(The Center Square) – Improvements in the budget reconciliation bill, the North Carolina senator ultimately decided, were not satisfactory to “pass the president’s agenda” as he said one month ago.

U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., was one of two votes from his party late Saturday night against passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. House Resolution 1, he said, had tens of billions of dollars in lost funding for North Carolina hospitals and rural communities.

“This will force the state to make painful decisions like eliminating Medicaid coverage for hundreds of thousands in the expansion population, and even reducing critical services for those in the traditional Medicaid population,” Tillis said. “The Senate should return to the House’s Medicaid approach. That plan includes commonsense reforms to address waste, fraud and abuse; and implements work requirements for some able-bodied adults to ensure taxpayer-funded benefits are going to our most vulnerable neighbors.”

Tillis wanted to vote for the measure.

“There is a lot for North Carolinians to love about the rest of the One Big Beautiful Bill, including extending the historic Trump tax cuts, increasing the child tax credit, providing historic funding for border security, and ending wasteful spending,” he said after his no vote. “We can and must accomplish this without hurting our rural communities and hospitals, and without jeopardizing access to care for hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians who need it the most.”

The Congressional Budget Office, in an analysis shared by Democrats of the Finance Committee on Saturday, estimated cuts to Medicaid to reach $930 billion. Tillis released a Finance Committee report specific to the state saying the state’s budget would have a $32 billion impact to cover hospitals over the next decade.

Other published reports had the figure closer to $40 billion.

For more than a decade after passage of Obamacare, Republican majorities of the Legislature flatly rejected expansion of Medicaid because of costs. Finally passing it two years ago was historic in multiple storylines.

North Carolina became the 41st state to expand Medicaid in 2023 as part of a deal by a Republican majority General Assembly and former Democratic-Gov. Roy Cooper. It was Cooper’s chief campaign and gubernatorial priority. The deal cemented when a separate standalone bill on expansion mandated a two-year budget bill was required to be enacted with or without the governor’s signature.

In the $60.7 billion package 84 days late of the July 1 start to the fiscal year, the General Assembly included universal school choice for all K-12 students – known as opportunity scholarships – including private schools. It also did not provide funding Democrats have long sought related to what is known as the three-decades running Leandro litigation. Cooper didn’t sign or veto, and both became law.

The state got a $1.6 billion bonus from the federal government for enacting Medicaid.

Passed 51-49 just before midnight Saturday evening with Vice President J.D. Vance in the building just in case of a tie, the vote was procedural and begins debate. A final vote could come Sunday or Monday.

The House of Representatives – where its version passed 215-214 – would need to agree to changes. President Donald Trump hopes to sign it on or before Friday.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., was the other Grand Old Party vote against.

All 45 Democrats and two independents caucusing with them also voted no. Sens. Ron Johnson, Rick Scott, R-Fla., Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Cynthia Lee, R-Wyo., were among late votes swinging in favor. Sens. R-Wis., Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, swung sooner.

Tillis and Collins are considered most dangerous Republican seats to flip or change in the 2026 midterms.

“Numerous people have come forward wanting to run in the primary against ‘Senator Thom’ Tillis,” Trump wrote overnight on social media. “I will be meeting with them over the coming weeks, looking for someone who will properly represent the great people of North Carolina and, so importantly, the United States of America.”

Rumors of Trump hopeful to primary Tillis are not new. Candidate filing period opens at noon Dec. 1 and runs through noon Dec. 19, and the state’s senior senator – and third-longest tenured among the state’s 16 in the Beltway – has $5.6 million cash on hand. That’s 11th-highest of senators’ reeelection bids.

In late May, Tillis had said, “Republicans must extend the Trump tax cuts and pass the president’s agenda. Failure is not an option. Here’s what needs to happen next in the Senate: We will make some improvements to the Big, Beautiful Bill, push for more spending cuts, and get the job done.”

Tillis has taken heat back home in western North Carolina for comments related to the embattled Federal Emergency Management Agency. And it’s only part of potential opponents’ early campaign fodder.

He has agreed in principle with Trump on reducing health care costs but not on the means to the end. Tillis was the last to agree for confirmation of Pete Hegseth to lead the Pentagon. And on a 12-10 GOP majority panel, it was Tillis in the Judiciary Committee who stalled Ed Martin’s confirmation route for a U.S. attorney seat in the District of Columbia.

(The Center Square) – California, says the leader of the USDA and a North Carolina congressman, has the right to enforce its Proposition 12.

The state line, however, is where that enforcement should end.

In the battle of pork production, U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins affirmed that position in a congressional hearing this month. This week, U.S. Rep. David Rouzer, R-N.C., reminded Tarheel State farmers of her allegiances.

“North Carolina pork producers have a friend at USDA in Secretary Brooke Rollins,” Rouzer said, expressing gratitude for her push back against Prop 12. “Secretary Rollins is right, California has the right to do what California wants to do, but NC-07 farm families feed the nation, and they deserve fair, science-based regulations, not California mandates.”

Proposition 12 is the colloquial term for the Farm Animal Confinement Initiative. Egg-laying hens, breeding pigs and veal calves have space requirements, and sale of products from the animals is prohibited if not meeting the standard.

Rouzer comes from the 7th Congressional District, the southeastern portion of the state where trips on country roads often mean getting behind a hog truck hauling to the world’s largest pork production facility in the Bladen County crossroads community of Tar Heel. North Carolina’s $111.1 billion agriculture industry includes a No. 3 national ranking in pork production behind Iowa and Minnesota.

California’s market includes about 40 million people and 15% of domestic pork consumption. Compliance with the Golden State’s law can require new construction or retrofits with enormous fiscal impact.

In the Committee on Agriculture, Rollins told panelists, “No one is more of a believer in federalism, the 10th Amendment, and our Founders vision of the state’s rights to be able to be their own laboratories of innovation. When those ideas, those rules and laws begin to impact other states in such a negative way, that is not what our Founders intended.

“The extreme impact of Prop 12, especially on our pork producers – I believe this is a bipartisan question. We may not all agree in this room, but I think most agree even on the Democrat side of the House, that it cannot stand. I stand in full support of your effort.”

Rollins said her department may be able to inject something toward a solution.

“California has a right to do what California wants to do,” she said. “The minute that crosses the border and begins to compromise, in such a significant way, our pork producers we need to act.”

(The Center Square) – Saying eradication of dangerous gangs such as Tren de Aragua goes well beyond individual arrests, a North Carolina congressman’s proposal would create a six-month plan identifying tactical methods, funding and origins.

The strategy, leadership and presence of criminal threats by the multi-country gang would be uncovered and shared by the Department of Homeland Security and relevant federal agencies, says the bill filed by U.S. Rep. Brad Knott, R-N.C. The Tren de Aragua Border Security Threat Assessment Act, known also as House Resolution 4070, has moved through the Border Security and Enforcement Committee and next is up for a voice vote.

“We are for legal immigrants who will help this country,” said Knott, a former federal prosecutor. “Every other category needs to be removed and precluded from coming here in the first place and that’s what we’re working toward.”

The proposal, as of Friday morning, was yet to attract a Democrat in the cosponsor list. Republicans there number 23.

“This bill that we got out of committee, going back to the Colorado incident, arresting the individual who has an AR-15 or an AK-47 on the sidewalk – that needs to happen,” Knott said. “But that’s not where it stops. And this commissions the Department of Homeland Security to really address the root cause, to go beyond the flower, beneath the surface, to the root. And if you kill the root, the whole plant dies.

“This is going to leverage a study to say how they are operating so effectively in our country. Once we figure out how they’re operating, we’re going to have a tactical plan for all 50 states, every law enforcement officer in the country will be a part of this. Arresting the drug dealer, arresting the guy that’s walking around with the pistol or a rifle, that needs to happen. But it’s wholly insufficient. It is going to the root that is going to solve this problem.”

Knott, in a published interview, not only believes TdA is operating in his home state but throughout the country. He varied on exacts, at one time saying in 16 to 20 states, another saying 20 to 25, and saying, “We’d be naïve not to believe they’re in 45 to 50 states.”

“In North Carolina, absolutely, there’s been a very real increase in arrests where it’s been confirmed that criminals with drugs, firearms, human trafficking and so forth, are tied to TdA,” Knott said. “In regard to my confidence level that they are in 50 states, I am confident they are in 50 states or a significant portion of states. Again, these people have marched from Venezuela all the way up the western hemisphere into the United States and into Canada. They have become very proficient at blending in, utilizing benign channels and then poisoning their communities with carnage, death, drugs and destruction.”

Knott says Tren de Argua operates not only in Venezuela but has expanded into Chile, Bolivia, Brazil, Peru and Mexico.

Knott said the gang is here through multiple years of access and proximity. He believes they are “underneath the surface” actively strengthening their presence.

“I saw that in my career in law enforcement,” he said. “The best criminals are the ones you don’t see until it’s too late.”

Knott’s proposal comes in a week where speculation on infiltration by immigrants from the Middle East has ramped up. Reports vary, and Knott does not discount any of the chatter.

“Given the scale of it, we have got to move forward together in lock step to address them as holistically as we can,” Knott said. “And yes, sleeper cells from the Middle East, that’s a big problem. Again, if you want to wait until we know that they’re here to commit us harm? I don’t think so. We need to get ahead of it.”

Like other Republicans, he squared blame on the last four years during the administration of President Joe Biden. Under his watch, Knott estimates the true total of illegal immigrants at 20 million and says former Vice President Kamala Harris shares in that blame.

“This problem, it’s a mortal wound to the country if we don’t fix it,” Knott said. “When you had a border policy like Biden and Harris, adversaries from around the world utilized it. They exploited it. It wasn’t passive. It was an active solicitation, where we went around the world to bring people into this country illegally.

“Of course, Iran exploited that policy. Or course China exploited that policy. But so did an immediate threat like TdA.”