North Carolina Republican Senator Thom Tillis gave an impassioned speech on the Senate floor late Sunday night. He issued a fiery condemnation of the plan to slash Medicaid and blasted former President Donald Trump’s broken promise to not cut the bedrock program. Tillis’s remarks come as he announced he would not seek re-election in the politically competitive state of North Carolina, marking a significant moment in his political career.
During his speech, Tillis expressed concern over the ramifications of the proposed cuts, stating, “What do I tell 663,000 people in two years or three years, when President Trump breaks his promise by pushing them off of Medicaid because the funding’s not there anymore, guys?” He emphasized his belief that the cuts would harm vulnerable populations relying on Medicaid, asserting that there is “no insight into how these provider tax cuts are going to be absorbed without harming people on Medicare.”
Tillis was outspoken against the Senate’s version of the bill, which he referred to as the “big, beautiful bill.” He shrewdly avoided going directly at Trump. Rather, he dropped hints that he would accept at least the partial funding of the House’s reconciliation bill. This approach gave him the tactical flexibility to operate in a politically sensitive environment while still moving the needle in the direction of his concern about healthcare dollars.
Tillis aimed most of his ire at the “amateurs” counseling Trump. He charged them with intentionally misinforming the former president about the harmful impacts that the legislation would have. He stated, “I’m telling the president that you have been misinformed,” while expressing doubt about the bill’s alignment with Trump’s previous commitments to voters.
That procedural vote needed to move the reconciliation bill through the Senate passed by the very narrowest of margins—51:49. Trump is in fact encouraging his supporters to oppose the proposed legislation on his new platform, Truth Social. He has repeated a July 4 deadline for its passage as talks drag on. In response to Tillis’s speech and stance, Trump remarked, “Tillis is a talker and complainer, NOT A DOER! He’s even worse than Rand ‘Fauci’ Paul!”