Thom Tillis is apparently done playing nice with Donald Trump.
The North Carolina Republican senator unloaded on the president in a series of foul-mouthed text messages that are now coming to light — and, well, he did not exactly mince words.
The messages are set to appear in Tillis’ forthcoming memoir, How to Lose Friends and Antagonize Presidents, which is due out next week. Politico’s Playbook obtained details of the book and revealed some of the senator’s most explosive exchanges with Trump.
In one message sent in late May, Tillis told Trump he still wanted to help him. But he also made it clear that he was done putting up with what he described as Trump’s “bulls–t.”
“I still want to help but I don’t take this bulls–t from anyone, including you Mr. President,” Tillis wrote. “Save that s–t for the cowards who don’t care if you fail. I care if you fail and right now we are failing.”
And that was apparently just the warm-up.
On June 6, Tillis sent another message after apparently taking issue with the suggestion that Trump had threatened him with a primary challenge.
“As I have said before, you NEVER threatened me with a primary challenge,” Tillis wrote. “I get that you may have me confused with so many Republicans that you have threatened in the past, but NEVER me.”
Then came the line that really turned up the heat.
“If you had ever threatened me directly with a primary, I would have immediately told you to f–k yourself, and I would have announced my retirement immediately,” Tillis wrote.
“Save those threats and head games for cowards and fools.”
The blowup came after Tillis had already emerged as one of the more prominent Republican critics of Trump. He opposed the president’s “Big Beautiful Bill” and announced in June 2025 that he would not seek reelection. Trump responded by calling him “a talker and complainer, NOT A DOER!” and threatening to support primary challengers.
Tillis later joined Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn in opposing Todd Blanche’s nomination to become attorney general. He also urged Blanche to meet with victims of Jeffrey Epstein and called for the government to scrap an “anti-weaponization” fund intended to compensate people who believed they had been unfairly targeted.
Trump lashed out at Tillis and Cornyn again in an August 1 post, saying he would keep Blanche as acting attorney general and push to get the anti-weaponization legislation passed. The following day, an order rescinded the fund, and the senators ultimately backed Blanche.
Now Tillis is putting his side of the story into a book.
And judging from the cover, he isn’t planning to pull many punches.
The cover prominently features White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, whom Tillis refers to as “ICE Barbie.”
The book promises an inside look at what its publisher describes as the “sycophants” surrounding Trump, “spineless Republican yes-men (and -women),” and the MAGA figures who, according to the book’s description, “can’t get out of their own way.”
So those explosive texts may only be the beginning.
Tillis is leaving the Senate. But before he goes, he appears determined to make sure everyone knows exactly what he thinks about Trump — and he’s apparently not worried about cleaning up the language.
