Recently Politics Elections highlighted a new candidate running to be the next U.S. Senator for North Carolina, Sandy Smith. As Sandy builds momentum and prepares for the upcoming primary challenge, it is important to keep in mind one of the reasons she is running. To unseat the moderate Republican, and on again off again supporter of President Trump, Thom Tillis.
Thomas Roland Tillis has been serving as a U.S. Senator for the State of North Carolina since 2015. He has previously been the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives in the North Carolina General Assembly.
Back in March of this year, Senator Tillis was prepared to stand against border security and stand against the President. He buckled under pressure but showed a lack of leadership, willingness to protect our national security, and consistency
Tillis, before the Robert Mueller special counsel investigation into alleged Russian meddling of the 2016 Presidential elections had wrapped up, supported Democrats who wanted to propose legislation to limit the President from hindering the special counsel in any way. History has not shown this to be a shining moment for Senator Tillis either, as President Trump has now been fully exonerated from any accusations of “collusion” or “conspiracy” with the Russian government, nor was it ever even necessary to try to stop President Trump from blocking the Mueller investigation.
This all begs the question of how conservative is Thom Tillis? Did he make a couple of mistakes or is the Junior Senator not in support of the Trump “Make America Great Again” agenda at all? His “Conservative Review” Liberty Score rating of 38% certainly doesn’t shore up any arguments to back the contrary.
In 2015 a bill was voted on to fast track the job-killing Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPP) under the Obama Administration. This was a bill that most Conservative Republicans and even some Democrats opposed as it was considered by many to be a better deal for other nations than for our own. Shockingly though, Thom Tillis voted YES on the “Fast Track Authority” bill.
Yet another slap in the face to Conservative Republican voters, Senator Tillis voted yes on H.R. 2, the “Medicare Access and Chip Reauthorization Act” which is expected to increase the nation’s debt by $500 billion over the next 20 years.
To add insult to injury, when a vote came up to decide whether or not to confirm then President Obama’s pick for Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who turned out later to have been allegedly involved in helping cover up and stopping investigations into alleged crimes by then Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Thom voted yes for her too.
The group “Numbers USA” which seeks to curb illegal immigration and hold Government officials accountable for weak stances on immigration and open borders policies, has him listed with an F rating on his “immigration reduction report card“.
The sitting North Carolina Senator also seems to be a fan of big spending, as it doesn’t seem that he has met a reckless spending bill he didn’t like. He supported all the way, the bill that President Trump begrudgingly signed back in 2018 and said he would “never sign another one like it“. That big spending bill didn’t have much for border security and was disappointing for many voters on both sides. Apparently, Congress was not planning on giving him anything better at the time, and this statement by the President is what ultimately lead to the Government shutdown of 2019 when another bill was proposed that didn’t have enough of what the President wanted.
Thanks to people in Congress like Thom being unwilling to make concessions, cuts, and decisions in favor of our national security and fiscal health, we have illegal aliens coming in droves and spending that is out of control and an ever-increasing National debt.
Circling back to the vote on the National Emergency that Senator Tillis was originally against, it appears as though when he realized he had gone even further left than Mitch McConnell, which is no small feat, he flipped at the last minute. Even as Senate Majority leader McConnell has supported the President in the recent past, his overall record is even more checkered, even going so far as to withhold support for a U.S. Senate nominee in Virginia.
In the video below you can see a rant by Senator Tillis as to why he didn’t plan on supporting President Trump’s National before he buckled to Mitch McConnell in the end.
SEE VIDEO BELOW
The Republican party needs leaders throughout the nation, including the swing state of North Carolina, who will be tuned in to the needs of their local constituents, but also consistent, strong, and supportive of a President who has recently garnered a recent approval rating as high as 53%. Going against that would seem like a bad idea in any state, much less a moderate one.