Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, told President Donald Trump that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act could become his “Obamacare.”

The remark, made to CNN’s Jake Tapper in an exclusive interview that aired Wednesday night, is a striking comment with the midterm elections looming over Republicans.

CNN’s broadcast marked Tillis’ first major interview since he announced on June 29 that he would end his reelection campaign and vote against the Senate’s version of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a massive piece of legislation that contains many of Trump’s priorities.

The two-term senator typically doesn’t shy away from candid and frank conversations with reporters in the halls of Congress, but it’s rare for him to grant a lengthy interview with a national television outlet. In his interview with Tapper, he tackled his relationship with Trump, how he feels about Trump’s advisers, who no longer deserves a cabinet position and the person he won’t support to succeed him.

Tillis told Tapper his decision to end his campaign was in part to take off the table any question that his Senate actions have anything to do with his reelection prospects.

That decision, made while rebuking Senate Republicans for voting for their version of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, caught his party off guard.

Now, with former N.C. Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat from Raleigh, signaling his potential run, Republicans are scrambling to find a candidate who could outpace him.

Names like Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law, and Michael Whatley, her Republican National Committee co-chair, have been floated. Rep. Pat Harrigan, a freshman from Hickory, has also been considered, and political pundits now see those three as the top contenders behind the scenes.

Threat to majority

But history has taught Republicans that health care policy can have dire consequence on elections.

In 2010, 45% of voters said in an exit poll to NBC News that they cast their ballots as a rebuke to Democrats for passing the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. The controversial policy made sweeping changes to health care including:

—providing financial assistance to buy health insurance plans;

—preventing people with preexisting conditions from being denied coverage;

—allowing people under 26 years old to stay on their parent’s health insurance plans;

—and allowing states to expand Medicaid.

Republicans used it as a tool in the midterm elections to claim the policy was the government’s means to control healthcare.

And it cost Democrats 63 seats in the House, flipping the majority for nearly a decade.

Republicans currently control both chambers, with 220 Republicans and 212 Democrats in the House — there are three vacancies — and 53 Republicans and 45 Democrats in the Senate. Two senators are independent.

Midterm elections are notoriously difficult for the president’s party, and Republicans don’t have much of a lead to maintain control of either chamber.

Holding Trump advisers accountable

Tillis told Tapper he and Trump rarely find themselves at odds. But he confirmed to CNN reports that he texted and called the president before the vote on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and told him that his advisers weren’t giving him the entire picture of the impact of the Senate’s version of the legislation.

Tillis took to the Senate floor on June 29, just hours after announcing his retirement, and said his research found 663,000 people in North Carolina would lose their Medicaid coverage. To Tapper, he said the state would be scrambling to make up a $26 billion loss within 10 years.

“I told the president that the House markup was great,” Tillis said. “The House markup dealt with work requirements, saved $800 billion.”

Tillis does not believe his colleagues came up with the Senate version and blames White House staff, he told Tapper.

“It wasn’t the brainchild of any one member that I can find here,” Tillis said. “But it does so much damage. It just wasn’t thought through, and hopefully we can convince them that we have to fix it. ... Otherwise, I told the president, and I really believe it, this could be his Obamacare.”

Tillis told Tapper that he doesn’t believe the people who will be affected know it yet, but Democrats will make sure they know it soon.

“I was told by more than one person that (Trump) preferred the House Bill more, but there’s no question the Democrats are going to say that he broke his promise and that Medicaid recipients are going to be at risk,” Tillis said. “But he’s got people that are giving them bad advice, that are around them every day.”

Tillis believed the bill could have been fixed within 10 days, if the White House had budged on its self-imposed July 4 deadline. That wasn’t the case. Tillis said he believes a staffer was “obsessed” with having it signed with “rockets red glare and bombs bursting in air.”

The bill was signed on July 4 at the White House with a flyover and a few hours before fireworks were set off over the Ellipse.

Tillis vowed more than once in Tapper’s interview that he will hold accountable Trump’s advisers.

“I’ll make it very clear to them,” Tillis said. “’Guys, you act like the president when when he’s out of the room, you don’t impress me. And they’ll hear more of that in the coming months.”

Tillis wouldn’t name the advisers.

Yet, he said.

Concerns about Pete Hegseth

But he shared he’s not impressed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who Tillis expressed skepticism about during the confirmation process.

Tillis initially said he would support the Senate Committee on Armed Services’ decision regarding Hegseth’s nomination. But allegations against Hegseth for abusing women caught Tillis’ attention. As the confirmation vote approached, it appeared that Tillis would block Hegseth’s nomination.

Tillis ultimately voted to confirm him, but has reflected on that decision since then, he told Tapper.

“With the passing of time, I think it’s clear he’s out of his depth,” Tillis said.

This week, Hegseth was accused of authorizing a pause on weapons sent by the U.S. to Ukraine without the White House’s knowledge. Tillis called that “amateurish” and said that the Senate Committee on Armed Services may have been too generous with Hegseth’s nomination.

“If all I had was the information on the day of the vote, I’d certainly vote for him again,” Tillis said. “But now I have the information of Hegseth being a manager, and I don’t think that his probationary period has been very positive.”

Who Tillis thinks should run for US Senate

Tillis has thoughts on his successor and who should run from the Republican Party. He said he understands Trump began taking interviews to replace him following the announcement to end his reelection campaign.

“It’s going to be a tough race in North Carolina,” Tillis said. “We’ve got to get a good candidate, and I’m committed to helping the president get that candidate elected, if it’s not, well, lets say a handful of people who will never make it in a general election in North Carolina.”

He laughed as he brought up the screen name former Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson allegedly used to post racist and raunchy comments on a porn forum that CNN uncovered during Robinson’s failed gubernatorial election last year.

He said if Trump picked Robinson for the GOP candidate, it “would be devastating.”

But he added that even before the porn forum scandal became public, Trump stopped allowing Robinson to appear at events with him.

“I think the president probably had the right intel that it wasn’t a good idea to call him Martin Luther King times two,” Tillis said. “He is a disgrace to Martin Luther King’s legacy, and there’s no way if he became the nominee in North Carolina, I could possibly support them.”

Trump previously called Robinson “Martin Luther King on steroids.”

Tillis quickly added that he wouldn’t vote for the Democrat either, but would sit out the race.

Supporting Trump

Tillis reminded Tapper that in both elections for Senate, he won by fewer than two points and that both campaigns were the most expensive, at the time, in U.S. history.

“This is going to be a tough race, for someone,” Tillis said. “They need a good, solid business right-of-center conservative to match up against who ever it is, and now it looks like it may be (former) Gov. (Roy) Cooper.”

Tapper asked why Tillis decided to walk away from the Senate and not run for a third term. Tapper added that his supporters believe they need someone willing to stand up to the legislative branch, and work in a bipartisan manner to get policy accomplished.

“I’ve been trying to tell people that for the last 10 years, look, I got a wonderful life and a wonderful family and lots of professional options before I started this job, and I’m going to have them after I started this job,” Tillis said. “But I want to make it very clear, if you want to try and flex on me and make it look like my reelection prospects are at risk, I want to make it clear that that’s not anything I care about.

“I care about good policy, and I care about the future of this country, and I thought taking that off the table for the next year-and-a-half may put me in a better position to help govern and help encourage other members to stand up for our branch and for good policy.”

He added that he still supports Trump.

“I have a vested interest in making sure that President Trump is the most successful Republican president in the history of this country,” Tillis said. “I was a Republican long before President Trump was and I’ll be a Republican for the rest of my life. I’ve built a majority in North Carolina. I want to see that successful streak and all the benefits that have occurred in North Carolina continue and so you have to be able to tell truth to power.

“That’s our job, and that’s exactly what I attempted to do last week, and that’s what I’ll continue to do, and I’ll continue to work with the president if he chooses to,” Tillis said.

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