Sen. Tillis embraces VP pick, party platform at RNC, despite NCGOP censure

Sen. Thom Tillis was censured by the North Carolina Republican Party last year for supporting same-sex marriage.

But Tillis set aside his differences with the state party in a show of unity to attend the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

He made the decision to come after the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump on Saturday during Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

“I had it on the calendar to try and be here for a day,” Tillis told reporters in a conference room at a Hilton in Milwaukee. “But I thought, the events of last Saturday, the president’s focus on unity, that it was very important for me to be here.”

Other Republicans who weren’t planning on attending were also on their way to the RNC, including Sen. Ted Budd and congressional candidate Brad Knott.

Tillis arrived in Milwaukee Tuesday and plans to stay through Friday, allowing him to witness Trump’s acceptance of the party’s nomination.

And so far, the North Carolina Republican Party has welcomed Tillis with open arms.

“I’ve got a great relationship with the chair of the GOP, the district chair, the folks that are really serious about keeping the majorities that I helped gain in 2010,” Tillis said. “I can have a disagreement with anyone, but where you’re going to have problems with me, is when you engage in discourse that threatens the work that we’ve done since 2010, to turn the state around and maintain Republican majorities.”

Party platform and choice of JD Vance

He added that the new party platform — a narrowly focused 16-page document cut from 66 pages — no longer includes “the very plank that was used as a basis for censure.”

This year’s national Republican platform is silent on the question of same-sex marriage. Previous platforms have said marriage should only be between one man and one woman.

Delegates at an NCGOP convention voted in June 2023 to censure Tillis “for his blatant violations of our party platform,” The News & Observer reported. While the resolution didn’t cite examples, Tillis had voted for a law that codified the right to same-sex and interracial marriages, which conflicted with a plank in the state Republican Party platform that said “traditional marriage and family, based on marriage between one man and one woman, is the foundation for a civil society,” The N&O reported.

Tillis said it’s been under-reported how moderate the new platform is.

“I do think that the president has done a good job of also sending a very clear message on issues that I think divide Republicans and also alienate potential voters for a Republican base, and people ought to read the 16 pages of our platform,” Tillis said. “I’m very happy with it, and I know the president’s fingerprints are literally all over the document.”

Tillis said he is also supportive of Trump’s pick of Sen. J.D. Vance, a Republican from Ohio, as his running mate and said he considers Vance a friend.

“I think he’s a great pick,” Tillis said.

He added that he considers Vance a friend, and despite some public disagreements, they share many policy priorities in common.

“I think he’s a great pick,” Tillis said. “I think he improves our chances of winning in Ohio. We’re going to win in Ohio, but I think it improves our chances of winning the Senate race there.”

Personal attacks

Tillis said he’s hoping Vance, in a speech to the convention Wednesday, continues Trump’s calls for unity.

“I hope that we set an optimistic tone,” Tillis said. “We show respect for our political adversaries, our political opponents, but also not dehumanize them because that’s, I think, a part of the problem and political discourse today at either end of the spectrum.”

And Tillis said he believes that political discourse is what led to the violence over the weekend.

Trump was speaking on stage Saturday night when 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire from a nearby rooftop, law enforcement officials say. A bullet struck Trump in the ear, barely missing his skull.

But a person attending the rally, 50-year-old Corey Comperatore, died in the shooting and two others were seriously injured.

“Our rhetoric is actually mirrored sometimes in deadly ways,” Tillis said, “by, like, the shooter on Monday. It matters. It puts people at risk and it also takes us away from the things that people really want to hear, about what’s our future, what’s our priorities for America, what’s our priorities for North Carolina.

“But nobody should be surprised that it happened.”

The current session of Congress has gone down in history as one of the least productive. Intra-party battles among Republicans have taken lawmakers’ attention away passing policy.

In October, the House came to a complete halt after eight Republicans joined Democrats in ousting former Speaker Kevin McCarthy from his leadership role, at the behest of Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Republican from Florida.

On Tuesday night, Gaetz saw McCarthy giving an interview on the convention floor and tried to interrupt McCarthy by heckling him over not having a speaking role during the week’s events.

GOP infighting didn’t stop after the party coalesced behind its new speaker, Mike Johnson.

In March, Sen. Markwayne Mullin and Sean O’Brien, president of the Teamsters union, got into a heated exchange in a committee that threatened to escalate into a fistfight — the same day Rep. Tim Burchett, a Republican from Tennessee, accused McCarthy of elbowing him in the kidney.

And then there have been personal attacks by lawmakers both in speech and online.

“If you take a look at how the hyperbolic language over the past several years, it’s just continued to escalate,” Tillis said. “If that’s the only way you can get attention, number one, you’re not going to be an effective legislator and number two, you should wonder whether or not you should even be in this business.”

This story was originally published July 17, 2024 at 6:59 PM with the headline "Sen. Tillis embraces VP pick, party platform at RNC, despite NCGOP censure."

Danielle Battaglia

McClatchy DC

Danielle Battaglia is the D.C. correspondent for The News & Observer and The Charlotte Observer, leading coverage of North Carolina’s congressional delegation and elections. She also covers the White House. Her career has spanned three North Carolina newsrooms where she has covered crime, courts and local, state and national politics. She has won two McClatchy President’s awards and numerous national and state awards for her work.