Senior Republican issues ultimatum to Trump over J6 nominees

Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) has a stern message for President Donald Trump: “Take me at my word when I say anybody who equivocated on the Jan. 6 rioters, I just can’t support.”

According to Politico, he’s referring to any potential candidates the White House may put forth to fill the attorney general role vacated by Pam Bondi’s firing in early April. Knowing that Trump has a propensity for nominating election deniers to key roles, this is Tillis’s latest effort to keep J6 insurrectionists out of government. A high-profile member of the Judiciary Committee where Republicans hold only a single vote advantage, there is extra power to his yay or nay as he can essentially veto any attorney general candidate.

Tillis has a track record of successfully opposing actions by the Trump administration. His latest such victory involved putting a stop to Trump’s politically motivated criminal investigation of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. As a member of the Senate Banking Committee, he held up the advancement of possible Powell successor Kevin Warsh for three months, agreeing on Wednesday to approve Warsh for a floor confirmation in exchange for dropping the probe against Powell, who has been targeted by Trump for months for refusing to lower federal interest rates.

After delivering his yes vote for Warsh, Tillis spoke out against the administration’s efforts to whitewash the January 6 attack, recounting his experience as the last senator to leave the chamber amidst the violence. He has previously blocked the nomination of Ed Martin for U.S. attorney general for his ties to and support for the insurrection.

When asked how he’ll proceed with nominees to replace Bondi, he said, “I’ll scrub it when a nominee comes forward, and I’ll apply the Martin standard.”

What’s more, when asked whether his fellow Republicans should take similar actions to block the administration’s actions, he seemed to urge his colleagues to follow his lead, saying, “Every single member of the conference has the same option.”

During the fight over Warsh, Tillis looped in the recent debate over Trump’s demand that the GOP nuke the filibuster. Tillis, like most senators, wants it to remain in place. “Then a simple majority would have been enough to discharge [Warsh] from committee,” Tillis said, explaining that such actions are done by consensus due to the filibuster.

While the majority of Republicans have shown an unwillingness to oppose the president out of fear of electoral retaliation, Tillis is uniquely positioned to stand against Trump as he will soon retire from the Senate, freeing him from political consequences. What’s more, his role on several key committees lends him a powerful hand in approving or holding the administration’s actions, and he has become increasingly vocal about his disagreements with the White House.

For his part, Trump has felt Tillis’s pressure, even musing that the latter had already left the Senate, telling Fox when asked about Tillis blocking Warsh, “You know Thom Tillis is no longer a senator, right? He quit.” Tillis’s response: “I’m not dead yet.”

Tillis has also pressed the administration to “recognize reality” and end the Department of Homeland Security shutdown, saying, “We own the shutdown right now because we can’t get the House to vote on something that 100 senators voted on. The American people are not dumb, and they know that the holdup now is not Democrats in the House. It’s Republicans.”