Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) brushed aside a warning that President Donald Trump could retaliate by giving out his cell phone number, replying simply that he already has the president’s number, according to comments he made Monday on ABC’s “The View.”
Co-host Ana Navarro raised the possibility during the interview, telling Tillis that Trump was likely to give away his phone number after the senator’s forthcoming book includes private exchanges with the president. Tillis’s response, as reported by Breitbart News, was blunt: “With all due respect, I have his number, too.”
The exchange added a light note to a conversation about a more serious rupture between the senator and the president he once counted as an ally.
A Book, a Feud and a Retirement
Co-host Sunny Hostin prefaced the discussion by noting that Tillis announced last year he would retire from the Senate after this term, following a public falling-out with Trump over the president’s domestic policy package. In the book, Tillis includes private exchanges with Trump after the president called him a “loser” and took credit for pushing him out of the Senate, Hostin said.
According to Hostin’s description of the book, Tillis claims to have written to the president disputing that account, saying he would have told Trump to “go blank yourself” and asserting that he doesn’t take “this B.S. from anyone, including you, Mr. President.”
Asked whether he ever heard back, Tillis said the two have remained in contact. “Actually, we’ve talked or texted back and forth several times since then,” he said.
‘Are You Concerned?’
Hostin followed up by referencing recent reports about the president supposedly giving out the cell number of Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) during a policy dispute, and asked Tillis whether he worried about Trump coming after him once someone reads the book to him.
Tillis said he was not concerned. He then broadened his answer into a critique of what he called political overreach and vindictive prosecutions, arguing that parties who ignore those voters do so at their own electoral peril.
“Most of the people in this country live between the 35 yard lines in politics,” Tillis said. “And the party that figures that out first is going to have a structural majority because the rest of us are tired of the garbage.”
He added that the subject was broad enough to fill an entire show, but framed his central point as a warning to both parties about the cost of going too far.
Why the Moment Matters
Tillis’s appearance put a public face on a feud that has played out largely in statements, social media posts and now a book. A two-term senator from North Carolina who once chaired the Senate Banking Committee and served in House leadership before that, Tillis has been among the more outspoken Republican critics of the president’s approach on several fronts.
His decision to leave the Senate rather than seek another term removed one of the few GOP voices willing to publicly break with Trump on certain issues, and his book has kept that conflict in view. The exchange on “The View” β including the retort about having Trump’s number β underscored how much the relationship has shifted from cooperation to open friction.
It also served as a reminder that even in retirement, Tillis intends to keep making the argument that both parties risk losing the middle if they cater to their most vocal factions. Whether that message lands with voters, he suggested, will determine which party holds the advantage in future elections.
Source: www.breitbart.com β https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2026/10/05/tillis-on-possibility-of-trump-giving-out-his-phone-number-i-have-his-number-too/