Louisiana GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy on Sunday criticized his party’s presumptive presidential nominee, saying that former President Donald Trump’s rhetoric about illegal immigrants “reflected poorly” and that he’s spoken about migrants in a “dehumanizing fashion.”
Asked about Trump’s recent comments that not all undocumented immigrants are people, Cassidy told NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” “The president’s rhetoric has reflected poorly ... regarding folks who are coming here illegally — illegally — and they shouldn’t be, but in a dehumanizing fashion. And that’s why again, many people continue to have reservations.”
“The best thing going for Donald Trump running for president is that he’s running against [President] Joe Biden, about whom many people also have reservations. And frankly, that]s why people are considering third parties. So it’s a sorry state of affairs,” the senator added.
Despite his criticism of Biden, Cassidy wouldn’t commit to endorsing Trump, saying, “The answer I’m going to give, the answer I’ve given consistently whenever asked about this on ‘Meet the Press,’ is that I plan to vote for Republican for the presidency of the United States.”
Cassidy, one of the few Republican senators who voted to convict Trump when he was impeached in 2021, also blasted the former president for saying he would be willing to “free” some of those who have been convicted of crimes committed at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
“We’re a nation of laws,” Cassidy said, adding: “Those folks were convicted. Many times they pled guilty. If you plead guilty ... obviously you’re not a patriot.”
“I think that’ll be a wrong signal,” Cassidy added of Trump’s stated plan.
Cassidy also refused to answer questions about whether Trump would follow the Constitution in a second term, calling the question a “hypothetical” but noting, “All I can say is that we have checks and balances within our system, that if any one person attempts to act in an unconstitutional fashion, that they can be theoretically checked.”
“I’ll also point out that Joe Biden has acted in an unconstitutional fashion when he attempted to forgive student loans, and it was stopped in the Supreme Court,” Cassidy added.
In June, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that Biden’s student loan relief program was an unlawful exercise of presidential power because it did not have congressional authorization.
