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bill cassidy
'Republicans Are Starting to Crack': After Primary Loss, Sen. Cassidy Helps Advance Iran War Powers Resolution
"This is a major blow for the disastrous, backfiring war and sends a clear signal to President Trump: End the war, do not escalate it," said NIAC. "The hard work of pro-peace Americans is paying off."
May 19, 2026
After months of failed votes on Democratic war powers resolutions intended to end President Donald Trump's illegal assault on Iran, the US Senate finally advanced legislation to a final vote on Tuesday, when a fourth Republican broke ranks.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) joined three other Republicans and all Democrats but one for the 50-47 vote on a motion to discharge Sen. Tim Kaine's (D-Va.) bill from committee. Cassidy's move notably came just days after he lost a primary race in which Trump backed one of his challengers—apparent retribution for the senator voting to convict Trump following his historic second impeachment.
"While I support the administration's efforts to dismantle Iran's nuclear program, the White House and Pentagon have left Congress in the dark on Operation Epic Fury," Cassidy said on social media Tuesday. "In Louisiana, I've heard from people, including President Trump's supporters, who are concerned about this war. Until the administration provides clarity, no congressional authorization or extension can be justified."
The US and Israel launched the operation on February 28, without authorization from Congress and in violation of the United Nations Charter. Faced with a key deadline under the War Powers Act earlier this month, the White House claimed the conflict had been "terminated" due to a ceasefire agreement reached hours after Trump's genocidal threat against Iran on April 7. However, the president has maintained a naval blockade, and Iran has continued to limit ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.
As with last week's vote on a war powers resolution from Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) backed the new motion, while Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) voted with the GOP. A potential tie was avoided on Tuesday when Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas), Thom Tillis (R-NC), and Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) did not participate.
The Associated Press noted that Kaine's bill "will get a vote on final passage, but the timing was not immediately clear," and if the three Republicans who were absent Tuesday maintain their stances on the war, the resolution could still ultimately be defeated.
Despite that uncertainty, congressional Democrats and other critics of the illegal assault welcomed the Tuesday vote that followed seven unsuccessful votes in the Senate and many more in the House of Representatives, where Republicans also have a narrow majority.
"This is a major blow for the disastrous, backfiring war and sends a clear signal to President Trump: End the war, do not escalate it," the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) declared on social media. "The hard work of pro-peace Americans is paying off."
NIAC president Jamal Abdi said that "it has taken 10 weeks and a dozen votes but Congress is finally coming in line with the vast majority of Americans who oppose the senseless war on Iran... There are strong odds it will pass in the Republican-controlled House later this week."
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said in a statement that "vote by vote, Democrats are breaking through Republicans' wall of silence on Trump’s illegal war."
"For more than 80 days, Trump has dragged America into a costly, chaotic conflict with no plan, no objective, and no legal authority," he continued. "Today proved our pressure is working: Republicans are starting to crack, and momentum is building to check him. We are not letting up."
According to The New York Times, Kaine similarly said that "the momentum is moving our way slowly."
While Trump would be able to veto a war powers resolution that reached his desk, Democrats have argued that passing one would make clear to him that his assault on Iran is unpopular. Kaine said that "what the president cares about is his own popularity, and when Congress, even including members of his own party, start to vote against him."
Kaine expects a final vote to come after the Memorial Day recess, and expressed hope that lawmakers returning to their state or districts will hear from frustrated constituents. He predicted that "people are going to hear an earful when they get home about gas prices," which have soared due to the Strait of Hormuz closure.
Alix Fraser, vice president of advocacy at the pro-democracy group Issue One, called Tuesday's vote "a significant step in the effort to reestablish one of Congress' most sacred roles—the constitutional right to send American men and women to war."
Fraser applauded "the senators who voted to reaffirm Congress's constitutional role in decisions of war and peace," recognizing by name the Republicans who had the "for having the courage to stand up for the American service members being asked to risk their lives, as well as for the American families already struggling with rising costs at home."
He also urged the House "to follow suit," emphasizing that "this is a pivotal moment for our democracy. We must decide whether future generations will inherit a system in which the representatives of the American people debate and authorize the most consequential decisions, like going to war—or whether we normalize a system where presidents can unilaterally lead the country into ill-defined and open-ended conflicts."
“Americans should remain concerned about the broader structural weaknesses that allowed the country to reach this point without meaningful congressional involvement from the outset," Fraser added. "The current war powers framework needs to be reformed to empower the legislative branch and follow the constitutional process that the framers intended."
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Trump, Bill Cassidy, and the MAGA Purge to Fear
The message is clear to every current or aspiring Republican politician: Be a toady to Trump, or you’re out.
May 18, 2026
On Saturday, Trump took revenge on Louisiana senator Bill Cassidy for Cassidy’s vote five years ago to convict Trump, in his second impeachment, for instigating an attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Cassidy thereby became the first GOP senator defeated by a Trump-endorsed candidate in a Republican primary. (Other Republican senators who have stood up to Trump — such as North Carolina’s Thom Tillis and Utah’s Mitt Romney — saw the writing on the wall and didn’t seek reelection.)
Trump’s purge of Cassidy comes in the wake of Trump’s purges of House Republicans who stood up to him, such as Wyoming’s Liz Cheney.
Trump’s next Republican target in the House is Kentucky representative Thomas Massie, who had the guts to oppose U.S. military involvement in Iran, demand release of the Epstein files, and criticize Trump’s spending bills for adding to the national debt. Massie appears likely to be defeated by a Trump-backed opponent in Tuesday’s Kentucky primary.
Trump has also purged state legislators who have refused to do his bidding, such as the seven Indiana Republicans who refused to redistrict the state as Trump demanded they do, and who Trump insured were defeated in their recent primaries.
The message is clear to every current or aspiring Republican politician: Be a toady to Trump, or you’re out.
In his concession speech Friday night, Cassidy stated the obvious reference to Trump:
“Our country is not about one individual. It is about the welfare of all Americans, and it is about our Constitution. And if someone doesn’t understand that and attempts to control others through using the levers of power, they’re about serving themselves. They’re not about serving us. And that person is not qualified to be a leader.”
Nicely put but sadly irrelevant because Trump — who’s clearly serving himself rather than the American public — now possesses all levers of power in the official Republican Party.
As Republican senator Lindsey Graham said yesterday on Meet the Press, “There’s no room in this party to destroy [Trump’s] agenda.”
Former generations of Republican politicians had principles, beliefs, ideals. They thought the federal government too large. Or believed it spent too much money. Or was too lenient on criminals. Or was too eager to support the civil rights of Black people. Or any number of issues with which Democrats disagreed.
Today’s Republican Party no longer has any purpose other than achieving whatever Trump wants, which is making Trump richer and more powerful. The GOP is now Trump’s; it is no longer America’s.
Today’s Republican voters, by contrast, are showing increasing frustration with Trump. Those who think of themselves as traditional Republicans don’t like Trump’s expansive use of federal power. Those who are fiscally conservative, like Thomas Massie, are upset by Trump’s wanton spending, tax cuts, and soaring debt. “America-first” Republican voters are concerned about Trump’s intrusions into Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, and elsewhere. And they want the rest of the Epstein files released.
Yet for elected Republicans, survival now depends on personal loyalty to Trump.
All of which raises a fundamental question: Has the official Republican Party — now nearly purged of anyone willing to reflect the concerns of Republican voters rather than Trump’s will — become complicit in Trump’s criminality? Is it aiding and abetting Trump’s lawlessness?
A case can be made that the official Republican Party is indeed complicit.
For Trump, the first and most basic sign of loyalty to him — and therefore survival as a politician in Trump’s Republican Party — is a willingness to publicly proclaim as truth what we know to be two big lies: that Trump won the 2020 election, and that he did not seek to overturn its results by illegal means. As a result, almost all congressional Republicans are now election deniers.
Trump has also made it clear that loyalty to him bars any criticism of his unlawful immigration dragnet, which has so far resulted in the murders of three U.S. citizens by ICE agents and the detention and deportation, without a hearing, of people suspected of being in the U.S. illegally.
To Trump, loyalty requires full support of his foreign policy — including the abduction of a foreign leader, an undeclared war with Iran, and the killing on the high seas of people only suspected of smuggling drugs, in violation of international law.
Loyalty also demands unquestioned support for other of his lawless acts — using the Justice Department to prosecute his political opponents, building a mammoth White House ballroom, issuing no-bid contracts to his friends, promoting his family’s businesses and implementing policies favorable to them, accepting gifts from foreign powers, and defying court orders.
Is it fair to conclude from all of this that today’s official Republican Party — the people who are in office because Trump has put them there, or who maintain their office because they back whatever Trump wants — has in effect become a criminal organization, analogous to the mafia or a drug cartel, whose members are blindly loyal to their criminal bosses?
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Sanders Demands Congress 'Immediately' Investigate Firing of CDC Director
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. "must testify," and the CDC officials who were fired and resigned in protest also should be invited to do so, said the senator.
Aug 28, 2025
In the wake of a "Wednesday night massacre" at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and related resignations, Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday called for an immediate congressional probe.
Just weeks after the Senate confirmed President Donald Trump's pick to lead the CDC, Dr. Susan Monarez, the director was forced out on Wednesday after reportedly clashing with Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Her ouster led to calls for firing Kennedy, four other officials resigning in protest, and a related walkout by agency staff.
Sanders (I-Vt.) serves as ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, and in a letter, he asked Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), the panel's chair and a physician, to "immediately" call a hearing.
"I am very disturbed that the Trump administration apparently made this reckless decision because Director Monarez refused to act as a rubber stamp to implement Secretary Kennedy's dangerous agenda to substantially limit the use of safe and effective vaccines and undermine the confidence that the American people have in scientific achievements that have saved millions of lives," Sanders wrote to Cassidy.
RFK Jr. is pushing out scientific leaders who refuse to act as a rubber stamp for his dangerous conspiracy theories and manipulate science. Today, I am calling for a bipartisan congressional investigation into the firing of CDC Director Dr. Monarez.
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— Senator Bernie Sanders (@sanders.senate.gov) August 28, 2025 at 1:30 PM
"We need leaders at the CDC and HHS who are committed to improving public health and have the courage to stand up for science," he argued, "not officials who have a history of spreading bogus conspiracy theories and disinformation that will endanger the lives of the American people and people throughout the world."
Sanders—who previously served as the panel's chair—asked Cassidy to launch a "bipartisan probe" and stressed that "as part of that investigation, Secretary Kennedy must testify at a hearing in the HELP Committee as soon as possible. We should also invite Dr. Monarez and the senior CDC officials who resigned to testify as well."
Noting that Cassidy on Wednesday "called for oversight of the firings and resignations at the agency," Sanders made the case that "as a start, the American people should hear directly from Secretary Kennedy and Dr. Monarez and every member of our committee should be able to ask questions and get honest answers from them."
The senator also took aim at the HHS chief, writing that "it is absolutely imperative that trust in vaccine science not be undermined. The well-being of millions of people are at stake. In just six months, Secretary Kennedy has completely upended the process for reviewing and recommending vaccines for the public."
"Enough is enough," he declared. "We have got to make it clear to Secretary Kennedy that his actions to double down on his war on science and disinformation campaign must end. Too many lives are at stake."
In a statement released later Thursday, after the walkout, Sanders applauded CDC workers "for standing up for science and protesting the reckless decision of Secretary Kennedy to push out leading scientists from the agency."
"Speaking up takes real courage," he said. "Now is the time for all of us—whether you are a Democrat, Republican, independent, progressive or conservative—to come together and say enough is enough. Vaccines are one of the greatest public health achievements of the 20th century. We will not stand by silently as Secretary Kennedy takes them away."
"Let us be clear: We are witnessing a full-blown war on science, on public health, and on truth itself," Sanders emphasized. "In just six months, Secretary Kennedy has dismantled the vaccine review process, narrowed access to life-saving Covid vaccines, and filled scientific advisory boards with conspiracy theorists and ideologues. "
Slamming the reported reasons for Monarez's ouster as "outrageous and unacceptable," the senator concluded that "history will not look kindly on those who stayed silent in the face of this assault on science. We have a moral responsibility to act now."
This article has been updated with Sen. Bernie Sanders' statement on the walkout at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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