Republican Senator Crushes Talk of Third-Party Run
As the No Labels group moves forward in its process to select a candidate to run for president, Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana says it will not be him.
A Republican, but one who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump after the Capitol incursion, on paper Cassidy ticks a number of boxes for potential voters looking for an option that is neither Trump nor President Joe Biden.
Not happening, he said Sunday on “Meet the Press.”
“I was never seriously considered to be their candidate,” Cassidy said when asked if there was any chance he would run on the group’s ticket.
“It was reported in the press otherwise, but I was never seriously considered. So that kind of — obviously, the answer is not,” he said.
Cassidy said that the mere fact his name was bandied about signifies that some voters are looking for answers no one is providing.
“So, on the other hand, the very fact that No Labels did, that I was floated, I will say has a certain rationale to it. People at No Labels actually want answers to serious problems in our country. And right now neither candidate is actually offering serious solutions,” he said.
WATCH: @SenBillCassidy (R-La.) says he was “never seriously considered” by No Labels as a potential presidential candidate for the group.
But Cassidy credits the speculation to his belief that “neither candidate is actually offering serious solutions” right now. pic.twitter.com/BAJLMXdspj
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) March 18, 2024
Cassidy said Social Security is one such example.
“You’ve heard me speak about Social Security before. Neither candidate is offering something which has a snowball’s chance of passing Congress, and yet Social Security will become insolvent in about eight years. So, wait, it’s going insolvent in eight years, and neither candidate is offering a solution which has a snowball’s chance in Hades in order to getting passed,” he said.
“So the very fact that I speak about that means that, ‘Wait a second. This might be somebody whom we would consider because this person is talking about serious, serious answers to serious problems,’” he said.
The concept behind the No Labels group was that with the established parties moving to the extremes, voters want a moderate choice.
However, according to a report in The Washington Post, No Labels wants to be certain it does not help Trump.
Former Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, who served as a Democrat before becoming an independent, made that clear last week.
“We are going to do a final determination that at least at this point we have met all of our standards, and we are not going to be a spoiler and that we are not going to re-elect Trump and that we actually have a chance to win,” Lieberman said.
“To me personally, stopping him from being re-elected is a goal even greater than restoring bipartisanship to Washington,” Lieberman said of Trump.
Although multiple names have been floated as a possible candidate, The Washington Post said Geoff Duncan, a former lieutenant governor of Georgia and a Republican, had meetings with members of No Labels.
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