Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) has been one of the most outspoken Republican critics of President Donald Trump’s controversial $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” to compensate Trump supporters who were prosecuted by former President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice.
But the Republican nominee to succeed him, Michael Whatley, said he emphatically supports Trump’s proposal.
Asked at a Brunswick County GOP event on Wednesday if he will be on the president’s side on the fund, which has faced fierce objections from senators on both sides of the aisle, Whatley committed to doing so in remarks first reported by Punchbowl News.
“I will be because I have been with him since 2015,” Whatley said on an audio recording of the event. “We’ll see how they implement it and what they’re going to do with it. I mean, they overstretched with the ridiculous persecution.”
A spokesman for Whatley did not respond to a request for comment on the candidate’s statements.
Stein: Whatley’s ties to Trump ‘not a positive’ in North Carolina’s upcoming US Senate election
The fund, which is the result of a settlement between Trump and his own Department of Justice over the leaking of his tax returns during his first term, led Senate Republicans to scuttle plans for a vote to fund ICE and the U.S. Border Patrol on Thursday.
Of particular concern to Senate Republicans was the prospect of payouts for Jan. 6 rioters, which prompted a lawsuit from Capitol police officers who served on that day against the Trump administration to halt the fund.
Tillis invoked those concerns after a meeting with Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche according to reporting by CNN, calling the fund a “payout pot for punks” and “stupid on stilts.”
“Under what circumstances would it ever make sense to provide restitution for people who either pled guilty or were found guilty in a court of law?” Tillis said. “I mean, my God, do you see where this would head? These people don’t deserve restitution — they, many of them, deserve to be in prison.”
But throughout the 2026 primaries, Trump has made it clear there can be no room for daylight between members of his party and himself, especially when it comes to his personal convictions.
Two of Trump’s top critics, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), lost primaries to Trump-endorsed challengers in the past week, and Tillis dropped his own reelection bid shortly after breaking with the president on his “One Big, Beautiful Bill” last summer.
Friday morning, Trump took a shot at Tillis in a Truth Social post over his criticism of the fund, calling the senator “weak and ineffective.”
“When I told him that I would not, under any circumstances, endorse him for another run, too much work and drama (he couldn’t have won, anyway!), he immediately quit the race and publicly announced that he was going to ‘retire.’ I said, ‘Wow, great news, that was easy!’” Trump wrote. “Now he can have all the fun he wants for a few months, with some of his RINO friends, screwing the Republican Party. In the end it will only get bigger, and better, and stronger, than ever before!!!”
Speaking last December at a rally in Rocky Mount alongside Whatley, his endorsed candidate in the primary, Trump riffed on his lawsuit against the federal government.
“There’s never been a case like this. Donald Trump sues the United States of America, Donald Trump becomes president, and now Donald Trump has to settle the suit,” Trump told a crowd of supporters to laughter. “I hereby give myself one billion dollars — actually, maybe I shouldn’t give it to charity, maybe I should keep the money.”
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