A blistering new column in The Federalist accuses retiring North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis of using a promotional book tour to attack the very voters who sent him to Washington, casting the 66-year-old Republican as a self-styled martyr whose real target is the MAGA base rather than President Donald Trump.
The piece, published by the conservative outlet on October 5, 2026, takes aim at Tillis’ appearance on CBS’ 60 Minutes and at his new book, How to Lose Friends and Antagonize Presidents: The Trouble with Sycophants, Courage Outsourcing, and Partisan Groupthink, which the outlet describes as a 166-word publisher’s description that labels Trump administration officials “grifting sycophants and useful idiots.”
The Federalist also quotes the book’s description referring to the president’s allies as “spineless Republican yes-men (and -women)” and “weirdos of the MAGA world.” According to the outlet, Tillis even claims credit for coining the term “MAGATS,” a phrase The Federalist notes has circulated among online Democrats for roughly a decade.
A Subway Jump That Became a Metaphor
Much of the column’s ire is directed at a moment from the 60 Minutes segment in which Tillis, trailed by correspondent Ross Douthat, jumps across the Capitol subway tracks. While the outlet concedes the leap might look impressive for a man of his age, it argues the stunt was the hardest the senator has worked in months — and that he only did it to sell books.
The Federalist also disputes a line from the CBS interview in which Douthat suggested there has been “too little legislative work for an energetic senator” in the second Trump administration. The outlet contends that framing ignores Tillis’ own role in slowing Republican priorities — specifically the SAVE America Act, which The Federalist describes as one of Trump’s biggest legislative priorities and which it says the Senate GOP, with Tillis’ help, stalled against the president’s wishes.
The column further accuses the CBS segment of uncritically accepting Tillis’ self-portrayal as a senator walking a “tightrope” between criticizing Trump and wanting him to succeed, saying the senator offered no evidence and the network did not press him for any.
A Long List of Grievances
The Federalist rolls out a lengthy inventory of what it calls Tillis’ betrayals of his base, citing prior reporting by staff writer Shawn Fleetwood. Among the complaints: that Tillis helped stall the SAVE America Act, sank Trump’s pick for D.C. attorney and then concealed his role, worked to salvage Democratic green energy subsidies, sought to preserve Obamacare’s taxes on health care, pushed for amnesty for undocumented immigrants, and criticized Vice President JD Vance’s foreign policy.
The outlet also cites Tillis’ support for legislation that redefined marriage, his backing of certain Democratic gun control measures, his votes allowing transgender-identifying individuals to serve in the military, making women eligible for the draft, and sending taxpayer dollars to Ukraine — all, the column says, without remorse.
It quotes Tillis’ June 2025 retirement statement, in which he wrote, “Sometimes those bipartisan initiatives got me into trouble with my own party, but I wouldn’t have changed a single one.”
By contrast, The Federalist notes, Tillis told CBS he regrets confirming Trump’s cabinet — singling out Secretary of War Pete Hegseth — and spent much of the interview warning about a “dictator king” and revisiting the January 6, 2021, Capitol breach, which he called “despicable.” The outlet also flags a claim by Tillis, offered without evidence, that Trump supporters could riot if president-backed candidates lose their midterm elections.
Tillis defended his record in the CBS interview, saying, “The only difference between me and a lotta people that call themselves true conservatives is I got a long list of things that were ratified and they don’t.”
The Book’s Cover and Its Aim
The Federalist argues that while Tillis’ book title gestures at “presidents” broadly, the cover tells a different story — featuring images of Trump administration officials and allies but not the president himself. The outlet reads the omission as evidence that Tillis’ true quarrel is with the Republican base rather than Trump personally or the Senate as an institution.
According to the column, Tillis presents himself as a hero fighting to “keep the American experiment from going off the rails,” a posture The Federalist dismisses as indistinguishable from the Trump criticism routinely leveled by corporate media and Democratic operatives.
The piece concludes that the senator, who has known since summer 2025 that he would not seek another term, has consistently prioritized attention from the press over the voters who kept his party competitive. Tillis has said Washington’s poisonous partisanship drove him from office, but The Federalist suggests the more likely culprit was his habit of bashing the people who elected him in the first place.
The column closes with a fundraising appeal for The Federalist’s journalism, noting the outlet is a registered 501(c)(3) organization.
Source: thefederalist.com — https://thefederalist.com/2026/10/05/thom-tillis-who-has-accomplished-nothing-thinks-hes-the-most-important-man-in-america/