Trump knocks Cassidy as ‘disloyal lightweight’

Former President Trump ripped into GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy (La.) Monday, calling him “one of the “worst” senators in the upper chamber and a “total flake.” 

In a two-part post on Truth Social, Trump attacked the Louisiana Republican for being one of the seven GOP senators who broke with their party and voted to convict the former president of inciting the rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. 

“One of the worst Senators in the United States Senate is, without question, Bill Cassidy, A TOTAL FLAKE, Republican though he may be. He campaigned in the Great State of Louisiana on TRUMP, TRUMP, TRUMP, and was absolutely thrilled when he was able to get my very important Endorsement,” Trump wrote Monday. 

“Cassidy is a total ‘stiff,’ but Louisiana didn’t need him to protect them, because they had ME, 100%! Nevertheless, when the Democrats’ Impeachment Hoax started, this Lamebrain Senator actually voted against me,” he added later. “He thought it was so “cool,” until he got home, and was literally pelted with everything that could be used for such an inglorious happening, especially words, with lots of foul language thrown in.” 

Last month, Cassidy doubled down against Trump’s rhetoric surrounding the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection after the former president said he would be willing to “free” some of those convicted of crimes committed during the riots. 

“We’re a nation of laws,” Cassidy said during an interview last month with NBC News’s “Meet The Press.” “Those folks were convicted. Many times, they pled guilty. If you plead guilty…obviously you’re not a patriot.”

Trump, who endorsed Cassidy’s reelection bid in 2020, said he has been so consumed with “the Communists, Fascists, and Lunatics who have weaponized our Government,” against himself that he has not thought a lot about Cassidy. 

“But this is not someone you want to be in a foxhole with — Very disloyal and not very smart!” he quipped, adding later, “Bill Cassidy is now shunned in his own State as a disloyal lightweight, and it’s a beautiful thing to watch. THANK YOU LOUISIANA!”

The former president claimed he decided against endorsing Cassidy when the GOP senator mulled a bid for Bayou State governor in 2023 because he liked Jeff Landry, then-attorney general, more. Landry clinched the gubernatorial race last fall, flipping the governor’s mansion to red for the first time in eight years. 

Trump’s lengthy Truth Social post alleged Cassidy does not “mind the migrant invasion” in the U.S.

The Hill reached out to Cassidy’s office for comment. 

Cassidy criticized Trump’s recent remarks about illegal immigrants and argued they “reflected poorly,” in the NBC News interview last month.

“The president’s rhetoric has reflected poorly…regarding folks who are coming here illegally — illegally — and they shouldn’t be, but in a dehumanizing fashion. And that’s why again, many people continue to have reservations,” Cassidy told NBC News. 

Cassidy at the time lamented the circumstances surrounding the 2024 election with Trump and President Biden as their parties’ nominees. 

“The best thing going for Donald Trump running for president is that he’s running against [President] Joe Biden, about whom many people also have reservations. And frankly, that’s why people are considering third parties. So it’s a sorry state of affairs,” he said. 

Cassidy, who was elected to the Senate in 2014, has yet to endorse Trump’s reelection bid. At least 33 GOP senators and 137 House Republicans have already done so.