Tillis blasts Hagan for missing committee meetings, briefing on Islamic State

Republican Thom Tillis called Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan’s attendance record at Senate Armed Service Committee meetings a “disgrace” Monday, ramping up his attacks on Ms. Hagan for missing a classified briefing on the Islamic State for a fundraiser in New York.

“I mean, Senator Hagan saw her way clear to miss a classified briefing on ISIS on the Armed Services committee to go to a cocktail fundraiser, literally on Park Avenue,” Mr. Tillis said on “Fox and Friends.”

“This is an example of her misplaced priorities, and not showing up for the Armed Services committee meetings for more than half the time in this past year as ISIS has emerged as a threat is a disgrace, and that’s what the people in North Carolina need to understand, that Senator Hagan’s priorities are not the priorities of the state, with the third-largest military presence of any state in the nation,” he said on the show.

Hagan campaign spokesman Chris Hayden responded by saying that Ms. Hagan has a 98 percent voting attendance record on the committee, has chaired more than 20 hearings of the Emergency Threats Subcommittee, and “most importantly, she has been clear and decisive in taking action against ISIS while Speaker Tillis refuses to offer specifics.”

“Three star general and former Director of the Army National Guard has praised her work on national security issues, but Speaker Tillis is desperate to distract from the fact that his hometown paper called on him to resign for missing so much work to fundraise,” Mr. Hayden said.

The growing threat of the Islamic State, and the Obama administration’s response to it, has emerged as a key issue in the U.S. Senate race in North Carolina and other congressional races around the country. Amid heavy criticism, the campaign of a Republican challenger for a U.S. House seat in Arizona recently edited an ad that had shown footage of an American journalist just prior to being beheaded by the terrorist group.

In a recent debate, Ms. Hagan hit back at the charges by criticizing Mr. Tillis, the speaker of the state House in North Carolina, for missing work to attend fundraising events of his own and for not outlining an actual plan to combat the terrorist threat, saying she is “well informed” on the issue through a host of other hearings and briefings on the matter.

“But I think Speaker Tillis has been spineless because he will not say what he would do” to combat the threat, she said.

Mr. Tillis replied by saying there’s a “big difference” between “missing a couple legislative votes versus having a presence … being able to be notified about the threat of ISIS.”

Ms. Hagan leads Mr. Tillis by 2.4 points in RealClearPolitics’ average of recent public polling on the race. Libertarian Sean Haugh is also running.