Sen. Bill Cassidy, Louisiana Republican, said Sunday he doesn’t think former President Donald Trump will be the party’s presidential nominee in 2024 and that the GOP should probably move on.
“Political organizations and campaigns are about winning,” Mr. Cassidy said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “Over the last four years, we lost the House of Representatives, the Senate and the presidency.”
He said that hasn’t happened in a single four-year period since Herbert Hoover’s administration.
“If we idolize one person, we will lose,” Mr. Cassidy said. “And that’s kind of clear from the last election.”
President Biden defeated Mr. Trump by about 7 million votes in the national popular vote, though Mr. Trump was only about 44,000 votes away across Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin from securing a tie in the Electoral College.
Mr. Cassidy was one of seven Republican senators who voted to convict Mr. Trump of inciting the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol in the former president’s recent impeachment trial.
The Republican Party of Louisiana condemned Mr. Cassidy for his vote, and other state parties have followed suit for congressional Republicans who voted to impeach or convict Mr. Trump.
Mr. Trump was acquitted in each of his two Senate impeachment trials. The Democrat-led House also impeached him in December 2019 for strong-arming Ukraine into digging up dirt on Mr. Biden.
Mr. Trump is addressing the 2021 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Sunday in his first major speech since leaving office.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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