Sen. Thom Tillis’ sudden willingness to challenge Donald Trump is being met with more eye-rolls than applause from North Carolinians, many of whom say the Republican senator has discovered his backbone only after it stopped being politically risky.
Tillis drew headlines this week after slamming a Department of Justice probe into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, calling it an attack on the Fed’s independence and vowing to block any Trump nominee to replace Powell until the investigation is resolved. In a sharply worded statement, Tillis warned that Trump administration advisers were actively undermining long-standing guardrails meant to keep the central bank insulated from political pressure.
But for many North Carolina residents, particularly those discussing the move on Reddit, the substance of Tillis’ criticism mattered less than its timing. One commenter wrote:
“‘Too Late Tillis’ is what I call him. He always talks a good game, but it’s always way too little, way too late.”
The dominant sentiment was not surprise that Tillis was speaking up, but irritation that he waited until now. As one highly upvoted comment put it bluntly: “It’s easy to stand up to Trump when you’re not running for reelection.”
That theme echoed throughout the thread, with users accusing Tillis of following a familiar Republican pattern: quiet compliance while power is on the line, followed by carefully calibrated dissent once the electoral consequences fade. Several commenters compared Tillis to other GOP figures who found their voice only at the end of their careers, arguing that moral clarity loses its impact when it arrives after years of acquiescence.
Others went further, describing the move as pure political theater. Critics pointed out that while Tillis criticized the DOJ, he stopped short of directly condemning Trump himself, reinforcing the belief that even now, his resistance has limits. “His words and his actions are two completely different things,” one commenter wrote. “He’ll say he’s going to stand up and then he’ll fold. He always does.”
Still, the reaction wasn’t universally dismissive. A smaller but vocal group argued that any Republican pushback against Trump was better than silence. Tillis’ senior role on the Senate Banking Committee gives his threat to block nominees real leverage, and some users urged fellow North Carolinians to pressure him to follow through rather than write him off entirely.
That nuance, however, did little to blunt the prevailing anger. For many, Tillis’ record overshadows his recent rhetoric. Commenters accused him of riding Trump’s coattails for years, only to “pretend to have some sort of backbone” now that his political future is no longer at stake.
In the end, the North Carolina citizens’ reaction paints a picture of a senator whose late-breaking defiance has landed with a thud among his constituents. Even those willing to concede that Tillis’ stance on Powell could have real-world consequences framed it as a bare minimum, which is an overdue gesture rather than a redemption arc.
