Cassidy Unchained – After losing his Republican primary to Julie Letlow, Sen. Bill Cassidy has quickly moved into a new, more confrontational posture toward President Donald Trump—voting against the president’s proposed $1 billion ballroom project-linked priorities, attacking HHS
On election night, Sen. Bill Cassidy stood at the end of a campaign and tried to frame losing as something you handle like a grown man. If you lose “in a democracy,” he said, “you don’t pout, you don’t whine, you don’t claim the election was stolen.”
He then added he wasn’t “bothered by being attacked on the internet,” because “insults only bother me if they come from somebody of character and integrity — and I find that people of character and integrity don’t spent their time attacking people on the internet.”
Three days later, Cassidy’s tone toward President Donald Trump had changed in ways that were hard to miss.
Cassidy, a physician from Louisiana, is now a lame-duck senator after losing his primary to Rep. Julie Letlow (R-LA). Trump endorsed Letlow over Cassidy and over another MAGA-aligned Republican—former Rep. John Fleming (R-LA), a co-founder of the House Freedom Caucus who currently serves as Louisiana’s state treasurer. Letlow and Fleming advanced to a primary runoff, and Cassidy was left out.
Cassidy’s fall out with Trump didn’t start with this primary. Trump was already on his “bad side” because Cassidy was one of seven Senate Republicans who voted for conviction in the president’s second impeachment trial. That trial took place in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. After that vote, the Louisiana Republican Party censured Cassidy.
Once the primary ended, Cassidy’s dissent sharpened. He ramped up criticism of Trump’s Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and that escalation has been part of the animosity swirling around his remaining days in the Senate.
On Tuesday—after Trump announced he was endorsing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton over Cassidy’s fellow Republican incumbent, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX)—Cassidy offered a blunt response to a reporter. telling him he thought Paxton was a “felon.” Paxton was indeed charged with multiple felonies in a securities fraud case. and though he managed to keep it dragging along for years. he reached a deal with prosecutors in 2024 that allowed him to avoid pleading guilty if he paid restitution to the former clients he was accused of defrauding. He also completed 100 hours of community service and took 15 hours of legal ethics courses.
That same Tuesday, Cassidy also signaled he would oppose Trump’s ballroom project. The project has a chunk of funding the president wants entangled in Senate procedural rules for budget reconciliation bills. Cassidy followed up by voting to discharge a Democrat-sponsored War Powers Resolution on the Iran War.
The discharge vote brought a clear message: Cassidy joined a small group of Republicans in backing the resolution. Cassidy was one of four Republicans who voted for it. The other three were Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), and Rand Paul (R-KY). The vote was 50 to 47, with John Fetterman the lone Democrat to oppose.
The timing matters. Cassidy’s impeachment vote. his censure by the Louisiana Republican Party. his now-public friction with Kennedy. his hostility toward Trump’s courtroom allies—Paxton in Texas—and his resistance to Trump-linked legislative priorities are all landing in the same narrow window. It is the kind of political convergence that turns a lame-duck into something else entirely.
By Tuesday night, the storyline around Cassidy had already changed. A Washington correspondent. Nancy Vu. described him as entering his “Cassidy Unchained” era and listed ways he had been thwarting Trump just in the three short days since losing his primary. Vu pointed to Cassidy’s decision to vote against the $1B ballroom project. his defense of his 2021 vote to convict Trump. his signaling that he would look to hold RFK Jr. “accountable. ” his calling Paxton a “felon” after Trump endorsed him. and his vote in support of the Iran war powers resolution.
Cassidy’s concession speech had promised a kind of disciplined composure. But in the days after his defeat, the contrast felt less like calm restraint and more like a final, deliberate willingness to push back—hard—where Trump wants him to fall in line.
Bill Cassidy MISRYOUM Politics News Donald Trump Louisiana primary Julie Letlow John Fleming Texas Paxton John Cornyn Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ballroom project War Powers Resolution Iran war Susan Collins Lisa Murkowski Rand Paul