NRSC Official Gets in Profane Phone Spat With GOP Senator ‘Furious’ Over Bitter Primary: Report

Aaron Schwartz/Sipa USA via AP Images

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) is in a nasty primary battle to keep his seat, and the tensions exploded during a profane phone call with an official at the National Republican Senatorial Committee, according to a report by Punchbowl News.

Cassidy ended up on President Donald Trump’s bad side when he was one of seven Senate Republicans who voted for conviction in the president’s second impeachment trial, which occurred in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Cassidy was censured by the Louisiana Republican Party for his vote.

The Louisiana senator is also a physician and has recently ramped up his criticism of Trump’s Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., adding to the animosity.

Trump has endorsed Rep. Julie Letlow (R-LA) against Cassidy, boosting her campaign but not enough to decisively settle the race — because there’s another MAGA Republican dividing up the votes, former Rep. John Fleming (R-LA), a co-founder of the House Freedom Caucus who currently serves as Louisiana’s state treasurer.

“The Republican Senate primary in Louisiana has become a mess,” reported Punchbowl, with the White House, president’s inner circle, and GOP establishment knocked off kilter by the “uncertainty and chaos” as the May 16 primary looms. The race is expected to end up with none of the three getting over 50% — polls show the race is tight, with none of the three considered safe — so a June runoff will be needed.

“Republicans aren’t going to lose the Louisiana Senate seat, but it’s definitely not going the way GOP power players thought it would,” the report added. Cassidy might not even make the primary runoff, leaving him “fuming at the Senate Republican establishment for not helping him enough.”

The report goes into detail about how Cassidy’s fury with the NRSC boiled over in a recent phone call:

Cassidy is furious at the NRSC and Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s political machine because he feels they haven’t fully supported his reelection bid. Thune fundraised with Cassidy in January in Baton Rouge, raking in over $650,000 at the event. The NRSC has also cut video ads featuring Cassidy.

But in a tense call with the NRSC, Cassidy said the committee wasn’t spending enough on his behalf during the primary. NRSC Executive Director Jennifer DeCasper, in a response that included profanity, shot back that Cassidy shouldn’t have voted to convict Trump, according to multiple sources familiar with the call.

The NRSC and Cassidy’s campaign both declined to comment.

The three Republicans are spending millions of dollars walloping each other — burning cash that could go to other states, but from the party’s perspective, not quite as damaging as it might be in other states where the general election outcome is more in doubt. Louisiana is all but certain to elect whoever has the R next to their name in November.

The Punchbowl report added that Fleming said people “in Trump’s orbit” had reached out at the beginning of the year trying to get him to clear the path for Letlow, and he refused, even when he was told Trump was going to endorse her.

“I was contacted twice by a high-level person at the White House, again, asking if there’s anything they could do, anything they could offer that would get me to drop out,” said Fleming. “And I said no, of course, diplomatically said no.”

“The White House’s view, at least now, is that they simply want Cassidy out of the Senate,” Punchbowl noted. “They don’t care if it’s Letlow or Fleming who does that.”

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