‘i’m Not Dead Yet’: Tillis Leans Into Fed Clash With Trump

Donald Trump has a growing Thom Tillis problem. The administration's actions this week are doing nothing to solve it.

As the president flirts with trying to fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and dismisses Tillis as “no longer a senator,” the retiring North Carolina Republican shot back with his own message to the administration Wednesday: “I’m not dead yet.”

“I’m not very tauntable,” he told reporters. “That's part of growing up in a trailer park — you kind of get used to this stuff.”

Tillis is blocking Trump’s Fed chair nominee, Kevin Warsh, until the Justice Department drops an investigation into Powell. And the stalemate is leaving him in limbo with no clear off-ramp in sight.

The Senate Banking Committee, where Tillis holds a deciding vote, is holding Warsh's nomination hearing next Tuesday. And Tillis is leaving the door open to using even more of his leverage, including his Senate Judiciary vote in the event the panel considers a successor to former Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Some of Tillis’ fellow Republicans privately acknowledged Wednesday they don’t understand the White House’s current strategy, which they believe risks antagonizing Tillis and empowering Powell. And publicly, a growing chorus of Republicans are calling on the DOJ to end its investigation into whether Powell lied to Congress about cost overruns at the Fed’s Washington headquarters. Powell, who denies wrongdoing, has said the investigation is a pretext to target him for not lowering interest rates as aggressively as Trump wants.

“[Tillis has] made it very clear, his position on it,” said Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), who sits next to Tillis on Senate Banking. “This is easily resolvable.”

Tillis denied any personal bad blood between himself and the president Wednesday, noting they’ve spoken in recent days about other issues. But he didn’t pull his punches when asked about Trump’s threat to fire Powell or a visit that officials from U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office made to the Federal Reserve’s headquarters this week.

“It’s kind of like, guys, what are you doing?” he said. “You’re watching too many cop shows thinking that that’s cute — go up there intimidating a witness. For goodness sake — that’s so bush league. … They’re upping the pressure, but they have nowhere to go.”

He suggested that DOJ officials are only digging themselves into a deeper hole and advised them to “take the shovel out of their hands.”

Trump has shown little interest in seeing the DOJ end its probe, which focuses on statements Powell made to the Senate Banking Committee during testimony last year.

“Whether it’s incompetence, corruption, or both, I think you have to find out,” the president said on Fox Business Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Trump is ratcheting up his conflict with Powell, saying he would seek to oust the Fed chief if he stays on after his term as chair ends next month — a growing possibility as Warsh’s confirmation remains stalled amid the Tillis stalemate. Any move to fire Powell would kick off a major legal clash, and the Supreme Court has signaled opposition to the president exerting control over the Fed.

“I’ll have to fire him, OK? If he’s not leaving on time,” Trump told Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business.

Tillis is warning that moving to fire Powell would ultimately backfire.

“He won’t have the right to terminate him, and all we’ve done is wasted time that could have otherwise resulted in a new chair and a new Fed board member under this president,” he said.

Even as the administration digs in over the Powell probe, Senate Republicans are making clear that they don’t expect Tillis to fold.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Wednesday that he believed the administration should wrap up its investigation. He said Republicans are “excited” about Warsh, but he’s basically stuck until they resolve the standoff with Tillis over Powell.

“I think at some point they're going to have to deal with the committee, and they're going to have to deal with Tillis,” Thune said of the administration.

It’s not the only committee where Tillis has leverage. Over on Judiciary, he’s warned that he will block any attorney general nominee who has dismissed the events of Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of Trump’s supporters at the Capitol violently interrupted the formal counting of the electoral college results. And he’s not completely ruling out making the Fed probe a litmus test for AG nominees if it continues.

“If we keep letting this go on, I have to consider other options for really amplifying my concern,” Tillis said of his Fed fight. “I don’t see myself tying it to it now.”