“Told You To F—k Yourself”: Outgoing RINO Rips Trump In Profanity-Laced Rant

Donald Trump speaking at a microphone in a black-and-white photo — Photo: Joseph Sohm / Shutterstock

Outgoing Senator Thom Tillis published private texts telling President Trump he would have said “go f— yourself” if Trump had ever directly threatened him with a primary challenge.

Story Snapshot

North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis released profanity-laced texts he sent to President Trump earlier this year.
The messages appear in Tillis’s upcoming memoir, “How to Lose Friends and Antagonize Presidents,” out next week.
Tillis directly disputes Trump’s public claim that Trump threatened him with a primary challenge.
The feud had been building for months before the book excerpts went public.

What The Texts Actually Say

Politico Playbook published two messages Thursday that Tillis sent to Trump this year. In one, dated May 22, Tillis wrote, “I still want to help but I don’t take this bullsh*t from anyone, including you Mr. President.” He added a warning about Trump’s political standing, writing that he cared if Trump failed and that “right now we are failing”.

The second text, from June 6, pushes back hard on a claim Trump has made publicly. Tillis wrote, “As I have said before, you NEVER threatened me with a primary challenge,” then added that if Trump ever had, “I would have immediately told you to f*ck yourself, and I would have announced my retirement immediately”. That is a specific, dated denial, not a vague complaint.

A Book Built On A Grudge

These texts are not leaked gossip. They are printed material from Tillis’s own forthcoming memoir, meaning he chose to put them in writing for public sale. Politico reported in August that the book takes aim at what Tillis calls “a group of grifting sycophants and useful idiots” surrounding Trump, naming allies like Stephen Miller and Pete Hegseth along the way. A sitting senator airing this much dirty laundry on his way out the door is rare, even by Washington standards.

A Rift That Didn’t Start With A Book Deal

This public break has been building for months. Tillis repeatedly broke from Trump on the Senate floor, and reporting described a feud that had “simmered” long before any book excerpt surfaced. Yet just weeks before these texts, Tillis told Politico he and Trump still had “a good, professional relationship” and had exchanged “a flurry” of calls and texts over the prior month. That contrast matters. It suggests the relationship cooled fast, or that Tillis downplayed the tension until it was time to sell a book.

What’s Missing From The Public Record

Readers only have Tillis’s side of this exchange. Trump’s actual replies have not been published, and no contemporaneous proof has surfaced confirming or denying whether Trump ever made the specific primary threat Tillis denies receiving. That is a real gap. A senator’s memoir excerpt is not sworn testimony, and until the full thread or Trump’s own account appears, this remains a one-sided snapshot of a two-sided argument.

Why This Fits A Bigger Pattern

None of this is new to how Trump manages his party. Primary threats have become a standard tool for enforcing loyalty among Senate Republicans, used against multiple members who broke from him on key votes. Tillis announced he would not seek reelection after one such threat materialized. What’s unusual here isn’t the pressure campaign — it’s a retiring senator cashing in on it with a book deal, timed for maximum attention on his way out.

Conservatives who value plain dealing should weigh both halves of this fairly. Trump’s leverage tactics are well-documented and consistent with how he’s run intraparty politics for years. But Tillis picking a profit-driven book launch to settle scores, after publicly insisting the relationship was fine just weeks earlier, raises its own questions about motive and timing that deserve just as much scrutiny as the president’s.

Trump has not released a point-by-point rebuttal to these specific texts as of this writing. Until he does, or until the full exchange surfaces, voters are left comparing Tillis’s printed account against Trump’s long public record of saying exactly what he means, usually without needing a book deal to say it.