Bulwark Takes - Trump’s Revenge Tour Takes Down Another Republican Senator

Episode Date: May 17, 2026

Bill Cassidy tried to survive Trump’s wrath after voting for his impeachment. It didn’t work. Sam Stein and Sarah Longwell take on Cassidy’s crushing third place finish, Lindsey Graham’s comments about “Trump’s party,” and what it means for Republicans who cross Trump.

Hey, everyone, it's me, Sam Stein. Managing out with the Bullwark, and I'm here with Sarah Longwell, our publisher. We are going to be talking about the pretty dramatic loss last night of Senator Bill Cassidy in his primary in Louisiana. The primary, you basically go to a runoff. Top two candidates make it. Bill Cassidy, the incumbent, two-term incumbent senator finished third. Now, there's a couple of reasons why, but the main one is basically he voted to convict Trump after Trump's impeachment in the House. following January 6th, 2020.

Our Constitution in our country is more important than any one person. I voted to convict President Trump because he is guilty. Yeah, that was enough. Trump went off on the Montreal. Beautiful. I voted to convict President Trump because he is. Oh my God. And Cassidy lost pretty convincingly.

So I have a few takeaways here, but Sarah, what's your main takeaway? A few things. One, if you listened to the focus group podcast that I did with Tim about a week ago, it was clear as day this is what was going to happen. The voters in the group were sort of anyone but Cassidy and how they were feeling about things. And their reasoning was, yes, they saw him as a traitor to Donald Trump in the party. They also had complaints about his role in COVID and masking and things like that. They don't like his stance on vaccines. But it was a lot. very clear that it was really about seeing him as a traitor to the party. My main takeaway, though, I've seen some things today in the results where people say, you know, this is what happens if you cross Trump. You end up gone. And there's some truth to that. Analytically, there's real truth to that, right? There's not a lot of people who have either voted to impeach Trump or voted, well, mainly voted to impeach him. But there's, in other ways, cross him in major ways, like the way that Tom Massey is currently crossing him on the Epstein files. It's tough to survive because Donald Trump does still

control a chunk of the primary voting base, a big enough chunk to usually get his way in Republican primaries. And Donald Trump, it has always mattered more to him to attack and control Republicans than it has to beat Democrats. Like in 2022, the reason that Democrats overperformed, one of the reasons, there were a couple. But one of them was that Donald Trump endorsed maniacs who were extraordinarily loyal to him, and they would go on to lose more competitive general elections. So Donald Trump still does control the base. But also, this is the main takeaway for me. If you're going to cross Trump, you got to go down swinging like Liz Cheney. You can't do this. I'm going to vote to have Trump permanently barred from the party, because I think that what happened on January 6th was so egregious,

which I think is the correct take. And I appreciate that Cassidy did that. But to then go on and say, to get back in Maga's Good Graces, I have to confirm RFK Jr. and a radical anti-vaxxer that I know is going to cost American lives when he himself is a physician, a doctor, I think was one of the most, it's always harder when somebody shows you that they have character in certain places. And then they run away. from the right thing. Like they do the right thing and run away from it, which I think if Cassidy, he was going to lose a Senate seat the second that that vote was cast, but he could have lost today with integrity, with his integrity still intact. But because he both showed integrity and then ran away from it, he ended up in the sour spot with voters. And so he loses his seat and his

integrity all at once. Yeah, I want to touch base on this. The idea of doing a middle ground type, I can jiu-jitsu my way into getting through this primary while showing some spine against Trump. Just not, there's no evidence, right? Can you think of one Republican lawmaker who stood up to Trump and then got back in his good graces and enough that they could survive? Like, I can't off the top of my head. Only in 2016, like your Marcos, your Lindsay Graves, everybody, Ted Cruz, right? Everybody who in 2016, those guys all hugged Trump the hardest in order to rehabilitate their images. but subsequent efforts against him have all failed.

Yeah, not a single person who cast an impeachment vote or conviction vote has managed to find their way back into his good graces, period. Although, Susan Collins, maybe Susan Collins? Maybe, I guess. They know they need that seat. And so he's careful about Collins. He doesn't attack her like he does Murkowski. Right.

But even it's fine. And it's also like... Like yesterday as well, in addition to going off on Cassidy, Trump had this leet about Lauren Bobert, who couldn't. It's like, of all people, Lauren Bobert, he went off on her, wondering if someone could run against her in the Colorado primaries now, idiotically. He didn't realize the actual filing deadline passed. It's impossible to run against her. But it's because she voted to release the Epstein files, just like Tom Massey. And so you could be the biggest sycophant in the world, you cross them once, and you're going to get, you know, you're

going to get his rap, unless you're Susan Collins, I suppose. And you could take two lessons from that. One is that you can have just absolute, you know, you can be completely obsequious with respect to Trump. You can just bow it on to him, do whatever he wants. And you can have a, you know, somewhat sturdy political career. You're going to, you're going to struggle potentially in a general election, depending on the situation. But you'll be confident that Trump won't go after you. Or you can have, you know, some convictions. And Cassidy just absolutely. abandoned his convictions. And the biggest, you pointed to the most obvious case study of that, which was he essentially allowed RFK Jr. to become our Health and Human Services Secretary.

And he did it and he knew it was a disaster. And the reason that we knew it was going to be disaster is because he himself went on the Senate floor and he insisted that he got assurances from RFK Jr. that he wouldn't act in an abnormal or problematic way. And if you have to have to go on the Senate floor and say, oh, I've been told that this crazed lunatic with respect to vaccines will not be a crazed lunatic with respect to vaccines because he's a clear thing by me. That's when you know that you're doing something wrong. So I want to go back into the archives and play that speech that Cassidy gave on the Senate floor explaining why he was going to vote for RFK Jr.

Mr. Kennedy, the administration committed to a strong role of Congress. Aside from he and I meeting regularly, he will come before the help committee on a quarterly basis if requested. He committed that the Help Committee chair, whether it's me or someone else, may choose a representative on any board or commission formed to review vaccine safety. If he has confirmed, HHS will provide a 30-day notice to the Help Committee if the agency seeks to make changes to any of our federal vaccine safety monitoring programs and help committee will have the option to call a hearing to further review. These commitments, in my expectation that we can have a great working relationship to make America healthy again is the

basis of my support. None of that happened. Just to be clear, none of that happened. And I look at the stuff happening today talking about Cassidy's career and, you know, we have Mitt Romney tweeting about, you know, how big a loss it is in the center that someone of this, you know, intellectual magnitude, a doctor is gone. And I'm like, what are you talking about? The biggest legacy he'll leave is that he sold out.

in order to get nothing. He sold out the country in order to get nothing. And to your point, like, you have to have some convictions, at least go down with your convictions. You can live with that. Yeah. And this is where, you know, my opinions have shifted over time strategically around people like Cassidy. Because in the early days of the Trump administration, I was looking for the first term. And even going into the second term, especially for the people who voted to impeach him, I was looking for any way to help those people, any way to try to support them because they did do a hard thing. They did do the right thing. Sure. It became clear to me over time. And this is true of Mitt Romney. This is true of Cassidy. Anybody who is a semi-normal respectable Republican, right,

or who was in the before times, their support for Trump is worse. And it is worse for the country. I think it is obviously worse for them, like spiritually and morally, but I think that it is worse for the country and it is worse for the Republican Party to have people who they point to and say, well, that's a good one, right? That's a good one. There's a lot of people who would argue, well, we need good people in the Republican Party. And I really think at this stage, that was true. I think six or seven years ago, at this stage, what you need is for the true party to shine through. You need people to see it for whatever really is. Yeah, but Sarah, how do you do that? I mean, that's the problem here, right? It's like they look at this. They look at what happened in the Indiana state Senate races.

Yeah. They're going to look at what's going to happen to Tom Massey in all likelihood. Yep. And the lessons they're going to learn is never cross this guy, right? I mean, let's just, let's play Lindsey Graham because I think this is indicative of the problem here. Let's play Lindsay today talking about Bill Cassidy. We ask you about the news overnight. Senator Bill Cassidy losing his primary in Louisiana.

You worked closely with Senator Bill. on a range of different issues, including a plan to replace Obamacare. He of course voted to convict President Trump back in 2021 in the impeachment trial. Now he's lost his seat. Are you glad that Senator Cassidy is no longer going to be your colleague, Senator? No, I like Bill. I thought he's a great senator, but he made a political decision. He tried to, he voted to impeach President Trump, which would have ruined his political life.

He could never run for office again. Massey's on the ballot Tuesday. He votes against Trump all the time. What's the headline? Trump's strong. Those who try to destroy Trump politically, stand in the way of his agenda, are gonna lose. Bill made a decision.

What would LBJ do? Is it natural for a politician to go after people who try to destroy their political life? So Bill Cassie's lost because he tried to destroy Trump. Massey's gonna lose because he's trying to destroy the agenda. You can disagree. agree with President Trump, but if you try to destroy him, you're going to lose because this is the party of Donald Trump. He's not wrong.

Honestly, he's not wrong. I mean, the party of Donald. I mean, it's bullshit. What an obsequious piece of garbage, Lindsay Graham is. I'm sorry. That is such a revolting interview. You know, him needing to sit down and be like, this is the party of Donald Trump. Let me see how hard I can kiss up to him.

You know, I remember when Lindsey Graham was, when Donald Trump gave out his phone number in the prime. Mary. And so people were calling him. So Lindsay Graham made a video of himself golfing and hitting his phone and crushing it and said that if we nominate Trump after January 6th saying, I'm done. I'm done. I'm done. Trump and I have, we've had a hell of a journey. I hate it being this way. Oh, my God, I hate it. All I can say is count me out. Enough is enough. Listen, it is, I mean, the extent to which he's willing to deeply humiliate himself knows no bottom, as best I can tell. Here's the thing, though, I think that there's the cowards take away is, well, you should never fight Trump. The serious person's takeaway is, no, if you're going to fight Trump, like, you got to go all in and do it. Like, there's just no halfway in, halfway out. And that's the part I object to. And the part that I think is bad for the party. Like, I think Mitt Romney's done a lot of brave things. And so this is not me trying to be critical of Mitt Romney exactly. But I do think when you have someone like Mitt Romney who knows how terrible Trump is in every way. And he kind of, you know, to be in the Senate, he stands up at sometimes. And then other times, you know, really focuses on going after the Democrats and trying to be a normal Republicans. And I think pantomiming normalcy is a net negative. Cassidy could have done that vote and spent the next six

years absolutely throwing fists. He could have stood in the way of RFK. He could have stood in the way of Cash Patel. He could have been a voice for sanity for something that he knew. I think this is the thing. When they take that vote to bar Donald Trump permanently, it's because they knew how dangerous he was and how wrong it was. Right. That was the right thing. It's almost, it makes me think of Fetterman in a way. Is that kind of crazy?

Like, I'm not saying I agree with anything Faderman is doing. But Femterman's basically concluded, I'm not going to probably win another primary. So I'm going to spend my time just doing. YOLO. Yeah. And it's his version of YOL. It wouldn't be my version of, but that's it. And it also makes me think of, this was totally under the radar, totally insignificant,

but it kind of got my goad a little bit. Lamar Alexander, ex-Senator from Tennessee, he's out with a book. and there was a little bit of a splash last week about it. And the reason there was splash because Lamar Alexander wants to chart a new Republican party in a post-Trump era and bring back the, it's like you were in the Senate, man. Like you had power at a point in time to actually effectuate this. And you, I don't, could you, I don't recall a single moment where Lamar Alexander did anything of note to chart the party he wants to chart now. Waited to get a book.

So that's right. I mean, they all wait to write a book. to say like, no, no, no, here's how we, here's how we get back to the thing that we've lost. You were there. And you know what? And it's not going back. And the reason that it's not going back in part is because you didn't fight for it at the time when it mattered. You lost it.

It's too late now. These voters, not only do they like Trump, they hate you. They hate you in the version of the Republican Party that you represent. It's never coming back. And it's because you guys allowed Donald Trump to take over the party and didn't stand up to him. when it could have changed things. Yeah, I totally agree. And now we're stuck with the, I mean, again, I go back to the RFK stuff.

It's like, now we're stuck with it. Like, we're stuck with this shit. And there's, a hauntavirus is happening. And, you know, Jonathan Cohen's written about that. He's like, it's okay. It's probably not going to be a big deal. But now we have this Ebola outbreak in Africa and the World Health Organization this morning called it a public health emergency.

We're not part of the WHO, in part because RFK Jr., didn't want us to be part of it. And we are in a moment where we will have to live with the consequences of Bill Cassidy's decisions that were ultimately pointless, feckless, whatever you want, doomed, whatever you want to describe him as, because he just didn't do what you said, which would say, okay, I'm going to spend six years just doing what I think is right. Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, you need to have a counterbalance in which people stand up to Trump with the same level. of fervency that on the other side, people behave obsequiously toward Trump. And people go all in

to suck up to Trump. Right now that they suck up harder than people are willing to fight. And you got to- It's not balanced. It's not balanced. All right. Well, we'll leave it at that. For those who are watching, thanks so much for doing so. That's Sarah Longwell, our fearless publisher. I'm Sam Stein, the managing editor of the bulwark. Subscribe to our YouTube page. You get great takes like this. I'll just do this because we have only a few days left. if you're in San Diego or LA, we got shows coming up there, okay? Go to bulwark.com slash events. It's in San Diego in LA, the 20th and the 21st.

Hopefully we can see you out there. Sarah, have a great rest of your weekend, okay? You too, buddy. Take care.