Prominent figures in the “Make America Great Again” movement formed an online pressure posse to criticize Sen. Thom Tillis after the North Carolina Republican announced he would oppose President Donald Trump’s initial pick to be the top federal prosecutor in the District of Columbia.

But while the president on Thursday bowed to the opposition and scuttled the nomination of Ed Martin, the influence campaign against Tillis was straight out of a MAGA playbook that, in many ways, was written by its leader, Trump himself.

MAGA influencers like Laura Loomer and Charlie Kirk, among others, posted highly critical content on social media about the North Carolina Republican’s refusal to support Martin’s nomination — which Trump said Thursday he would withdraw — over the conservative lawyer and activist’s support for nearly 400 Jan. 6 Capitol riot defendants who were charged with assaulting law enforcement officers that day. All were among the nearly 1,600 rioters pardoned by Trump upon his return to office.

Trump told reporters on Thursday that his administration had “somebody else that we’ll be announcing over the next two days” for the post of U.S. attorney for the nation’s capital, indicating that he would find a job within the Justice Department for Martin. Asked a day earlier about Tillis’ decision to oppose Martin, Trump first said that he was unaware of the situation and that individual GOP senators should vote their conscience on his nominees.

“It’s disappointing because I know Ed. He’s very talented. Crime is down in Washington, D.C., street crime, violent crime. … So I didn’t know that, but if anybody voted against him, I feel very badly about it,” the president said in the Oval Office. “But that’s really up to the senators.

“If they feel that way, they have to vote the way they vote,” he added. “They have to follow their heart, and they have to follow their mind.”

That was much tamer language than Trump and some of his most influential loyalists have used in the past when other Republican lawmakers have stepped out of line on his nominees or legislative demands. 

The Tillis tussle was reminiscent of how MAGA world panned Sen. Joni Ernst and threatened her with a primary challenge after the Iowa Republican was initially cool to Pete Hegseth’s nomination for Defense secretary.

“If the king wants a different senator from Iowa, we’ll have one. If he doesn’t, we won’t,” Iowa talk show host Steve Deace said on his program in December, according to the Los Angeles Times, appearing to refer to Trump as royalty. “I think someone’s got to be made an example out of, whether it’s Joni or someone else.”

Deace said on social media that he was “willing to primary her for the good of the cause if I’m assured I have Trump’s support going in.”

And in March, Trump himself led the charge against one of the House’s most conservative Republicans, Kentucky’s Thomas Massie, over his opposition to a stopgap spending measure that later became law.

“Congressman Thomas Massie, of beautiful Kentucky, is an automatic ‘NO’ vote on just about everything, despite the fact that he has always voted for Continuing Resolutions in the past,” Trump wrote on social media. “HE SHOULD BE PRIMARIED, and I will lead the charge against him.”

At the time, an anti-Massie meme that made the rounds on social media criticized the congressman over his legislative history, contending that he was guilty of “hypocrisy” and accusing him of having a “decade-plus” record of “zero results.”

‘RINO Senator’

During Trump’s first term, Republican lawmakers like Sens. Bob Corker of Tennessee and Jeff Flake of Arizona ended up leaving Congress after criticizing the president and then finding themselves on the receiving end of Trump-led pressure campaigns, which included attacks online and in conservative media.

While Trump took a softer tone Wednesday when asked about Tillis, some influential members of the MAGA movement have mashed the gas, especially on social media.

“How can you say Tillis ‘always puts America First’ when [Trump] is the leader of America First and Tillis is blocking the Trump agenda?” Loomer wrote on X. “For years now, I have called for Tillis to be primaried.”

She also lambasted National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Tim Scott, R-S.C., for helping fundraise in support of Tillis, one of the most vulnerable senators on the ballot next year.

Scott “is working to undermine and sabotage President Trump’s America First agenda by fundraising for RINO, Trump-hating GOP Senator Thom Tillis. Since April 12th, Senator Scott has sent at least 4 mass fundraising emails for Thom Tillis with the email headline ‘Thom Tillis will ALWAYS put America First,’” Loomer wrote. “Why is Senator Tim Scott using NRSC resources to support a RINO Senator who was censured by his own North Carolina GOP and who doesn’t support Trump’s picks?”

Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA and a conservative radio host, joined in as well.

“Tillis’ logic is absurd. He ignores or forgets that many J6ers who entered the Capitol were waved in by Capitol Police. Many simply looked inside the building or took a selfie and left. Those people did NOT deserve to spend a day in prison,” Kirk wrote on social media.

Tillis had angered MAGA figures when he told reporters that lawmakers had to be “very, very clear that what happened on January the 6th was wrong.”

“It was not prompted or created by other people to put those people in trouble. They made a stupid decision, and they disgraced the United States by absolutely destroying the Capitol,” he said. “There were some people that were over-prosecuted, but there were some two or three hundred of them that should have never gotten a pardon, and [Martin] agreed with that.”

The subsequent backlash from MAGA world came despite Tillis saying he could support Martin’s nomination for another federal post. “If Mr. Martin were being put forth as a U.S. attorney for any district except the district where Jan. 6 happened, the protest happened, I’d probably support him,” the senator said before adding: “But not in this district.”

‘Bigger threat’

Tillis’ Senate office and reelection campaign organization did not respond to inquiries seeking a reaction to the MAGA pressure campaign and whether the GOP senator may have to beef up his security.

Michael Bitzer, a political science and history professor at Catawba College in North Carolina, suggested before Trump’s decision to withdraw Martin’s nomination that the greater threat to Tillis would be if the president actively went after him, or gave a North Carolina surrogate instructions to do so.

“Then it could become a bigger threat in next year’s tenuous political environment,” Bitzer said, “especially in the primary.”

Tillis has already drawn a handful of primary challengers so far, though none with high profiles or the support of influential Republican figures.

Notably, Tillis has been on the receiving end of a pressure campaign before. His office in March released audio recordings of threatening telephone calls, saying that Tillis and other Republicans had been targeted after Trump returned to office on Jan. 20 and suggesting those threats came from the political left.

“My favorite was the old guy, the really old guy, who threatened to … bash your head in with an axe handle,” one woman said. “That one was hands down my favorite.”

Another suggested he might assassinate the senator.

“I might drive to North Carolina,” the caller said, “and shoot him dead in the street like the dog he is.”