Senator Tillis sat down for a painful interview with WBTV in Charlotte last night and, after dancing around the issue of Medicaid expansion, again reiterated his stance that North Carolina should not expand health care access for working North Carolinians, saying that he’s against a “broad based expansion.”

Tillis was asked by WBTV anchor Jamie Boll about the fact that more than a million North Carolinians lack health coverage and was pressed to answer directly whether he still supports Republican efforts to oppose Medicaid Expansion. Tillis signed the 2013 law that made it illegal for North Carolina to expand Medicaid – a position that he bragged about last summer (when he was locked in a brutal primary campaign). But Tillis has also tried to dodge his record on this issue in the past, such as when he tried to flip-flop on Medicaid Expansion just days before the 2014 election because he knew his opposition to Medicaid Expansion was toxic with general election voters.

Watch the painful exchange here:

That’s just one highlight of Senator Tillis’ latest cringeworthy interview. Others include:
Getting called out on his votes to explode the deficit. After the reporter notes that Tillis helped explode the deficit with the 2017 Republican tax law, Tillis says “That’s right, and we need to do something about it.” When the reporter pushed Tillis on what he would do, Tillis gave a non-answer about how we need to take a look “at the whole of government” – without ever grappling with how his corporate tax giveaway exploded the deficit.
Refusing to answer the central question of the Senate trial and saying he wasn’t “looking at” whether the President pressured a foreign country. When asked whether it was ok for the president to pressure a foreign government for information on a political rival, Tillis demurred, saying, “Whether or not there was pressure, I don’t know. It is not something I was looking at for the acquittal vote.” When pushed again, Tillis said, “I don’t know what a perfect call is.”
Explaining – by accident, for a second time – why the U.S. Senate should have heard from former NSA John Bolton. When asked if he’s worried about future revelations from Bolton, Tillis said, “If that information were to come out, we’ll deal with that when it comes out” – despite the fact that he could have found that information out during the Senate trial yet voted to block subpoenas for witness testimony, including Bolton’s .
Watch the full interview online here.