WASHINGTON – As Senator Thom Tillis approaches the conclusion of his tenure in Washington, he is speaking his mind more freely than ever.

“I’ve had enough of the nonsense,” expressed the Republican senator from North Carolina, criticizing President Donald Trump’s advisors for entertaining the idea of a U.S. military intervention in Greenland during a recent Senate session.

This incident is just one of many in the early days of 2026 where Tillis, free from the pressures of seeking reelection, has voiced opinions that many of his Republican peers might avoid, wary of potential political repercussions from the White House.

Tillis, along with Alaska’s Senator Lisa Murkowski, are among the few Republicans who joined a congressional visit to Denmark amid Trump’s controversial stance on Greenland. He did not hesitate to critique the Justice Department’s probe into Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. As Trump allies attempt to reshape the narrative surrounding the January 6, 2021, insurrection, Tillis supported the commemoration of the Capitol police officers’ bravery with a plaque.

His discontent seems particularly aimed at some of Trump’s senior aides, including Stephen Miller, the deputy chief of staff at the White House.

“I don’t want some staffer telling me what my position is on something,” he said after Miller gave a forceful interview on CNN saying Greenland “should be part of the United States.”

“He made comments out of his depth,” Tillis added.

A sense of freedom

The moves reflect the sense of freedom lawmakers often feel when they know they won’t have to face voters again. They’ve helped attract swarms of reporters who follow Tillis through the halls of Congress as he offers candid thoughts on news of the day. And they’ve won support from the handful of other Republicans who sometimes cross Trump, including Murkowski, who called out “good speech!” as she passed him in the Capitol following his floor remarks on Greenland.

For the 65-year-old Tillis, who has won elections in one of the most politically competitive states, the approach is notable for the way in which he’s pushing back against the White House. He’s hardly staking out a position as a never-Trumper and repeatedly — often effusively — expresses support for the president.

Rather, he’s targeting much of his criticism at senior White House aides, sometimes raising questions about whether Trump is receiving the best advice at a consequential moment in his presidency as the GOP enters a challenging election year.

“I really want this president to be very, very successful,” Tillis said this week. “And a part of his legacy is going to be based on picking and choosing the right advice from people in his administration.”

Heading into the midterms, Tillis said, “I want to create a better environment for Republicans to win.”

Tillis, who had a challenging childhood involving multiple moves, worked at an accounting and consulting firm before entering politics. He was the speaker of North Carolina’s House of Representatives from 2011 to 2015. He said this week that he approaches his concerns from a business perspective.

“Sometimes there’s just things that people need to say, ‘not a good idea, not in our best interest, hard to implement,” he said. “I probably should have started by saying that’s what I did in the private sector for about 25 years.”

Beyond Miller, Tillis has raised questions about Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s immediate response to the fatal shooting of Renee Good by an ICE officer in Minneapolis. Hours after the shooting, while an FBI investigation was still unfolding, Noem defended the officer and said Good “attempted to run a law enforcement officer over.”

Speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill the next day, Tillis said he was “surprised by the level of certainty in her comments” and suggested such rhetoric influenced Trump, who was also quick to defend law enforcement.

“She’s advising the president so the president’s comments had to have come I assume through the advice of the secretary,” he said.

A balancing act on Jan. 6

Tillis’ balancing act was on particularly vivid display earlier this month on the fifth anniversary of Jan. 6, when he helped broker the deal to publicly show the plaque honoring officers that was held up by House Speaker Mike Johnson. Speaking from the Senate floor, he called the attack “one of the worst days in my 11 years in the U.S. Senate.”

He lauded the staff and U.S. Capitol police who defended lawmakers and helped ensure that Congress ultimately certified Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election. But he also struck fiercely partisan tones, blaming Democrats for embracing a movement to defund the police and criticizing media coverage of protests that turned violent during the summer of 2020.

Tillis framed Jan. 6 as a “wonderful stress test for democracy” before arguing that the Biden administration went “overboard” by prosecuting “people who were dumb enough to walk into the building but they weren’t the leaders.” He then pivoted to criticism of Trump’s sweeping pardons of Jan. 6 defendants, including those who attacked police.

But even then, he didn’t directly blame Trump, again focusing on his advisers.

“The president, on the advice of somebody in the White House — and I hope I find out the name of that person — also pardoned criminals who injured police officers and destroyed this building,” Tillis said. “If you had that happen to your office or your business, would you think well they were just a little hotheaded and let them go and not prosecute them? Or would you hold them accountable for destroying the citadel of democracy?”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment on Tillis’ assessment of Trump’s aides. The senator rejects any suggestion that he’s stepped up his criticism because of his impeding retirement, calling the notion “hysterical.”

His relationship with Trump hit a low point last summer when he opposed the president’s sweeping tax and spending cuts package. Trump accused Tillis of seeking publicity and said on social media that the senator was a “talker and complainer, NOT A DOER.” Tillis announced his retirement soon after voting against the measure, one of only two Senate Republicans to do so.

Trump has been more sanguine in response to Tillis’ more recent comments. Asked this week about the senator’s criticism of the Fed probe, Trump said, “That’s why Thom’s not going to be a senator any longer, I guess.”

“Look, I like Thom Tillis,” Trump said. “But he’s not going to be a senator any longer because of views like that.”

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Associated Press writer Stephen Groves in Washington contributed to this report.