Outgoing Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said he regrets voting to confirm Pete Hegseth as defense secretary last year, offering a blistering assessment of the Pentagon chief’s tenure on Monday’s “Morning Joe.”
“The president referred to Pete Hegseth as right out of Central Casting — and I agree with that: He’s an actor. He’s not a manager,” Tillis told MS NOW.
Tillis, who cast a pivotal vote to confirm Hegseth last year, said the secretary has “not demonstrat[ed] any knowledge of the Department of Defense.” He pointed to Hegseth’s continued focus on the physical appearance, grooming and aesthetics of service members rather than operational readiness.
“He wants everybody to look like him, everybody to train like him, everybody to be in the uniform like him,” Tillis said. “He’s missing the whole point about his organization. He’s focusing on about maybe 15, 20% of the entire organization at the expense of demonstrating any real knowledge of the fact that he is in control of the most lethal, complicated organization arguably on the planet.”
Tillis’ criticism comes as Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., presses a resolution to impeach Hegseth over allegations that he violated the War Powers Resolution by continuing the U.S. war with Iran without congressional authorization, among other “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Tillis has said he would support such a resolution.
The North Carolina Republican also addressed his complicated relationship with President Donald Trump. After Tillis voted against advancing the administration’s H.R. 1, more widely known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, last year, the president threatened to back a primary challenge against him. Weeks later, Tillis announced he would retire at the end of his term.
In his new book, “How to Lose Friends and Antagonize Presidents,” Tillis recounts more of his history with Trump, whose relationship with the senator has long alternated between cooperation and confrontation.
He told MS NOW that he repeatedly pushed back on Trump behind closed doors.
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“The beauty … is the number of times that I’ve actually stood up to the president that never got reported,” he said, arguing that lawmakers should be able to disagree with a president without every dispute becoming a public political battle.
Asked about Trump’s legacy, the two-term senator said it remains unsettled. He argued that the president still has an opportunity to leave a positive mark on history, but only if he changes both how his agenda is carried out and whom he relies on.
“The president and I very seldom disagree on the what, but the how and who he has involved in implementation has to change,” Tillis said.
For Tillis, that concern extends beyond Trump. He warned that the Republican Party has strayed from some of its traditional principles and said the president’s eventual legacy is now inseparable from the party’s.
“Why am I concerned with the president’s legacy? Because it’s the legacy of the Republican Party, and I’m concerned that we’ve become unmoored. We’ve gone away from some of our principles. We got to get back to that,” he told MS NOW.
You can watch Tillis’ appearance on “Morning Joe” in the clip at the top of the page.
Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW. She was previously a segment producer for “AYMAN” and “The Mehdi Hasan Show.”
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