In the month since President Donald Trump put a decisive end to Sen. Bill Cassidy’s congressional career, the Louisiana senator has become one of the president’s sharpest critics in the halls of the US Capitol.
But as they stood face to face in a Wednesday meeting at the Capitol, the two Republicans unleashed anger at each other in a shouting match in front of dozens of their Senate GOP colleagues.
The testy back-and-forth began, according to Cassidy, as Trump demanded to know why members of his own party — including Cassidy — voted with Democrats a day earlier to rebuke the president’s military authority in Iran.
“I stood and said, ‘You have not told the American people what’s going on,’” Cassidy recalled after the meeting, describing what he told the president behind closed-doors. “It was supposed to last four weeks, it’s lasted four months. Our original objectives have not been achieved, and I want to know what’s going on.”
From there, according to multiple sources in the room, a furious Trump went after Cassidy, raising his voice. Cassidy recalled that he “lost his temper” and was shouting back at the same “tone and volume” as the president.
