On Tuesday, October 6, 2026, Republican Senator Thom Tillis appeared as a guest on CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins. During the interview, host Kaitlan Collins helped sell his book, How to Lose Friends and Antagonize Presidents.
Collins, of course, jumped on his use of “MAGATS”—pronounced “maggots.”
Kaitlan Collins:
“Is he, I mean, what you refer to in your book as MAG-ATS? Maggots?”
Thom Tillis:
“MAGATS, yes.”
Kaitlan Collins:
“Is that—would you consider qualify Pete Hegseth as one of those?”
Thom Tillis:
“Oh, a 100 percent. I mean, do you honestly—”
Kaitlan Collins:
“And can you define what that is for people who have not read your book, like I have?”
Thom Tillis:
“MAGA. We all know what Make America Great Again is.
Then TS, Trump Sycophants. And you got people that, ‘Oh that’s a great idea, Mr. President.’ Or ‘Mr. President, I got a great idea for you.’
You know what? When you tell the President he’s got a great idea, when in your heart of hearts you know it’s not? Then you’re lying to the President. You’re lying to the President. You’re misleading him.
We owe it to the President to give him the upward feedback, as members of the U.S. Senate, and as members of his Cabinet, to make his legacy better. And if they have a tough discussion, if he doesn’t like it, then you ought to be able to go find a job somewhere else. But at least you can look in the mirror and be proud of how you served.”
Collins also read him a passage from the book that “alarmed” her about people who think Trump can do whatever he wants, including talk of a third term.
Collins read from his book:
“I don’t know how seriously to take these people. Then again, I wasn’t sure how seriously to take the psychos who stormed up the steps of the Capitol building on January 6th until they effing did it. So what do I know?”
That “heart of hearts” line is his opinion. He is claiming to know what other people secretly believe, then calling them liars for not saying it out loud. “Psychos” is another dismissive label. There is much more to the story of January 6 than reducing the people he describes to an insult. Tillis also called President Trump a snowflake in his book, which is a strange charge against a president who has spent a decade absorbing nonstop investigations, impeachments, indictments, asassination attempts, and media hostility and is still standing.
Meanwhile, the insults give CNN something to highlight and help him sell his book.
Asked if he worries something like that could happen in 2028, Tillis said no. He said the president understands the Constitution and is only toying with people.
Earlier in the interview, Tillis told Collins he has been a Republican all his life and will be one “till the day I die.” He said he is “going to do everything I can” to help Republicans keep the Senate. He spoke as though losing the House were a foregone conclusion.
Tillis said Republicans should stay loyal, while he drawing a line between “traditional Republicans” and the people he dismisses as “MAGATS.”
He released a book titled How to Lose Friends and Antagonize Presidents a few weeks before the midterms. In it, he calls the defense secretary and others “MAGATS” and Trump sycophants. He compares third-term talk to the “psychos” who stormed the Capitol. And he says it all on the fake news.
That is a strange way to help the party he says he wants to win.
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