GOP Senator forced out by Trump reacts to GOP's midterm blowout

[0:00] The outgoing Republican Senator of Louisiana, Bill Cassidy. And thank you, [0:04] Senator, for being here, because I want to talk about what your time left in Congress [0:08] is going to look like, the big priorities you have. You obviously, though, have served in the [0:13] Senate. You know politics well. What do you believe is the number one lesson for your party [0:19] coming out of Tuesday night? If the American people will perceive [0:23] that a party is not serving them, that a party is asking the voter to serve [0:28] their quest to keep in power, but the politician is not serving the people, [0:32] the people are going to vote out the political party. Our brand suffered terribly because again, [0:38] I think it was perceived we were not serving the people. And frankly, politicians should be serving [0:44] the people. That's why you're elected. Do you think Republicans, [0:49] do you think the president realizes that and takes that message away? [0:52] I don't know that. This Republican, that's always been my ethic in office. [0:58] But if you look at the shellacking our party took, it's pretty clear that most voters don't [1:04] think that we were there to serve them. They thought once more that the politicians wanted to [1:10] keep power so much that they're willing to change the rules to make the people serve [1:15] the politician. That's wrong. The politicians should serve the people. [1:18] Well, I mean, when you look at the data, the Louisiana parishes that are mostly done reporting, [1:24] they shifted on average 20 points more democratic in the last two years. Why do you think that is? [1:32] The reason it happened across the nation. They looked at government. They felt as if government [1:39] wasn't serving them. They were paying more for everything. Life was inconvenient. They hear all [1:44] these crazy things coming out of a state legislature and coming from Washington that they're thinking, [1:49] this is not addressing my concerns, my concerns of high health care costs, social security going [1:55] insolvent. Those are issues that have to be addressed, high fuel prices. And they didn't see [2:00] them addressed and they revolted against that. And by the way, if Democrats don't do it successfully, [2:06] in two years, the Democrats will have their day of reckoning. The American people should be served. [2:11] And if they're not served, they're going to vote out the party in power. [2:14] Yeah. Obviously Democrats now will have to, they campaigned on affordability. Now they're going to [2:19] be in position to, to govern on that. We'll see what that looks like. But in terms of the candidates [2:24] that were on the ballot, you know, obviously you were leaving the Senate because the president [2:30] turned on you and, and backed the person who's now taking over. I should note right now, [2:34] she's only up by two points. You won by more than 40, I think, six years ago. But putting that aside, [2:40] I mean, the handpicked candidates from the president in Texas, in South Carolina, in North [2:45] Carolina, do you think that hurt the GOP because he picked them based on their loyalty to him? [2:50] You know, if you look at Texas, Kim Paxton, to say Kim Paxton was flawed is an incredible [2:55] understatement. And so I have no doubt that that just kind of spread all over the, the Republican [3:03] brand in Texas. If this is what's coming out of a Republican closed primary, [3:08] a fellow that had all of his ethical complaints, cheating on his wife, all of these sorts of things, [3:14] there's no way that does not hurt the Republican brand. I'll point out, I do think closed partisan [3:20] primaries allow the person to be selected to not be very good in a general, in a general election. [3:26] But that's one more example of politicians choosing a method of electing folks that serves [3:32] the political party in power and doesn't serve the interests of the voter. That's wrong. [3:37] You know, there's a lot of questions about what DC is going to look like in the next few weeks. You [3:43] are someone who voted for the War Powers Act. You said three times, you said the war with Iran was a [3:49] mistake. What do you think this new Congress, or what do you think is going to happen even before [3:53] the new Congress is sworn in when it comes to the Iran war, given how voters seem to feel about it? [4:00] I could imagine that a War Powers Act passes this time. I can't swear by that, [4:05] because really getting into the war was a mistake. We now know that it was supposed to be over in five [4:11] weeks. It's still going on months later. Now, how you get out of it is a different story and a more [4:17] complicated story. The administration is going to have to make his case. But again, I can imagine that [4:22] I can imagine that a War Powers Act passes this time as much as I can prognosticate that. [4:28] If Secretary Hegseth is impeached next week, how would you vote on that in the Senate? [4:34] You know, I have to hear the testimony. I don't prejudge. I've been in the situation before. [4:42] You hear what the testimony is, and then you make a decision. Clearly, there are people who I respect, [4:48] who feel that he's done a very poor job. And if he's the one that gave the president the guidance [4:53] that we could be out of the Iranian war in five weeks, that was an incredible misjudgment. But that's [4:58] what will be presented before the House. And then we'll consider it in the Senate. [5:03] Do you think he's done a poor job? [5:04] Uh, clearly the Iranian war, the decision to go into the Iranian war, uh, did not work out. [5:12] Uh, it was presumed that the administration had information that was not shared, but that we [5:18] would be out in five weeks. It has not worked out well. Uh, and we've spent tens of billions of dollars. [5:23] So who's responsible for that? And why did they make that decision? That would be an interesting thing to [5:27] know. So just to be clear, it does sound like you would be open to potentially removing him if he [5:34] was impeached based on what you heard. You know, I've been in this situation before, [5:40] and I think I can have street cred to say that I'm going to listen to the testimony [5:44] and make a decision based upon the testimony that's given before me. [5:47] So I'd rather Caitlyn not kind of even go there except to say, I'm going to listen to the testimony [5:53] and I'm going to try and do what is right by the people whom I serve. [5:56] They may, you know, sometimes people don't understand my decisions, but I can promise [5:59] you my commitment to them is to try and do what is right. [6:02] Yeah. And you definitely spend a lot of time thinking about them, obviously. [6:07] And when it comes to your time left in the Senate, I think they're in session, [6:10] you're in session for 22 days, uh, before this Congress will end. Addressing the solvency [6:17] of social security has been a major priority of yours. Do you believe that there's enough time [6:22] to address something that big in this time that you have left here in Washington? [6:28] I've been working on this for six years and we've been working for the last several months. [6:32] If I can find, we can do it. We've had the preparatory hearings. We have the legislation [6:38] drafted. If we don't solve social security, it is an incredible failure of Congress. [6:44] This is what's driving up long-term interest rates for mortgage and car notes. The fact the [6:48] government borrows so much, it drives up borrowing costs for other people. If you want to do something [6:54] about affordability, fix social. If you want to get financial security to folks who depend upon [6:59] social security, fix social. We got to care for it like my daughter cares for my grandchild. [7:05] And that's my goal. And if we don't fix it, Congress should be, Congress should be thrown out again, [7:11] because it's something which is just so important to our country, so loved by our country. And to ignore [7:17] it for two more years would be criminal in my mind, not technically criminal, political, [7:22] a political crime. And so I do think we have time left to go. I am actively working with legislators [7:28] in an attempt to get it done. It should be a priority. It is the right thing to do. And the [7:32] time is always right to do the right thing. Given there is limited time and it is an issue [7:37] that you've worked on for six years, do you feel like someone can carry the torch after that? [7:42] I mean, are you confident in what this next version of the Senate is going to look like? [7:48] I'll do my best to find somebody to take it on. We've got a spreadsheet with six million lines of [7:54] data to kind of convey to other people. But even though if I leave the Senate, I'll still be an [7:59] engaged citizen. I'll still be out there talking about the need to fix this for the beneficiary, [8:04] for the people who want lower interest rates to buy a home. It's something that I won't give up just [8:10] because I leave. I do think any American that has the opportunity to continue to serve our country [8:16] should. And if I can get Social Security across the line, even after I leave office, [8:21] I'll feel like I'm serving my country. Yeah, it's obviously a huge issue [8:25] and big questions about what the investment fund would look like and how that would function. [8:30] Just in general, I mean, the fact that the Senate went Democratic on Tuesday night and that a senator [8:38] from Mississippi might be a Democrat in the race that we're watching now, obviously a few other close [8:43] ones. Were you surprised by that personally or did you hear from voters to where it didn't catch you [8:50] off guard, how big the sweep was for Democrats? I am surprised that we lost Mississippi, [8:57] although you kept hearing rumblings that might be the case. And when President Trump went to [9:01] Mississippi and was doing things to support Mississippi, that shows you that they had polling [9:06] that show that was a problem. On the other hand, it shouldn't surprise anybody that our brand was so [9:13] poor. I'll go back to how I started. The American people did not think the Republican Party was [9:19] serving them. It wasn't taking on the big issues like Social Security to their satisfaction. It wasn't [9:25] working to make health care more affordable. If you're not serving the American people, the American [9:30] people, particularly when they're stressed, are going to react at the ballot box. That's what happened. [9:35] And if Democrats don't do it, they will be out in two years. And it's the opportunity for Republicans [9:41] to come up with real policy solutions, not messaging bills, not entertainment on YouTube, [9:47] real policy solutions that address the needs of the American people. That's the challenge of our party. [9:54] That's what we should be doing. That's our, that's our obligation, our responsibility. [9:58] That's what we should be doing. Yeah. And of course, Mississippi isn't called yet. We'll see. But [10:03] the president this week appeared at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, the site of the ballroom [10:07] construction, and today signed an executive order to keep the Oval Office as he's redecorated it. [10:13] Do you think he understands what voters are going through and what they, [10:16] what they registered in their discontent Tuesday night? [10:19] You know, I can't get inside the president's head. But anybody that sees the shellacking that our [10:24] party took, 500 legislative seats nationwide were lost. That's not just the president. That's, [10:30] that's a brand problem. And a brand that two years ago was riding high. So it should be, [10:36] it should just be a lesson. Serve the American people, figure out what their, what their issues [10:41] are. We know healthcare has been expensive. We know social security has gone insolvent. [10:45] We should just make that a marquee issue, both of those, and push, push, push for the last two years. [10:52] Now we have to come up with alternatives and convince the American people that we're serious about [10:57] passing all alternatives.