Sen. Thom Tillis's Extended Interview

Thom Tillis (0:00)

This fealty to a would-be king or a powerful president is not a good look in an election cycle where people are frustrated. Why anybody hesitates to say, look, I love the president, I voted for the big beautiful bill, I'm okay with the CMS cuts, but we gotta get this thing in Iran right. What's wrong with that? If they're thinking it, why don't they say it? And the ones who do, I think will be rewarded at the ballot box, and the ones who don't will probably have a lot more time with their family next year.

Ross Douthat (0:26)

This week on 60 Minutes, we interviewed Senator Thom Tillis. The two-term Republican from North Carolina has been walking a political tightrope throughout the second Trump administration. He's voted with his party consistently and backed many of President Donald Trump's policy priorities. But he's also been a caustic critic of key Trump appointees and what he calls the President's WTF moments, all while insisting he's just trying to help the White House succeed. Now, on his way out the door, he's written a book called How to Lose Friends and Antagonize Presidents, in which he blames what he calls sycophants in the President's inner circle for the administration's struggles.

In a series of conversations on Capitol Hill, we spoke with Senator Tillis about his relationship with President Trump, his fear of an increasingly imperial presidency, and what awaits the Republican Party in the midterms and 2028 This is an extended version of those interviews.

So, we're going to start where everything starts, with childhood. You moved around a lot.

Thom Tillis (1:31)

I did. My dad was a draftsman, and he did boats, which took him from one port city to the other. So, we were in Jacksonville, which obviously a big port city, New Orleans, and then he moved up to Tennessee because it was a big dredge industry at the time, and did that until his 40s, and then he moved out of that profession. I always describe it as the economic bubble. So, we literally moved out of that trailer into that house that we owned. We sold that.

Depending upon the circumstances, we were either in a house that we rented, sometimes we owned it, and when things got really spicy, we were in a trailer park.

Ross Douthat (2:10)

Do you think that your background, I don't know, does it make you different from your colleagues?

Thom Tillis (2:15)

Well, you know what, I tell you what, it's why I probably react so quickly to this concept of we don't have an affordability problem. You always have an affordability problem. There's some segment of our society that always does. But denying it by definition means you don't recognize the problem. If you don't recognize it, you're not solving it.

Ross Douthat (2:32)

Take me from the childhood on the bubble into your business career.

Thom Tillis (2:36)

So, okay, fast forward, I get recruited by the Air Force to go serve, and I thought it was going to be my ticket to go to officer candidate training or go to school.

Did that in January of 78, and then in May, just before I graduated, I had a car accident. I got discharged. I saw an ad for a professional job in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and I took that job, and that was a year and a half there. I was recruited up to Boston at Wayne Laboratories. I moved about every two years. So I was up in New England, got me into high tech. A few years later, I'm interviewing for a job with Price Waterhouse. Six years later, I'm a partner. One year later, after being admitted to the partnership, I got my four-year degree at almost age 37

Ross Douthat (3:23)

So you're in North Carolina, you're working at Price Waterhouse, and what takes you from there into running for office?

Thom Tillis (3:34)

I had a friend that by happenstance lived in Charlotte, who decided he was doing a lot of mountain biking. So he asked me if I wanted to go out. I got addicted to single-track mountain biking. So I got interested in mountain biking, but I looked around at these woods. I said, man, this would make a great single-track. So I researched, I knew it was government-owned. I didn't know who owned it. Then I went before the town board, and being a PW partner, I had a really polished PowerPoint because we always do.

Afterwards, the chair of the park and rec board said, that's a great presentation. If you volunteer on the board, we can probably get that done. Well, I got on the board, and that's what started my legislative career. And I'm the second Republican speaker in North Carolina since the Civil War. I decided to challenge a wonderful man who had been a long-term minority whip to be whipped. When everybody thought after Obama was elected, Republicans were going to be in the badlands for many years, I felt like they were going to misread their so-called mandate and overreach. When nobody thought Republicans had a chance, we beat the Democrats for only the second time in over a hundred years, and I believe that's why they had confidence in making me speaker.