Sen. Tillis says in retirement he'll torch GOP leaders in NC and nationally | Hour 2

What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to the Pete calendar show.com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, get every episode for free, right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support. All right, so Tom Tillis, U.S. Senator from North Carolina, sat for an interview. He's got a book out. It's called How to Lose Friends and Antagonize Presidents. And full disclosure, I have not read the book. But he sat for this interview. I did watch the interview with Jonathan Martin, a longtime political reporter from Washington, D.C., and they did the interview at the Carolina family restaurant on Wilkinson Boulevard, just down the street here from the radio station. And again, like I'm, I'm highlighting, I'm giving you these sound bites and I know people have opinions about Tom Tillis. Some people have very strong opinions about Tom Tillis, but I'm, I'm dealing with the things that he is saying. Okay. So some of the stuff that he is saying that he is saying some things that are true. Now there are, all sorts of reasons why he is saying these things. And some of them, you know, you may be able to suss out some, you may be able to theorize about or whatever, but I'm just trying to deal with what he is actually saying. Okay. A lot of this interview, which is why I've only pulled a couple of these sound bites here is because a lot of the interview dealt with his confirmation vote for Pete Hegseth. And I don't know why Jonathan Martin was so focused on the Hegseth thing. Maybe that was a big portion of the book or something. But, you know, Tillis, remember Tillis was... He was, like, threatening to withhold the support for the Hegseth nomination because there was the accusation against Hegseth. And then... But he said in the interview, he's like, I said, you know, bring forward some proof. And nobody brought forward any proof. And so he voted for him. Now he says. that Hegseth is incompetent on every level. And he says he regrets the vote in the way one would regret hiring somebody and then having to fire them for failing to perform, right. Or not doing a good job or whatever. So, and I get that distinction. I understand what he's saying there. Um, and he deferred to the president as he deferred to Obama and he deferred to Trump in the first term. He says like, I defer to the president when they're setting up their team. But he puts a lot of emphasis on the people around Trump, and these are the ones he calls the maggots, the sycophants, bootlickers, basically, for Trump that are all just kind of like in Trump's orbit. And Martin actually presses him on some of this stuff. Like, Trump has agency. He does these things on his own, too. And it seems like Tillis is blaming a lot of the people around Donald Trump. All right, so they spent a lot of time talking about His vote for Hegseth, here's just one portion of this. I was inclined not to run. In fact, at the end of my first term, I decided not to run then if it hadn't been for a couple of... discussions with people to convince me if I didn't, we'd. Probably lose it. But shouldn't that have made it easier then for you to stand on principle? No, because- At least it pegs out. No, see, that's my point. Of course the liberals want me to burn the place down. Most of them who are saying that I want to stand on principle are people who wanted to destroy this president's formation of the government. Let's just call it for what it is, people. I mean, my God, it's not that hard to see. You should have just destroyed the president's formation of a government. How dare you not do that? Come on. Now, look, on that, I agree with him. The people who were like, you need to stand up and say no to Hegseth. And all that, right? I think on this, he's exactly right. This is bad faith. I don't want to say criticism, but I guess criticism, right? One of the things I always say, when people criticize you, you have to first determine... are they doing so from a place of wanting you to be better or are they doing it from a place of hatred? Good faith versus bad faith, right? Most of the criticism, virtually like 100% of any criticism that I get, it's from people who are doing so in bad faith. They don't want me to be a better person. They don't want me to have corrected something that I inadvertently got wrong or whatever. It's not coming from a place of love. When your family and friends are saying, hey, you're on a bad path, you did something wrong or whatever, that's coming from a place where they want you to be your best self. When it's coming from your political enemies, that's not Right. Right. Right. And look, if you want to get into a discussion about some marginal noms that my Democrat colleagues voted on, that we voted against, we can have that discussion, too. Why did they do it? Because the president and the administration and the party forced them into it. reversing what I thought was a commitment when they signed the letter with me, when we had the courage to tell Trump one, that we weren't going to nuke the filibuster and all these people jumped on. And then they flipped on a dime when Biden said, you got to nuke the filibuster. In fairness, there's, there's nuke in the entire. And there's also making a few judgment calls on people that you have reservations about. My point is that these folks did the same thing. I can't tell you how many people. Really hate that I voted for the nuke and the filibuster, but politically it was untenable. How's that any different? Right. Democrats were all against nuke and the filibuster when Trump said it. And they signed on with this, you know, bipartisan letter, bipartisan position, not going to nuke the filibuster. And as soon as Biden said it, they all flipped. Right. Which, again, like to me, getting this ties into what I said in the last hour, sort of this this theme that I keep thinking of as I'm watching this interview is I'm not sure Senator Tillis, quote, knows what time it is. Right. He thinks that not only can the Republican Party go back to what it was 15 years ago, but that Democrats would be willing to do bipartisan legislation on some big issues like immigration, for example. Border security. And I don't think that's true anymore. And I think this filibuster vote is an example of that very thing. Right? Like you said, Hey, Democrats, we're going to stand with you and not nuke the filibuster. We'll stand with you to prevent that from happening. Even though our own party's president is saying we should do it. And Democrats like, yes, a principled stand. And then as soon as their president says, do it, they all fold and they all reverse their positions. See again, like I, you're, you're not dealing with people that are operating in good faith here. Um, This then gets to, you know, the criticism that it's the people around Donald Trump, maybe not Donald Trump himself on all of this stuff. And this is what Martin says, like Trump has agency and he's doing a lot of these things himself. I don't know. Maybe I need to dust off the Constitution one more time. I haven't found any section in there where you can fire him, and I'm not going to impeach him. What you can do is fire. His advisors, and his advisors being changed will change his behavior, because you can't possibly think that every single idea is his coming out of this administration. And that's my point. He's going to be whoever he is. The only thing I can change are the people around him that may be able to tamp down some of those emotions, but also not come up with really, really, really shitty ideas that he implements. But isn't that a hell of a way to run a railroad? Yeah. Hey, look, it's. Exactly why we're headed to the, you know, to continue the analogy, a train wreck in November. See, again, he. Says, if you change the people around Trump, you'll change his behaviors. I don't think that's true. I just, I don't, I don't know if that's true. He's had a whole bunch of people around him for the better part of a decade. We've all watched it. And I don't know. It, it doesn't seem like, I mean, like, who is he talking about? Is it that he's not happy with the, you know, the Maha people like RFK Jr. And Pete Hegseth and Christy Noem. Like he named some of these cabinet people, but, um, Yeah, I don't know if you change advisors and then that means you change his behaviors. He fires cabinet members all the time. So I'm not sure. Yeah, I'm just not sure that that's the actual leverage. And he talks a lot about leverage in the book, he says. All right, we'll pick it up there in a minute. We're going to get to some of the more inflammatory portions, I should say. The holidays will be here before you know it, and so now is the time to create precious and priceless family heirlooms that will last for generations. Take your old photos, slides, films, and tapes to create a video in Mint Hill. There, they'll turn those memories into the story of your lives, memories from past family events captured forever to pass down to future generations. Create-A-Video's skilled team will professionally transfer your family's stories onto easy-to-use USB drives or DVDs, that won't deteriorate over time like the old photos and tapes are doing right now. They will create a keepsake video that you can share and copy and keep forever. I can see it now. 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Um, and so to me, uh, you know, I've, I've invested a lot of equity and the, uh, the Republican Party here in. The state and at the national level. And I'm trying to get as much of that protected moving into a cycle where we've got some rebuilding and I'm going to help. From the outside. What does that look like? For one thing, it's going through North Carolina and torching every bad leader at the county district level. And watch them coming. They've mismanaged our party here in the state. They've lost objectivity. They've targeted moderate Republicans because they weren't conservative enough without having the slightest idea of what that meant for people in at-risk districts. And we've got to get leaders who actually care more about the party than they do about their, you know, feeling like they're a Karl Rove because they had 70 people elect them at a county convention. All right. So that's what Tillis is going to be doing in retirement, torching every bad leader. In the county, in the district levels, in the GOP. The, these, these leaders who, you know, won their spots by, you know, a vote of the, you know, the Republican party volunteers and the, the people who vote on like the executive committees and stuff like that. So the local chairman, local district chairs, right, going after all of these Republicans and torching every quote bad leader as determined by Tillis. I guess if there's, you know, if there's anybody who tries to knock off a quote unquote moderate Republican in a swing district, right, and if the district or party or a county district party chair didn't do enough for something to stop that from happening, I guess. Again, like I don't, I don't know if he knows what time it is. He would know better than me to be sure. I'm just kind of taking an outsider's look at it to say, I'm not sure that the party is that thing any longer. And if it ever was really, All right, let me go over to the text line. John says, if a movement is based on a personality, it will quickly fall apart once the personality is no longer in charge. That is correct. I've been saying that for years. John is correct. If a movement is based on principles, then it doesn't matter who the leader is. They're advancing the principles, and the next one up can keep moving the ball forward. Right. And this was the argument that I had back in 2015. with Donald Trump supporters. And what they loved most about Donald Trump was that he fights. That was it. I said, what if he's fighting for stuff that you don't agree with? They didn't care. Literally. I had arguments with people for almost a year during the primaries about this. And that's why I keep saying, I don't know if Tillis knows what time it is. People have become, Republicans have become so fed up With all of the stuff, with all of it, with losing and. Not getting everything they want immediately, right? Being told for decades that, well, you know, you had the primary election and whoever comes through the primary, you got to fall in line, right? And then when you knock off one of their preferred candidates... when the grassroots knocks off one of the quote unquote establishment Republicans, then they get mad and they're like, I can't vote for this person. And you're seeing this play out right now in Texas, Texas. We saw what Barbara Bush Jr. She donated $ 2, 500 to. James Tallarico's campaign. We also saw then. What Neil Bush, who I don't even know who that is, but a member of the bush family now he's he's voting for talarico saying character matters more than party well so what happened to the whole you know fall in line you you you fight it out in the primaries you punish in the primaries if somebody is not delivering the things that you want delivered you you go after them in the primary but then you fall in line in the general election because holding the seat and and and uh keeping the majority. Is more important What happened to that argument? Matt Cohn, who is a, well, to borrow a phrase or a title from the media, how they always frame people, a good government advocate in Harris County, Texas, pointing out that for years, the Bush-John Cornyn wing of the Republican Party told us that we had to vote for the Republican no matter what. Party unity. Hold your nose. See, party loyalty was a rule for us. Not for them, he says. But that's entitlement. They think the party belongs to them. Texas Republicans see it now. See, and this is sort of the vibe I'm getting from Senator Tillis. All right, real quick. Every government number gets revised, right? Every projection gets walked back. Gold does not file corrections like GovCo. Revelation Gold Group helps families hold physical gold and silver, including in a tax-advantaged gold IRA. It's real, it's in your name, and 10 minutes tells you if your retirement account qualifies. If you want to learn more, go to calendarmetals.com. That's calendarmetals.com. There is a link in the podcast description. Or if you want to talk to somebody, you can call 888-465-3049. So let me. Read a couple of the messages from the text line. I'm going to get back to some of the audio. I'm going to try to get through all of the audio here, but I have to go back because a 704 number says Tillis did not say you're going to change the behaviors. He says he's going to change the ideas that he has been given. I'm not a fan, I guess, of Tillis or maybe me. I don't know. But you're being dishonest, too. Okay, so let's go back and take a listen. Here's what Tillis said. I don't know. Maybe I need to dust off the Constitution one more time. I haven't found any section in there where you can fire him, and. I'm not going to impeach him. What you can do is fire his. Advisors, and his advisors being changed will change his behavior. Okay, so you fire his advisors, and that'll change his behavior. That is what he said. So I'm not being dishonest, 704 number. I'm telling you what Tillis said. Poor as identified because they keep putting people up like Robinson who are going to fail and lose. You're disingenuous. What was the disingenuous part? I don't know what that means. Poor as identified because they keep putting up people. Right. Well, that's what the voters want. That's what the party voters vote in. And unless you're saying that the party leaders need to be what, keeping people off the ticket for some reason, kicking people out of the party, you know, it would fix this for you. Closing the primaries. You want to do that? I don't think that's going to give you better quality candidates, but that's the, I mean that we have an open primary system here. Unaffiliated get to vote in the primaries, right? So if you want stronger, uh, party control over candidates. Then you're going to have to rework the plan of organization inside the party. You're going to have to allow the party leadership to be. picking candidates and endorsing candidates and kicking out, you know, people that they don't think can win and all of that. And remember, by the way, people thought Trump couldn't win. Party leaders thought Trump could not win too. So there's that. Um, All right, let me go back here. This is Scott who says, hey, Pete. Maggot here. We don't want to go back to the Uniparty. I personally don't want to back down to the party of the DSA and Islamists. I want a party that fights against all of that. Yeah, again, this is what I say. Like, I'm not sure that Tillis, quote unquote, knows what time it is, to quote the kids. All right, next up, he's asked, is this a repeat of 06 and 08? when the Republicans were beaten back to back in the midterms and then in the presidential race? Well, the only way that that changes is if we can have people around the president who says, you got to play the hand that's dealt you. And if you double down, you will destroy any chance for us to regain some of our losses from 26. If on the other hand, you extend an olive branch and say elections, uh, the, the, the people have spoken, we're going to do things a little bit differently. I think that we can take the edge off, but If it passes prologue, we're going to double down. We're going to have a two-year pissing contest, and it's not going to end up well for us. Very much like the 06-08 cycle, or if you want to use the Democrat analog, the 10-14 cycles. John McCain got handcuffed to George W. Bush in 08. They were hardly the best of friends. McCain ran against Bush. There was a rivalry there. Won't Democrats just handcuff Vance, who is the vice president of the United States, to Trump and just, you know, it's like calling the same play and just run against Trump one last time? Trump, there's no question in my mind that the president is going to pick the Republican nominee. And if we don't have a very different posture, then that pretty much seals the fate. Of whoever that nominee is, in my opinion. Because that would be another referendum on Trump. You think Trump doing the coronation would affect Torpedo, the nominee? Oh, I think it, yeah. If you assume from that that we're not coordinating. The only way that works is if there's a pivot and you start working with a Democratic-controlled House and try to make... try to make bipartisan legislation. It's a moonshot and unlikely, but that's the only way I think that you avoid additional electoral consequences in 28. Okay. So all is lost, right? It's Trump's party. If he picks the next nominee, they're going to lose. Republicans are going to lose more, right? All of that. Of course, we don't know this because we don't know what Democrats will do. Or let me say it this way, because we do know what they'll do. what they want to do. Will they be successful in advancing what they want to do? Next up, will Vance lose if Trump coronates him? No, it depends on candidate quality on their side. I would love for the Democrats to do what they've done in the past. Try and lose? Yeah. You know, read more into the, they didn't win. I mean, they're not going to win this cycle. We're going to lose this cycle. Okay. I think that's true. I do. I think that's true. I think there are things that the Trump administration has done and that the Republican leadership has not done that has. That has basically given up the field and Democrats are just the only alternative, you know, and people I hear it all the time. I'm going to stay home. I'm not going to vote and that's going to punish the Republicans. And then I'm going to get the party that I want, which is just silly. That's not how you get the party you want. His mindset now on how the Republican Party can win. I want the Democrats to buy. You do all you want. You fool yourself into thinking that the populist priorities are the priorities of your party. That'd be great because I don't believe it. I believe there's a lot of disaffected Democrats that are looking for a place to go. If we define ourselves and go back and govern like traditional Republican conservatives, the party of Reagan, then we'll end up picking up Democrats. We'll end up picking up the disaffected people. We won't lose that many. We will gain more. For every one crazy person we lose on our side, if we're a true right-of-center, limited government, free enterprise party, then we'll pick up one and a half unaffiliateds, and that's a good place in North Carolina. So that's what he views as the winning strategy. Okay? And I don't know if that's out of date, anachronistic. I don't know. But it makes sense if you can actually find candidates that would attract the unaffiliated, right? The middle. He wants to be a center-right party. And this is the thing is like, as John said in the text line earlier, that right now, this whole quote movement is built around one guy. And when he exits, that movement ceases to exist, right? You can have somebody else step in, but they're not Trump. There's only one Trump. And then here's the term that. He uses, the maggots. He uses it in his book. And here he explains it. The thing about the American people, I love the electorate. They're, they're a pretty kind and forgiving people. Oh, hang on a second. Wrong clip. This is the clip. One of the most vivid words you come up with is maggots, but it's spelled M-A-G-A-T-S. Yeah. He didn't come up with it. Well, it's MAGA. You know, the, the phrase that, uh, that Reagan coined and Trump trademarked. Yep. Um, and, uh, add it to Trump sycophants. Um, I did, I mentioned in the book, I did a weird post, even my staff said it was gonna be weird talking about sycophants. Trump sycophants. Yeah, Trump sycophants, maggots. And there's a colony of them all around the president right now. They're a part of the problem. You get rid of some of them or get more people, like many good people that are serving in the administration, but get rid of some of the ones on the cover of the books and some of the others that I've talked about, then we can right the ship. Right. So, again, this is a fight for control of the party. That's what's going on. And Tillis is articulating one of those factions here. wants to go back to center-right, limited government, free markets, free enterprise kind of stuff. There's a lot of gaps there, though, right, as to, like, okay, well, what does a center-right party stand for? Like, with regard to, say, Social Security, with regard to foreign policy, right? There are a lot of gaps there. But this is the fracturing of this coalition, the fracturing of, these different groups. And we saw the same thing happen after the fall of communism, the three-legged stool that was Reagan's coalition. They kind of broke apart too after, after communism fell because that was the thing that united them. All right. I am going to get to your texts. I have a couple more clips to play for you. I want to get these done before the next hour. Tom Tillis talks about missed opportunities and bad decisions. They stack on each other to create the current environment, he says. The thing about the American people, I love the electorate, they're a pretty kind and forgiving people, but they don't like bullies. And there's a theme of bullying coming on here that loses that, you know, there's a group of our people that love bullying. And there's an element either end of the political spectrum that love the bullying. Most of the people in the middle don't. Okay, sorry. That was about bullying. Here's the correct clip. The thing that drives me crazy are the good things that we're not even able to campaign on right now. It's like people are toned up to the fact the president was successful within the first 60 days of closing the border. Why? Because we fucked up and did Liberation Day at the 90-day mark. So all the successes that we had there were overshadowed by the immediate impact and instability of a failed Liberation Day. I think he's right about that. that this administration has done so many things constantly. This is, I've talked about this before. This is the OODA loop, right? You get inside the, your opponent's OODA loop. You move so fast that they cannot react. And it's been, you know, day after day, one thing after another, there's just this fire hose of new things, announcements, you know, craziness, whatever. And people forget. And it's like, they forget the win of the border being secure because they're Within 30 days, we're all talking about tariffs, which I still feel like that was not the best move. He also then said that he has no interest in being a lobbyist. But you're going to stay in the game, aren't you? I'm going to try and go after some of those folks that think they're invincible and make. Them feel a little bit more mortal. Who is that? Wait and see. Give me some names. It's all driven by data. Here in North Carolina or in D.C.? To. Me, it's nothing personal. Yes. To me, it's nothing personal. Yes. To me, it's nothing personal. It's all about the data. It's business. I can't stand performers, and I. Love producers, and we've got to have an organization that actually supports producers and targets performers. at either end of the political spectrum. And I look forward to supporting that. Don't intend to make a dime off of it. I'm going to go back in business. And you'll drop some F-bombs along the way. Yeah. You know, I did that not for effect. It's just because of. Who I am. It's who you are. Right. I'm a cussing conservative. All right. Steve says on the text line, I heard an interview with Tillis. He was bragging about what a skilled campaigner he was. So why drop out of the upcoming election? He knows Cooper would trounce him. I also voted early, did not vote for Cooper. He's not my pick at all. However, he'll likely be a more conservative senator than Tillis. I'm not so sure about that. I think he'll I think he's going to go along with whatever the Democrat Party demands of him. It's a sad testimony for the GOP and especially for us true conservatives. Beth's favorite Russ. If you want to have some fun, run the list of people that Tillis thinks Pete Hegseth should not have replaced against the former military leaders exposed this week by data Republican, lots of duplicates. Also, why is there so much of this? I'd rather rule over the ashes than see it succeed without me attitude. That's out there. Um, Seven Oh four number says I've been sick of Tillis since he was in Cornelius. I've called all five offices, left many voicemails. Uh, what makes me the maddest is him saying we can't pass the save act. We can't, we can't. That's on American. You do not give up. You figure out a way and move forward. Alan says, uh, Tillis comes across as very haughty believing he's without the possibility of error. Um, JC says, uh, Oh no, he didn't. He wants to burn down our state because he's sour at Trump. What's he thinking? Is he King of North Carolina now? Is he admitting to working with Democrats to thwart the GOP nominee for president in 28? No, I mean, he, in, in his defense, he is saying that he's going to go after the quote, bad leaders. He's going to torch the bad leaders around the state. So we'll see what that looks like. I don't have any idea what that looks like, but that's what he's saying. Um, Bebop and Rock Thrill. Once the Democrats get a majority of the three branches and the balls in their court, game over. That's what these fake Republicans like Tillis don't get. When we hold the power, we have to score every chance we get. Not passing the Save America Act has broken the spirit of Republican voters. Ben says, this reminds me of Rush. criticizing Jerry Nadler for doing an interview with food in his mouth. I think he did an entire segment on it. And Jerry chews his way through a CNBC interview. Now, okay, again, in Tillis' defense, they did the whole interview over breakfast at the Carolina Family Restaurant. So, like, there's no way to do that kind of an interview without food in your mouth. Now, like, yes. The format's not great. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast. So if you'd like, please support them, too, and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to the Pete Kaliner show dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening and don't break anything while I'm gone.