North Carolina senator Thom Tillis, who will not stand for reelection next year, unloaded his thoughts on Pete Hegseth during an interview with CNN this week, saying the Fox News host turned defense secretary has no idea what he’s doing, that his actions have been “amateurish,” and that he clearly doesn’t understand how to run a massive organization like the one he’s currently in charge of. Tillis also said he doesn’t regret voting to confirm Hegseth, because taking responsibility for one’s actions would apparently be a bridge too far.
Speaking to Jake Tapper, the GOP lawmaker declared of Hegseth that “with the passing of time, I think it’s clear he’s out of his depth as a manager of a large, complex organization.” Commenting on Hegseth’s decision not to let the White House know that he had paused weapons shipments to Ukraine, Tillis said, “That’s just amateurish. That’s from somebody who doesn’t understand large organization dynamics.”
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As The New York Times notes, prior to Hegseth’s confirmation, Tillis had “worked behind the scenes to corroborate allegations that Mr. Hegseth had abused women, and appealed to the top Senate Republican to pull the nomination, which would have allowed Mr. Tillis to avoid having to publicly cross Mr. Trump,” who had been talking about finding a candidate to challenge the lawmaker in next year’s primary. So Tillis did what many a Republican before him has done and capitulated to Donald Trump, allowing Hegseth to be confirmed. Asked if he regretted doing so, Tillis told Tapper he did not, “but now I have the information of him being a manager, and I don’t think that his probationary period’s been very positive.” (Apparently being a bad manager is worse than being accused* of sexual assault and on-the-job intoxication.)
After announcing last week that he would not seek reelection, Tillis took to the floor of the Senate to blast Trump’s spending bill, asking, “What do I tell 663,000 people in two years or three years, when President Trump breaks his promise by pushing them off of Medicaid because the funding is not there anymore?” Speaking to Tapper, Tillis called the legislation, signed into law on the Fourth of July, “politically just devastating.” Yet he also said he doesn’t “have a problem with Trump,” claiming, “I’ve got a problem with some of the people I consider to be amateurs advising him. And I want to make it very clear to them: When you act like the president when he’s out of the room, you don’t impress me.” A true profile in courage.
*Hegseth has denied accusations of sexual misconduct and was not charged following an investigation; he later paid the accuser, who was required to sign a nondisclosure agreement. In response to The New Yorker’s reporting on the whistleblower complaint re: intoxication, Hegseth’s lawyer sent the magazine a statement that read: “We’re not going to comment on outlandish claims laundered through The New Yorker by a petty and jealous disgruntled former associate of Mr. Hegseth’s. Get back to us when you try your first attempt at actual journalism.”
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The post Thom Tillis: Pete Hegseth Has No Idea What He’s Doing. Also Thom Tillis: No I Don’t Regret Confirming Him appeared first on Vanity Fair.
