Thom Tillis Just Told Todd Blanche He Has No Prayer Without This One Commitment

June 9, 2026 Cat2, Politics
Heidi Besen via shutterstock

Thom Tillis killed Trump's last AG nominee by himself.

Now the North Carolina senator is standing in front of Trump's new one – and making the same threat.

What Blanche says next will determine whether Trump has a Justice Department or a vacancy.

Tillis Has Already Proven He Will Pull the Trigger

This is not a bluff.

Tillis killed Ed Martin's nomination for U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C. in May 2025 with a single "no" vote.

Trump called Martin "unbelievable," posted on Truth Social urging Republicans to back him, and said losing the nomination was "disappointing."

None of it moved Tillis.

Now Trump has nominated Todd Blanche – his former personal attorney and current acting AG – for the permanent job, and Tillis has his hand up again.

"They better not have said for one minute that the people that beat up police officers were righteous people," Tillis told CNN Thursday. "You come even close to saying that, you don't have a prayer of getting my vote in Judiciary."

Not a warning. A condition.

How One Senator Controls the Math

The Senate Judiciary Committee has 12 Republicans and 10 Democrats.

Every Democrat votes no on Trump's nominees – that is guaranteed.

That means Republicans can lose exactly one vote before a nomination dies in committee.

Tillis is that one vote.

Martin, Kevin Warsh at the Fed, and a hold on every DHS nominee last January until Kristi Noem committed to testifying before the committee.

Each time, one senator reshaped what Trump could do with his own government.

Pattern, not coincidence.

Tillis has announced he won't seek reelection, which means no primary threat and no accountability to Republican voters in November.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune admitted Thursday it was "hard to say" whether Blanche can survive – because Tillis hasn't said yes yet.

A senator with nothing left to lose is the most dangerous kind.

What Tillis Is Actually Demanding

Two things are on the table.

First, January 6. Tillis wants Blanche on record condemning the Capitol rioters – no hedging, no nuance, no sympathy for any participant.

Clean condemnation or no vote.

Second, the anti-weaponization fund – the $1.776 billion account the administration has kept alive as a potential tool.

Tillis wants it legislatively killed before the confirmation hearing begins.

"Can you imagine what Democrats are going to do to that man during a confirmation hearing?" Tillis asked CNN. "Can you imagine how that could potentially influence a couple of our members?"

What Tillis is not saying out loud: he is using the Democrat playbook as leverage against a Republican president's nominee.

He is saying – I will let Democrats win unless Trump gives me what I want.

The Part That Should Make Conservatives Furious

The Democrats Tillis is now treating as a threat spent four years running the January 6 prosecutorial apparatus as a political weapon – charging grandmothers for trespassing, wiring up informants, and jailing Trump supporters while ignoring leftist violence that burned American cities in 2020.

Tillis knows this. He has been in that building the entire time.

What he is demanding from Blanche is not a condemnation of violence.

It is an endorsement of the left's entire framing of January 6 – the same framing that turned the Justice Department into a tool against the voters who sent Trump back to Washington.

Blanche is the mildest possible candidate for this fight: a career federal prosecutor, not a firebrand, whose main qualification is that Trump trusts him.

And even he has to pass Tillis's ideological test before he can run the department.

That is not a senator protecting the institution.

That is a senator who decided, on his way out the door, that his personal red line matters more than Trump's mandate, more than the voters who delivered Republican majorities, and more than the Americans who want a Justice Department that finally works for them.

Blanche can give Tillis what he wants and start his tenure already compromised – or Trump can make clear that one lame-duck senator does not get to set the terms of justice in America.

Sources:

  • Pam Key, "Tillis: If Blanche Doesn't Condemn J6ers, He Won't Be AG," Breitbart, June 4, 2026.
  • "Thune: 'Hard to Say' Whether Blanche Can Win Confirmation as Attorney General," Fox News/CNN Wire, June 4, 2026.
  • "Sen. Tillis' Vote Is Key in Blanche's Bid to Stay Atop the DOJ," Notus, June 4, 2026.
  • "Tillis Threatens Again to Block Trump Attorney General Nominees Who Excuse Jan. 6," Fox11Online, April 30, 2026.
  • "Trump Pulls US Attorney Nominee After Pushback from GOP Senators," Yahoo News/AP, May 2025.
  • "GOP Senator Blocks Trump DHS Nominees Until Noem Testifies Before Senate," Fox News, January 9, 2026.