Welcome to Off Message. I'm Isaac DeVare. Today's guest, North Carolina Senator Tom Tillis.

It's strange times in the Republican Senate conference these days. John McCain is proudly on a final

mission to pull his party back from Trump and his conference back from furthering the unraveling

of an institution he spent 30 years in.

Tennessee Senator Bob Corker is teed off with the liberation of a politician who's personally

popular among his colleagues and not running for re-election, leaving reporters asking all the other

senators whether they do in fact believe everything he said, but just haven't spoken it out loud

or on the record.

The list goes on.

Senators don't know what to make of Trump.

They can't figure out when the House is going to get itself together.

They're worried for both policy and politics sake about not getting anything done.

Few are excited about the prospect of Roy Moore from Alabama, joining them if he wins in December.

And now they're headed into what should be a layup midterm cycle answering questions about

whether Mitch McConnell should even be majority leader and looking over their shoulders at what exactly Steve Bannon's up to.

All of this was on Tillis's mind when we sat down in his office in Dersen, the Senate office

building, just across the street from the Capitol.

Tillis was elected in the 2014 Republican wave, knocking out first-term Democrat Kay Hagan,

but he'd already gained quite a bit of notoriety and fame from his time as Speaker of the North

Carolina State Legislature. We had Roy Cooper, the new governor, on a few months ago, and fame from his time as Speaker of the North Carolina State Legislature.

We had Roy Cooper, the new governor on a few months ago, and he talked about how upset he is with

what's happened to the way the legislature functions and the gerrymandered lines that favor Republicans.

...