Rep. Julia Letlow (R-LA) said the “people of Louisiana are ready to move on” from Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), who voted to impeach President Donald Trump, in an exclusive interview on Breitbart News Saturday.
Speaking with Breitbart News Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle, Letlow made her case for why she should replace Cassidy, who backed diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) bureaucracy across four major Senate votes.
“One thing that differentiates me from Sen. Cassidy is how I vote and how I represent Louisiana. My record speaks for itself,” she said. “For the last five years, I have recognized that I represent the people, and not the other way around. This isn’t about me, it’s the people’s seat, and you have to stay in touch with the people that you represent and vote accordingly.”
According to Letlow, Louisiana is “conservative to the core,” unlike Cassidy whom she called out for “partner[ing] with Democrats to help alter the infrastructure bill four years ago — $1.2 trillion that he helped author with President Biden and the Democrats to put to put your tax dollars into projects that were chock full of DEI initiatives and did not come to conservative states like Louisiana.”
“He has partnered with them on that, partnered with them in entrenching DEI into our military,” she continued. “When President Trump vetoed that bill, Sen. Cassidy voted to override the veto, and so he’s just not a true conservative at heart.”
Letlow, who ran for the House of Representatives after her husband, Luke Letlow, died from COVID-19 weeks after being elected to Congress in late 2020, launched her bid to unseat Cassidy in the upper chamber in January and received an endorsement from Trump.
A recent report published by former Louisiana Democrat aide and writer Robert Mann revealed a “private campaign” being run by Cassidy and his allies — while they are calling Letlow a “liberal” in ads, they are quietly “urging progressive and moderate Democrats to consider switching parties, becoming Republicans, and voting for Cassidy in the Republican primary.”
“Cassidy has been making this argument in conversations and phone calls to various people for at least the past couple of months,” Mann wrote. “He made the argument to me during a phone call on Monday night … I share this not to embarrass Cassidy or betray his confidence, as we had no off-the-record agreement.”
When asked about that revelation, Letlow called it a “bombshell.”
“We want to definitely bring to light the fact that he is actively calling people and encouraging them to switch their party registration,” the congresswoman told Boyle. “These are Democrats — Democrats who have supported him in the past, because he is a Democrat.”
“It just shows you how desperate he is and his campaign has become, and how he’s seen the writing on the wall,” Letlow continued. “He can see the polling numbers. It’s not looking great.”
Just five weeks before the May 16 GOP primary, Cassidy has found himself squeezed between Letlow and State Treasurer John Fleming, and is facing the possibility of missing the runoff altogether in the three-way race, Breitbart News reported.
According to Punchbowl News, the senator 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.”
While Thune raised more than $650,000 for Cassidy at a January event in Baton Rouge and the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) “has also cut video ads featuring Cassidy,” Cassidy still complained that the committee “wasn’t spending enough on his behalf during the primary.”
Punchbowl further reported that NRSC Executive Director Jennifer DeCasper, “in a response that included profanity,” told Cassidy he “shouldn’t have voted to convict Trump” in his impeachment trial.
“I think her response was completely appropriate,” Letlow said of DeCasper. “It’s the truth.”
“And you know, I’ll just throw this out there — he spent $10 million against me so far over the last eight weeks, and it has not moved our numbers down,” she added. “We’re only continuing to go up now. That is also the power of the Trump endorsement as well.”
Olivia Rondeau is a politics reporter for Breitbart News based in Washington, DC. Find her on X/Twitter and Instagram.
Breitbart News Saturday airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Eastern.