The one man blocking Donald Trump from installing Kevin Warsh as his new Federal Reserve chair has drawn a red line: the stability of the US financial markets.
Republican Thom Tillis, who will retire in January after two Senate terms, provided key backing for some of Trump’s most controversial nominees, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
But the 65-year-old former management consultant, who has close ties to his home-state banking industry in North Carolina, sees his standoff with the White House over Warsh’s nomination as a stand for Fed independence and, by extension, the health of markets. This time, he says he’s not budging, even though he believes Warsh would do a good job.
When Tillis learned in January about the Justice Department’s criminal investigation into Fed Chair Jerome Powell, he recalled this week he immediately considered it an attack on the independence of the central bank and worried it would tank markets. He considered the probe retribution for Powell’s refusal to lower interest rates at the speed Trump demanded.
“I wanted to shut it down before the markets opened,” Tillis said, adding that his background in business compelled him to act.
The signal the probe sent, Tillis said, was that the Fed in general — and its chair specifically — would be subject to the whims of any president, whether that be Trump or a future Democrat like Senator Elizabeth Warren or New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
“Honestly, I talk to a lot of people in the industry, almost daily, and I haven’t heard anybody saying I got it wrong. I think a lot of them are appreciative that someone was standing in the breach,” Tillis said.
Tillis said some of his Republican colleagues back his effort but he warned them against joining his blockade. His vote in the Banking Committee is enough to stall the nomination, at least until he retires, if Trump doesn’t end the probe.
“One thing all martyrs have in common, they’re dead,” Tillis said.
This isn’t Tillis’ first battle with Trump. Last year, he voted against the president’s massive tax bill amid cuts to his state’s health care programs. But his wasn’t the deciding vote, and Trump’s bill was ultimately signed into law.
This time, however, Tillis singularly holds the power and Republican senators have been all but begging Trump to end the probe.
“The sooner the administration can wrap up this investigation and get ready to move forward with the new Fed chairman, the better off everybody will be,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters Tuesday.
Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana, a fellow member of the Banking Committee, called Tillis “serious as an aneurysm.”
“If you’re asking me if I think Tillis is bluffing, the short answer is ‘no,’ the longer answer is ‘hell no,’” he added.
Tillis no longer has much to lose should Trump target him for political vengeance. He announced last June he would not seek re-election.
Indeed, Tillis has even threatened to launch a similar blockade on the Judiciary Committee, where he could hold up the confirmation of Trump’s pick to succeed departed Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Tillis has maintained a cheerful attitude despite being under fire from Trump, even when the president said in a Fox Business interview last week that Tillis is “no longer a senator.”
“I’m not dead yet,” a smiling Tillis quipped in a mock British accent, citing the famous Monty Python scene of a not-yet-dead man piled onto a cart of bodies.
