Trump referred to Sen. Bill Cassidy in the Louisiana GOP Senate primary on Saturday

BATON ROUGE, La. – After removing five Indiana state senators who opposed his congressional redistricting plan, President Donald Trump’s next target is Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana.

Cassidy, who voted to impeach Trump five and a half years ago in his impeachment trial, is fighting for his political life in a race against two major contenders, including one backed by the president, in Saturday’s GOP Senate primary in the southern state.

Trump and his allies, including Gov. Jeff Landry of Louisiana, supported GOP Rep. Julia Letlow in the Senate primary. Also in the race is former Representative John Fleming, who is the state Treasurer. If no candidate breaks 50% of the vote, the top two will face off in a runoff election on June 27.

The main one is the latest test of Trump’s endorsement in the GOP nomination races and the president’s growing grip over the Republican Party.

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After running for re-election six years ago, Cassidy was one of only seven Senate Republicans who voted in early 2021 to impeach Trump after he was impeached by the House for his role in the Jan. 6 in the US Capitol by supporters who intended to raise congressional certificates of victory for former President Joe Biden in the 20th election. Trump was acquitted by the Senate.

But since the start of Trump’s second term, Cassidy has consistently supported the president’s agenda and his appointees, including voting to confirm Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

But Kennedy and his Make America Healthy Again organization are determined to get revenge.

This is because Cassidy, who is a doctor, has been questioning Kennedy’s campaign to change the country’s health policies, including Kennedy’s efforts to reduce vaccination recommendations.

And Kennedy’s allies accused Cassidy, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, of helping to sink the nomination of surgeon Casey Means, a close Kennedy ally and senior MAHA attorney, after Cassidy did not bring the committee’s vote.

Meanwhile, Trump criticized the senator as “very dishonest.”

And on the eve of the first meeting, the president took to social media to praise Letlow as “America’s Most Honorable First Lady.”

Making Cassidy’s rise to office even more difficult, Louisiana will now run separate party primaries for the Senate race, replacing a system where all candidates appear in a single primary. That ensures a solid voter and supporter of Trump for the GOP nomination.

Cassidy highlights his record of more than two Senate terms in giving to Louisiana, one of the poorest states in the country. And he has shown his support for Louisiana’s large oil and gas industry, which comprises about 15% of the state’s workforce.

“When people ask things like, can you work with President Trump, I point out that he signed four bills that I wrote or negotiated,” the senator said in a pre-prime interview with Fox News Digital. “We continue to work together, of course.”

And Cassidy pointed out that he is “a caring congressman who delivers.”

In an effort to avoid becoming the first elected Republican senator in nearly a decade and a half to be kicked out of the primary, Cassidy and a coalition PAC spent more than $20 million on ads, according to AdImpact, a national ad tracking firm. That total is more than that spent by Letlow and Fleming.

Some of those ads hit Letlow on his past support of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs during his tenure at the University of Louisiana at Monroe.

Cassidy argued that Republican voters were “concerned about his change of position on DEI. He was running for DEI.”

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President Donald Trump stands with Rep. Julia Letlow during the Congressional Ball at the White House Grand Foyer in Washington, DC, on Dec. 11, 2025. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Defending his record, Letlow explained in an interview with Fox News Digital on Friday that “back in 2020 whenever the DEI was presented to us, we didn’t know what it was back then, and I saw it immediately. I was studying in higher education at the time. I immediately saw that the left completely stole it, it turned into this Marxist doctrine of the leftist of our children. And then, when I was fighting it five years ago, I was fighting Congress.

And he charged that his criticism of Cassidy and Fleming about the DEI was “all baseless attacks, baseless attacks.”

Letlow won her congressional seat in 2021, after her husband, Luke Letlow, died six days after he was sworn into the US House after winning the 2020 election to the position he now holds.

He was endorsed by Trump even before he entered the race.

“He not only encouraged me to enter the race, but to completely endorse me was, wow, the honor of a lifetime,” said Letlow.

Letlow targets Cassidy for his bipartisan efforts in the Senate, including his vote for the 2021 infrastructure bill that was a home run victory for then-President Joe Biden.

Asked about his criticism, Cassidy said “people want someone who can deliver to Louisiana. The Infrastructure Investment Jobs Act brought $13.5 billion to Louisiana for roads and bridges and high-speed Internet, and along the way created a lot of good paying jobs. My opponent opposed that bill.”

Fleming, who served as White House deputy chief of staff during Trump’s first term, has proven to be the most active figure in the GOP Senate primary.

“They see MAGA very well,” Fleming told Fox News Digital, speaking to Louisiana Republicans. “I worked throughout his first administration in various positions. I was one of the first congressmen to endorse him in 2016.”

Fleming said Letlow is “not an example of a Trump endorsement. He’s more like a Democrat.”

And Fleming, apparently, has become a threat to Letlow, as a congressional super PAC has begun running ads against him.

But Trump’s support in the nomination race weighs heavily on his 22-point lead in the 2024 election.

“It’s the strongest endorsement in the world,” Letlow said, adding that Louisiana Republicans are “big fans of the president.”

And the Louisiana primary comes a week and a half after the Indiana primary, where Trump-backed opponents ousted five state senators who had defied the president over his crackdown on restrictions.

The political world was watching the Indiana primary because it was the first in a series of major tests this month of Trump’s endorsement power in the GOP nomination contests, and the president easily cleared his first hurdle.

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Voters in Louisiana will also vote in primary contests for the state Supreme Court, Public Service Commission and public school board, as well as five state constitutional amendments.

But the primaries for the US House seats were postponed by Landry after the US Supreme Court struck down the current federal district map.

Republican state senators in Louisiana on Thursday made a plan to eliminate one of the two black congressional seats before the season begins. The Louisiana state House will likely vote on the map next week. The US House primaries were postponed to November.