Retiring Republican Sen. Thom Tillis apparently had a very different way of talking to Donald Trump in private than most Republicans do in public.
Newly revealed text messages show the North Carolina Republican unloading on the president in extraordinarily blunt language — telling Trump that he would not tolerate his “bullsh*t,” accusing the administration of failing, and declaring exactly what he would have done if Trump had personally threatened him with a primary challenge.
The messages were obtained by Politico Playbook and are expected to appear in Tillis’ forthcoming book, “How to Lose Friends and Antagonize Presidents,” which is scheduled for release on October 6.
And Tillis did not mince words.
In a May 22 message to Trump, Tillis told the president that he still wanted to help him succeed.
But there was a limit.
“I still want to help but I don’t take this bullsh*t from anyone, including you Mr. President,” Tillis wrote.
Then he delivered the warning:
“Save that sh*t for the cowards who don’t care if you fail. I care if you fail and right now we are failing.”
That alone would be a remarkably blunt private message from a sitting Republican senator to a Republican president.
But Tillis went considerably further in another message on June 6.
Trump had claimed that Tillis was facing pressure over a potential Republican primary challenge.
Tillis disputed that version of events.
“As I have said before, you NEVER threatened me with a primary challenge,” Tillis wrote.
Then came the line likely to attract the most attention.
“If you had ever threatened me directly with a primary, I would have immediately told you to f*ck yourself, and I would have announced my retirement immediately.”
And Tillis still wasn’t finished.
“Save those threats and head games for cowards and fools.”
The messages offer an unusually unfiltered glimpse into the relationship between Trump and a Republican senator who increasingly broke with the president as he approached the end of his Senate career.
Tillis announced in 2025 that he would not seek another term after opposing Trump’s massive tax-and-spending legislation.
Trump publicly attacked Tillis around that fight, accusing him of being a “talker and complainer” and threatening to support a primary opponent.
But the newly published June message adds an important wrinkle to that history.
Tillis himself insisted that Trump had never personally threatened him with a primary challenge — and suggested Trump might have confused him with other Republicans he had threatened.
“I get that you may have me confused with so many Republicans that you have threatened in the past, but NEVER me,” Tillis wrote.
Now Tillis is preparing to take his criticism public in much greater detail.
His forthcoming book is subtitled “The Trouble with Sycophants, Courage Outsourcing, and Partisan Groupthink.”
The publisher describes the book as an attack on what Tillis sees as “sycophants” around Trump, “spineless Republican yes-men (and -women),” and figures he considers part of “the weirdos of the MAGA world.”
Tillis even coins his own term for parts of Trump’s inner circle: “MAGATS.”
And the White House has now responded.
A senior White House official told Politico Playbook that sending the criticism by text rather than confronting Trump face-to-face was a “p*ssy move,” adding that it “shows what kind of character he is.”
That response transforms what was already a remarkable batch of private messages into an increasingly public Republican-on-Republican feud.
Tillis is leaving the Senate.
He has a book coming out.
And judging from the messages already emerging from it, he appears willing to publish conversations that most Republicans would probably prefer remained private.
The most revealing line may not even be the profanity.
It may be what Tillis told Trump immediately before it:
“I get that you may have me confused with so many Republicans that you have threatened in the past.”
Then came his answer to what he says he would have done if Trump had tried it with him:
“I would have immediately told you to f*ck yourself.”
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