Sen. Tillis labels Hegseth confirmation vote his biggest career regret

Retiring Sen. Thom Tillis calls his 2025 vote confirming Pete Hegseth as Defense secretary the biggest regret of his career and says other Republicans went along out of fear.

Just the News reports that the North Carolina Republican makes the claim in his forthcoming book, “How to Lose Friends and Antagonize Presidents,” reviewed ahead of publication by the Associated Press.

Tillis’s yes vote in 2025 brought the 100-member Senate to a 50-50 split. Vice President JD Vance then cast the tie-breaking vote that sealed Hegseth’s confirmation.

The 66-year-old lawmaker, who announced in June he would not seek a third term, has clashed with President Donald Trump. He now says that the Hegseth decision tops his list of career mistakes as he finishes his time in office.

January 2025 vote left Vance to break the tie

Breitbart notes Tillis cast what became the deciding Senate vote in January 2025. That tally forced the vice president to tip the balance for the Defense secretary nominee.

Hegseth’s confirmation process faced allegations about management style, treatment of women, and excessive drinking. Tillis still voted to advance him, then watched Vance finish the job.

That sequence sits at the center of the regret Tillis records in the book. He presents the choice as one he must continue to carry.

Readers following Senate-Pentagon fights will recognize the pattern of sharp exchanges, including cases where Hegseth fired back at Senate critics over military operations and oversight.

Book says fear kept Republicans in line

Tillis says that he is not alone in the second thoughts.

In the book he states:

"I know for a fact that there are others like me,"

He continues with a longer passage on why some colleagues complied early:

"Republicans who agreed to go along with the early demands of the Trump team no matter how ridiculous they were, believing that failing to do so would mean the end of their political career, and who now see that things have gone way too far."

He labels the Hegseth confirmation itself in stark terms.

Tillis calls that vote the “biggest regret of my career.” The line appears across accounts of the manuscript as he prepares to leave the chamber.

Related coverage has tracked other Republicans who first backed Hegseth and later urged a change, including one retiring GOP senator who voted to confirm him and then called for a replacement.

RFK Jr. and Gabbard draw similar second thoughts

The Washington Examiner reports Tillis also voices early reservations about other Trump Cabinet picks, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard.

On Kennedy’s path to Health and Human Services, Tillis goes further in the book and ties the outcome to lasting damage.

He says:

"I guess it’s easy to say now, but I’m the one who has to live with that vote and all the havoc Kennedy’s tenure has caused the country as a result."

Those passages frame a broader critique of nominations he ultimately allowed to move forward. He presents the regrets as personal and unfinished business as his term winds down.

Congressional pressure on the Defense secretary has continued on multiple fronts, from War Powers disputes to reported friction inside the administration, such as the episode in which Trump demanded jail for leakers after a Camp David confrontation with Hegseth over missile supplies.

June exit decision came after a break on spending

Tillis was first elected to the Senate in 2014. His political career began in 2002 on the park board in Cornelius, North Carolina.

He announced in June that he would not run again. Breitbart links that choice to his break with Trump over the tax and spending cuts package.

With reelection off the table, the book becomes the vehicle for the reassessment. Tillis uses it to revisit the Hegseth vote, the Kennedy confirmation, and the climate he says pushed Republicans to accept early demands they later questioned.

Midterm stakes remain high for the party he is leaving. Senators still in the fight have warned about the costs of a Democratic wave, including scenarios Tim Scott outlined about impeachment threats and Court packing if control flips.

Lawmakers also keep pressing Hegseth directly on authorities and operations, as when Rep. Massie accused him of violating the War Powers Resolution over Iran-related military action.

Tillis’s manuscript gathers those confirmation choices into one farewell argument. He casts the Hegseth vote as the one that weighs heaviest, names colleagues he believes share the discomfort, and ties the Kennedy outcome to consequences he says the country still faces.

A hard vote cast in real time still belongs to the senator who cast it, long after the book tour begins.