Thom Tillis is expected to vote to confirm Todd Blanche, after a hearing in which the senator asked nothing harder than whether Blanche likes StayPuff marshmallows. The vote is now almost certain to advance, putting Tillis back in the middle of the fight over another Trump nominee.
That is why his name is drawing fresh attention today. Tillis has been cast as a tough talker, but this time he did not press Blanche in any meaningful way, and the soft questioning leaves little doubt about where his vote is headed.
The exchange matters because it gives a clean picture of how Tillis is handling this nomination: he is not blocking it, and he is not even making much of a show of resistance. For Blanche, that is the kind of Senate treatment that usually helps a nomination move forward without drama.
It also fits a pattern critics have already pinned on Tillis. The source portrays him as caving again when it comes to a Trump nominee, which turns a routine confirmation step into something larger about how much room there really is for Republicans to break with Trump when it counts.
What comes next is simple. Tillis is expected to cast the vote that decides whether Blanche advances, and the only real unknown left is not whether the senator will support him, but how much resistance, if any, he will pretend to offer before doing it.
