After primary loss, Sen. Bill Cassidy defends his 2021 vote to convict Trump

WASHINGTON — Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., on Monday defended his vote to convict President Donald Trump on impeachment charges five years ago, saying he would rather be remembered for standing up for his principles even if it ended his career in the Senate .

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“That may have cost me my seat, but who cares? I had the privilege of voting to uphold the Constitution. Isn’t that a great thing?” Cassidy said to reporters on Capitol Hill two days after he lost his re-election bid in a GOP primary . “When I die, if that’s put in my obituary, ‘he voted to uphold the Constitution’ — I’ll figure that that’s going to be a better obituary.”

Despite having a voting record in the Senate that was closely aligned with Trump’s agenda, Cassidy lost his primary Saturday in large part because of his support for convicting Trump on charges of inciting an insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.

Almost all of the Republicans who voted at one point to impeach or convict Trump are no longer in Congress. Trump has sought to vanquish his perceived foes following those votes.

Still, Cassidy said he “certainly” thinks there’s room for dissent in the GOP.

“I disagree with the administration. They’ve had some bad policies regarding vaccinations. It’s been pretty clear I disagree with them,” said Cassidy, a physician who has clashed with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over his vaccine policy.

Cassidy insisted he won’t disagree with the Trump administration just for the sake of it.

“If you’re asking me am I going to deliberately push back on things, no. I’m doing what’s good for my country and my state,” Cassidy said when he was asked whether he would be “unbound” on Capitol Hill following his loss.

Still, he spoke out against the administration’s latest high-profile decision: to create a nearly $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund that the Justice Department said would provide a mechanism “to hear and redress claims of others who suffered weaponization and lawfare.” That could mean money for pardoned Jan. 6 rioters using taxpayer funds.

“We are a nation of laws; you can’t just make up things,” Cassidy said of the fund. “It is as if somebody sued themselves and agreed upon a settlement with themselves that’s going to be funded by the rest of us. Now if that’s the case, what? Wait a second! I just came off the campaign trail. People are concerned about making their own ends meet, not about putting the slush fund together without a legal precedent.”

He also put himself in the camp of congressional Republicans who are uncomfortable with using $1 billion to help build Trump’s White House ballroom .

“I just came off the campaign trail, as you very much know. You heard about people cannot afford their groceries or gasoline,” he said. “They don’t want to see a billion dollars spent on a ballroom.”