GOP Sens. John Cornyn (Texas) and Thom Tillis (North Carolina) are leaving the Senate after this year.
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In a high-profile setback for President Donald Trump, a Senate committee postponed its vote on the nomination of Todd Blanche as the next attorney general after two Republican senators threatened to withhold their support — a move that would almost certainly tank Blanche’s nomination if the administration can’t win them over.
Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina) — who are leaving the Senate after this year and are no longer tethered to the president — said they won’t back down until the Trump administration commits to limiting provisions of a deal struck between the Justice Department and president to resolve a lawsuit he filed against the IRS over leaking his tax records.
At the center of the standoff is a provision that would have created a nearly $1.8 billion taxpayer pool of money to compensate people claiming they were victims of political prosecutions. Blanche has pledged that the department wouldn’t proceed with the fund but has so far resisted calls to put that in writing.
The senators also raised concerns about Blanche saying he will honor a stipulation that would shield Trump, his family and their businesses from past tax claims.
The vote was scheduled to take place at 9 a.m. Thursday, but Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, announced Wednesday that he was postponing it to give Cornyn and Tillis more time to address their concerns.
The pushback — which could halt Blanche’s nomination in the committee stage — shows how congressional Republicans are showing more willingness to stand up to Trump on important matters.
The North Carolina Republican announced last summer that he would not seek reelection this year.
He has expressed concern that the payout fund could end up rewarding defendants who attacked police during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Last summer, Tillis bucked his party by opposing its One Big Beautiful Bill, saying it would harm North Carolina, particularly its hospitals and rural communities. “I will always do what is in the best interest of North Carolina, even when that puts me at odds with my own party,” he said in a June 28, 2025, statement, becoming one of only two Senate Republicans voting against moving forward with debate on the act.
Trump was quick to knock Tillis for the break, writing on Truth Social that Tillis “is a talker and complainer, NOT A DOER!”
That same week, the president also said he would meet with people who wanted to run against Tillis in the primary to look for a candidate “who will properly represent the Great People of North Carolina and, so importantly, the United States of America.” Tillis responded by declaring that he would not run for reelection, opening up a swing seat that Democrats are targeting in November’s midterm elections.
Three Republicans, including Tillis, ended up voting against the Trump-backed budget reconciliation bill, which narrowly passed.
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In January, Trump suggested that Tillis was not seeking reelection because he was out of step with the president.
“That’s why Thom’s not going to be a senator any longer, I guess. Look, I like Thom Tillis, he’s a nice guy. But he’s not going to be a senator any longer because of views like that,” Trump said.
Tillis maintained that the two had cordial relations, and he rejected the idea that critiques of the White house were only possible because he was not running for reelection.
Tillis has largely avoided directly criticizing Trump but has castigated some of his advisers, including White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and Kristi L. Noem, whom Trump fired as homeland security secretary in March.
Four-term senator Cornyn lost his Republican primary in May after Trump made a late endorsement of his opponent, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a loyal ally of the president.
Cornyn had nearly become the most powerful Republican in the chamber in 2024 and had never lost an election in his state before his May defeat.
Despite Cornyn having been long loyal to Trump, with a near perfect voting record with the president in both terms, they have had some ups and downs.
Trump in 2022 called Cornyn a “RINO” — or “Republican in name only” — after the senator helped negotiate bipartisan gun safety legislation.
Cornyn suggested in 2023 that Trump could not win the 2024 election, saying he thought “President Trump’s time has passed him by.”
In endorsing Paxton, Trump wrote that he was “someone who has always been extremely loyal to me and our AMAZING MAGA MOVEMENT.” He called Cornyn “a good man” but said he “was not supportive of me when times were tough.”
Cornyn publicly embraced Trump’s agenda during his second term, even proposing to rename a highway after him, but he has become increasingly critical since losing his primary.
Jeremy Roebuck, Theodoric Meyer, Perry Stein and Matthew Choi contributed to this report.
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