Notorious RINO Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina got savagely roasted by the MAGA movement after he attacked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth during a CNN interview in which the senator described Hegseth as “out of his depth,” leading President Trump’s supporters to dismiss Tillis as a “retiring RINO.”
For background, in a July 9, 2025, interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, retiring Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) criticized President Trump’s appointment of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, saying that the secretary is unfit for his position. When the interview was posted on social media, supporters of President Trump ripped into the senator, who had previously announced his retirement on June 29, 2025.
In his interview with Tapper, Sen. Tillis was asked about his decision to vote in support of Secretary Hegseth, although, as Tapper explained, “Your vote was not guaranteed until the end there.” Referring to Secretary Hegseth and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Tapper asked Sen. Tillis, “Do you regret those votes now that you’ve seen them in office?”
In response, Sen. Tillis said that with the “passing of time,” it had become evident that Secretary Hegseth is “out of his depth as a manager of a large, complex organization.” Tapper then asked Sen. Tillis to weigh in on the “Signalgate” controversy that involved the secretary, to which Sen. Tillis replied, “Well, that’s just one. I mean, this whole idea of having a pause in Ukraine’s defensive arms —that’s just amateurish. I mean, that’s from somebody who doesn’t understand large organization dynamics.”
Continuing, the senator said that while he did not regret his decision to initially support Secretary Hegseth, “Today, I am beginning to wonder if maybe the armed services was a little bit generous with respect to their assessment of his capabilities as a manager of the world’s largest, most complex, and arguably consequential organization.” He later added, “Now I have the information of him being a manager, and I don’t think that his probationary period has been very positive.”
In response to the interview, X user Fedup American ripped into the senator, saying, “Tom (sic) Tillis is a retiring RINO.” Indeed, Sen. Tillis announced in late June 2025 that he was retiring after he notably voted “no” to the advancement of the “Big, Beautiful Bill” based on its proposed cuts to Medicaid, saying that Republicans “are about to make a mistake on health care and betraying a promise.”
Moreover, Sen. Tillis said that the passing of the bill would “hurt people who are eligible and qualified for Medicaid.” He went on, “I’ve talked with my colleagues in North Carolina. I know that we can do that. And I believe that we can make sure that we do not break the promise of Donald J. Trump, that he’s made to the people who are on Medicaid today.”
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After Sen. Tillis announced his retirement, more conservatives roasted him, including the X user Johnny Maga, who wrote, “Tillis took a payout to retire and in exchange, tried to kill the premiere (sic) legislative win of Trump’s career, screwing his constituents out of eliminating taxes on tips and overtime in the process.” He added, “Good riddance, scumbag.”
Watch the interview:
Featured image credit: video screengrab