Tillis: Guilfoyle, LaCivita, Blair ‘need to answer a lot of questions’

Retiring Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said Thursday that Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle and Trump administration consultants Chris LaCivita and James Blair “need to answer a lot of questions” following recent news reports.

On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Guilfoyle asked President Trump donor Eric Deters, the former co-owner of Snappy Tomato Pizza, to wire $100,000 to her American Express account in a way that wouldn’t leave a paper trail.

And The New York Times reported Tuesday that LaCivita and Blair were in the Balkans advising a pro-Russian political party in Republika Srpska, a small self-governing territory in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and made hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“But Guilfoyle, LaCivita, Blair — they need to answer a lot of questions because, on its face, it’s at best horrible optics, and at worst, something that’s worthy of a termination,” Tillis told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on “The Situation Room.”

The senator called the report on Guilfoyle “horrible optics” and compared it to the report on LaCivita and Blair.

“From the outside, it looks awful. I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, but those are very clearly legitimate questions that should be asked [by] members of Congress,” Tillis said.

On the latter story, Blitzer asked the North Carolina Republican if Trump should fire the two advisers. Tillis pointed to Srpska’s ties to Russia, which he said is looking to influence elections in Europe as it wages war in Ukraine. He warned that Russia “is playing us like a fiddle in terms of showing any sort of olive branch towards them.”

“I mean, the way that they are trying to spin what they are doing in Ukraine and what [Russian President Vladimir] Putin ultimately wants to do through the whole of that part of Eastern Europe is very concerning to me,” Tillis said. “We should not have any fingerprints in the Republic of Srpska.”

When asked by Blitzer if he would support investigations into alleged abuses of power and corruption in the White House if Democrats reclaim Congress in November, Tillis said he would “if they’re done properly.”

He made similar remarks about LaCivita and Blair Wednesday night, telling CNN’s Kasie Hunt that the two “should get out of that relationship” with Srpska “very, very quickly,” calling a it “destabilizing force.”

Guilfoyle, the ex-wife of California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), was engaged to Donald Trump Jr. until the two broke up in 2024. She worked as a Fox News co-host until 2018.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio while in Greece on Wednesday declined to comment on the Journal report about her. He told reporters that the story had been “literally posted a few hours ago” and that he did not know “if it’s true or not true.”

Trump said he would fire LaCivita and Blair if their work conflicted with the White House, saying the two are “outside consultants.”

“They are allowed to do work for others, just like all consultants in Washington, D.C.,” he wrote on Truth Social. “I do not have any idea who else they work for but will, on reflection, ask them and, if there’s a conflict, I will terminate them, immediately!”