Lindsey Graham says Bill Cassidy lost his primary because he ‘tried to destroy’ the president
Sen. Bill Cassidy lost the Louisiana primary because the Republican senator “tried to destroy” President Trump, Sen. Lindsey Graham said Sunday and warned that any GOP lawmaker who opposes Trump could face the same fate.
“Those who try to destroy Trump politically, those who stand in the way of his agenda, are going to lose,” Graham told NBC News. “Bill Cassidy lost because he tried to destroy Trump. This is the party of Donald Trump.”
Cassidy, a two-term senator and physician, was eliminated from their respective primary races on Saturday by Trump-endorsed Rep. Julia Letlow and state Treasurer John Fleming, both of whom advance to the June 27 runoffs. Letlow received about 45% of the vote, Fleming 28% and Cassidy about 25%, according to the Associated Press. He became the first US senator to lose a primary since 2017.
Trump, who supported Letlow in January and publicly called Cassidy “disloyal” for months. famous Truth Social’s Saturday night result: “Good to see your political career is over!”
When Graham asked NBC if he was glad to lose Cassidy as his colleague, he said no. “I love Bill. I thought he was a great senator, but he made a political decision,” she said, pointing to Cassidy’s vote to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial in 2021. Graham also predicted that Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie, who has clashed with Trump, would lose his own primary on Tuesday.
Speaking on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, Massie said his own polling and fundraising efforts tell a different story than the one Graham is selling. “You can tell I’m ahead in the polls and they’re desperate,” Massie told host George Stephanopoulos, pointing to the “tens of thousands of donors” and “millions of dollars” pouring in from the grassroots.
Cassidy came out swinging.
In his concession speech Saturday night in Baton Rouge, he took an unmistakable elbow to the president who spent years trying to end his career.
“When you participate in democracy, sometimes things don’t turn out the way you want them to,” Cassidy told supporters, according to NBC News correspondent Sahil Kapur. “But you’re not sulking. You’re not whining. You’re not claiming the election was stolen.”
Graham once looked like the next Cassidy.
In the hours following the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, the South Carolina senator took to the Senate floor and declared the end of his longstanding alliance with Trump. “Trump and I have had a very difficult journey,” he said that night. “All I can say is ignore me. That’s enough.”
The break didn’t last long. Graham in a few weeks I’m back playing golf at Mar-a-Lago He worked with Trump and spent the next several years rebuilding himself to become one of the president’s most reliable defenders on Capitol Hill and on cable news.
That summer, Graham was walking toward what he thought the country had heard. “This was perceived as ‘I’m out, don’t count me out,’ so I’m kind of done with the president,” he said. said New York Times, August 2021. “No! What I tried to say to my colleagues and to the country was: ‘This process has reached a conclusion.'”
