GOP Senator Doubles Down: Bill Betrays Trump Promises

When GOP Sen. Thom Tillis announced he wasn't running for reelection in 2026 after earning the wrath of President Trump, Tillis said he looked forward to "having the pure freedom to call the balls and strikes as I see fit." The North Carolina senator—one of only two Republican senators to vote against advancing Trump's "big beautiful bill"—seemed to make good on that promise in a later speech on the Senate floor.

• "It is inescapable this bill will betray the promise Donald Trump made," Tillis said of the spending package now being debated in the Senate, per Politico. "I'm telling the president that you have been misinformed. You supporting the Senate mark will hurt people who are eligible and qualified for Medicaid."

• Tillis maintains that the measure would kick more than 660,000 people off Medicaid in his home state of North Carolina. "I respect President Trump, I support the majority of his agenda, but I don't bow to anybody when the people of North Carolina are at risk, and this puts them at risk," Tillis told reporters after his floor speech.
• Trump, for his part, celebrated Tillis' announcement that he would not run for re-election as "great news," per Fox News. Before the announcement, Trump had threatened to organize a primary challenge against him.
• In a separate Truth Social post, Trump continued a familiar theme in rejecting the argument of Tillis and other critics that the spending package would send the national debt soaring. "For all cost cutting Republicans, of which I am one, REMEMBER, you still have to get reelected," he wrote. "Don't go too crazy! We will make it all up, times 10, with GROWTH, more than ever before."