Sen. Thom Tillis told Trump "right now we are failing" in a private text on 22 May, and Politico Playbook published it Friday, the same morning the Labor Department reported employers added 29,000 jobs in September and unemployment rose to 4.2%. The department first counted July as a gain. It now counts July as a loss of 10,000 jobs.
Tillis, the North Carolina Republican who is not running again, wrote the text the day Trump called him "weak and ineffective," a "Nitpicker" and a "QUITTER" on Truth Social. "I still want to help but I don't take this bullsht from anyone, including you Mr. President," Tillis wrote, according to screenshots Politico published and three outlets quoted. "Save that sht for the cowards who don't care if you fail. I care if you fail and right now we are failing."
He sent it in May. The voters caught up in September. AP-NORC polled 2,140 adults between 24 and 28 September and found 31% approve of the job Trump is doing, the lowest of his second term in that poll. On the economy he is at 26%, down from 32% in July. Sixty-five percent say prices are higher because of his policies. Seventy-one percent disapprove of how he is handling Iran. Two weeks after the first text, Trump called Tillis a loser, and Tillis wrote a second one that answers a question every Republican senator has asked himself in private: what would I say if he threatened me?
