Should President Trump fire them? What do you think?

You know, I'm a go where the facts lead sort of a guy.

But let me tell you about the facts of the Republic of Srpska.

I've met with Dodik before.

Now, Dodik's not the president now, but he's the most powerful person in this republic.

And it's a tenuous relationship in Bosnia and Herzegovina with this region of the Republic of Srpska.

Dodik is buddies with Vucic.

What's your reaction to Trump? I mean...

But looking at it now, which of the figures surrounding Trump in this second term, which do you think has given him the worst advice?

No doubt, Kristi Noem is probably first on the list.

I'm glad she's gone.

She did a poor job.

She was just not up to the task as an executive.

I'm not making a judgment about any of these people at a personal level.

She simply wasn't qualified for the role.

The cuts to Medicaid and the cuts to rural hospitals that came in that bill, do you think that's why the president, along with diesel fuel prices, is having such a tough time in red states with a big rural community, such as Iowa or North Carolina or in Nebraska, where he is today?

think it's

bad timing.

I mean, we're at a time where President Trump, who I support the majority of the time, you know, ran on a campaign of holding China accountable.

I'm worried about the trend of spending more time with despots and less time with Democratic leaders of nations.

So you agree the president has taken a softer approach toward China in his second term?

Look, I mean, this president in a speech in this term took on the Chinese for degrading and stealing voter data.

Whatever has changed had to have been at a confidential level, because I haven't seen any public basis for the sea change that we see right now in our posture towards China.

You've got to have a relationship with them.

How do you see all this fitting together?

Well, first, I think you know my position on Pulte.

I don't think he should be in the administration, let alone in charge of DNI.

He is singularly responsible for 702 beginning to go dark because of a lack of confidence of him in that role.

So he needs to get out.

We need to get a credible person in the role.

And frankly, I think ultimately we should end DNI and go back to the intelligence community.

How confident are you that Todd Blanch would do the

Senator Tillis, what have your biggest takeaways been from this trip overall so far?

Well, number one, the populations of Taiwan, Japan and Seoul are solidly pro-American and they're pro-American alliance.

They understand the threat that China poses to the region and to the United States and really to the world.

They are looking for every opportunity to work with us.

And they are experiencing some of the effects of the engagement in Iran.

And I agree that, ultimately, the countries that rely so much on the Strait of Hormuz have to help secure it.

But it's very difficult to ask them to do that when you've just made an announcement that you're going to intensify operations for the next three weeks.

Do you agree with that?

Do you have an understanding of where he's getting that impression from?

Well, you know, I've said that they shouldn't confuse or conflate two issues.

The suggestion that we should have an oversight hearing to see how well this building project with the Fed has gone is fine with me.

In fact, I think we should have that kind of oversight for the East Wing construction.

The upfit of the Air Force One that's kind of a mini Air Force One because it can't fly out of U.S. borders.

All of that is just good governance oversight.

None of that has anything to do with an investigation that I believe was dead on arrival.

Senator, if you had the call from Treasury or from the White House about this, when was the last time you had the conversation on the issue?