GOP senator refuses to be bullied by Trump in nomination fight: 'I'm not dead yet'

Donald Trump’s drive to remake the Federal Reserve into a tool of his economic policies is meeting an immovable object in the form of Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), who is using his position on the Senate Banking Committee to hold up the nomination of Kevin Warsh.

According to Politico's Jordain Carney and Jasper Goodman, Tillis is demanding Trump order his Department of Justice to drop its investigation into Fed Chair Jerome Powell before any deal on Warsh is possible.

"I'm not dead yet. I'm not very tauntable. That's part of growing up in a trailer park — you kind of get used to this stuff," Tillis said bluntly in an interview, brushing off Trump's intimidation tactics.

Tillis holds all the leverage over the persistent Trump. The Senate Banking Committee is holding Warsh's nomination hearing next Tuesday, and Tillis controls the deciding vote. He's also signaling he'll weaponize his Senate Judiciary position if the administration tries to push through an Attorney General successor to Pam Bondi without backing down on the pursuit of Powell.

Some of Tillis' fellow Republicans privately admit they don't understand the White House's approach, which they believe risks antagonizing Tillis further and empowering Powell even more in the public eye. Publicly, a growing chorus of Republicans is calling on the DOJ to end its investigation into whether Powell lied to Congress about Fed cost overruns.

Powell has denied any wrongdoing and has described the investigation as "a pretext to target him for not lowering interest rates as aggressively as Trump wants."

Tillis was blunt about the administration's prosecutorial overreach: "It's kind of like, guys, what are you doing? You're watching too many cop shows thinking that that's cute — go up there intimidating a witness. For goodness sake — that's so bush league. … They're upping the pressure, but they have nowhere to go."

"They're only digging themselves into a deeper hole," Tillis advised, telling DOJ officials to "take the shovel out of their hands."

Trump made matters worse during a Fox News interview this week by threatening to fire Powell from the Fed. Tillis immediately shot back with a reality check: "He won't have the right to terminate him, and all we've done is wasted time that could have otherwise resulted in a new chair and a new Fed board member under this president."

The report adds that Senate Republicans are united in their belief that Tillis won't give in no matter what Trump tries to pull next.