Tillis Calls His Hegseth Vote His Biggest Regret

The deciding vote that put Pete Hegseth in charge of the Pentagon now sits at the top of Senator Thom Tillis’s list of career regrets. In a new memoir, the North Carolina Republican writes that his January 2025 yes vote is the “biggest regret of my career.” He adds that he “should’ve stopped” Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from leading the health department. Those lines land with a quiet weight. They are not the words of a politician looking for a fight. They read like a man sitting alone with a choice he cannot undo.

Tillis was the pivot point in that confirmation. The Senate split 50 to 50. Vice President JD Vance broke the tie. Hegseth took the oath and moved into the Pentagon. At the time, Tillis said he had done his due diligence. He spoke with the White House. He spoke with people who had worked with Hegseth. He spoke with Hegseth. He said he could not corroborate the worst allegations about drinking and treatment of women. So he voted yes. He defended that vote for months after, even as critics pressed him.

Now he writes differently. His book, titled How to Lose Friends and Antagonize Presidents, arrives this week. In it, he does not hide behind process. He names the vote. He names the regret. He does not say he was tricked. He says he made a call with the facts he had, and he lives with what came after. That distinction matters. It keeps the statement from sounding like a cheap reversal. It also keeps it from sounding like an excuse.

I read those lines over coffee this morning and felt a small ache. Not because I expected every senator to be right all the time. Because I know how often people double down when they are wrong. Admitting a mistake in print, with your name on the page, is rare in Washington. It does not fix the outcome. It does not bring back the months of headlines and the stress inside the Pentagon. It does, at least, treat the public like adults who can handle plain speech.

Hegseth’s tenure has not been smooth. Reports in the summer of 2025 quoted Tillis saying the defense secretary seemed out of his depth. He called some moves unprofessional. He pointed to a halt in arms shipments to Ukraine that was not cleared with the White House. He said the execution at the Pentagon felt sophomoric. Those comments came before the book. They set the stage for what Tillis writes now. They also show how a vote can age badly, even when the voter thought it was sound at the time.

The RFK Jr. line cuts a different way. Tillis writes that he “should’ve stopped” Kennedy from becoming Health and Human Services secretary in the early days of President Donald Trump’s second term. He does not lay out a new smoking gun. He says three Republican doctors in the conference had suggested Kennedy should be confirmed, and that is why he did it. He adds that he has to live with the havoc Kennedy’s tenure caused. That sentence carries a kind of private math. It is not performative. It sounds like something a person says when the lights are off.

What should a reader take from this? Not a verdict on Hegseth or Kennedy. Not a scorecard for Tillis. The value is in the honesty. Politics trains people to speak in layers. To say one thing today and another tomorrow without ever admitting the shift. To treat every choice as the only possible choice. Tillis breaks that habit here. He does not claim he knew it all along. He does not blame staff or leaks or bad intel. He owns the vote and the regret.

That will not satisfy everyone. Some will say it is too late. Some will say it is a bid for a softer exit, since Tillis is not seeking reelection. Both points have merit. Timing shapes how we hear things. But late honesty is still honesty. And it is better than none.

I keep returning to the phrase biggest regret of my career. It is stark. It does not ask for sympathy. It does not try to turn the page. It just sits there, on the page, in black and white. For ordinary people who watch these fights from the outside, that kind of clarity is rare. It does not fix policy. It does not undo a confirmation. It does, at least, treat the public record like something that should match the private truth.

The book also includes sharp words for President Trump. Tillis calls him thin skinned. He describes profane text exchanges over a January 6 fund. He criticizes other cabinet picks. Those details will draw their own headlines. They matter less to me than the core admission about Hegseth. That is the piece that will echo. It is the piece that shows a senator wrestling with a choice that shaped the country’s defense leadership.

There is a simple lesson here, if we want one. Votes have consequences. Some consequences show up fast. Others show up slowly, over months of management stumbles and policy misfires. When a lawmaker says a vote was his biggest regret, it should make the next lawmaker pause. It should make the next voter pay attention. Not to the drama. To the weight of the choice.

Tillis cannot change the 50 to 50 tally from January 2025. He cannot unbreak the tie. He can only write what he now believes. He has done that. The rest is on the record. The rest is on us.