to make the decision public.

In the same vein as other retiring GOP members, without another election ahead of him, Tillis has become increasingly willing to criticize Trump and other Republicans. In July 2025, he told Semafor that a Trump social media attack over the spending bill convinced him he was finished dealing with the political pressure.

“If somebody wants to know why I’m not running, it’s because some bonehead told him to post something and pretend like that was going to affect me,” Tillis said at the time. “It affected me in a way that said: ‘I’m done with this bulls—— .’”

The newly disclosed messages show that frustration also made its way directly to Trump.

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