{"id":741,"date":"2026-05-18T21:36:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T21:36:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=741"},"modified":"2026-05-18T21:36:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T21:36:14","slug":"the-republican-senators-speaking-out-against-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=741","title":{"rendered":"The Republican senators speaking out against Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

Louisiana\u2019s Bill Cassidy joins a short but notable list.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana) won’t be returning to Congress next year after he lost a Republican primary race on Saturday. (Maxine Wallace\/The Washington Post)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

During President Donald Trump\u2019s decade leading the Republican Party, it\u2019s been proved over and over that if you want a job in GOP politics, you need to be almost completely in line with him.<\/p>

Read more Gerrit Cole could make his Yankees return this homestand<\/a><\/p>\n

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana) is the latest example. He just lost his primary, <\/a>after voting five years ago to convict Trump at the president\u2019s impeachment trial after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. (Senators serve six-year terms, so this was Cassidy\u2019s first time on the ballot since then.)<\/p>\n

But Cassidy also suggested he was going to not finish his term quietly.<\/p>\n

And he\u2019s not the only GOP senator routinely speaking out against Trump, who is facing abysmal approval numbers ahead of November\u2019s midterm elections, in which Republicans\u2019 control of Congress is on the line.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s who to watch.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re reading The 5-Minute Fix newsletter, a free analysis of the day\u2019s biggest political news. <\/i>Get it in your inbox<\/i><\/a> every weekday.<\/i><\/p>\n

Cassidy was one of seven Republican senators who voted to convict Trump after the Jan. 6 insurrection, playing a role in a historic rebuke from the president\u2019s own party. Trump was impeached by the House but acquitted after a trial in which 57 senators voted to find him guilty of inciting the insurrection, short of the 67 needed to convict him.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur Constitution and our country is more important than any one person,\u201d Cassidy said at the time. \u201cI voted to convict President Trump because he is guilty.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Trump returned to office, Cassidy was in the crosshairs again. A doctor, he struggled over whether to cast the deciding vote to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be the nation\u2019s top health official. Cassidy <\/b>ultimately did, but as Kennedy has systematically rolled back vaccine recommendations, the senator has warned <\/a>that vaccines will be less available and more children will get sick.<\/p>\n

When he lost his primary this weekend, Cassidy gave a concession speech illustrating an alternate vision of the Republican Party.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you participate in democracy, sometimes it doesn\u2019t turn out the way you want it to,\u201d he said. \u201cBut you don\u2019t pout. You don\u2019t whine. You don\u2019t claim the election was stolen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n
In Donald Trump’s second term, Sen. Thom Tillis (North Carolina) was one of the first Republican senators to speak out against the president. (Demetrius Freeman\/The Washington Post)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

Thom Tillis is a senator from North Carolina who announced last summer that he wasn\u2019t going to run for reelection and then opposed Trump\u2019s tax bill because of its cuts to Medicaid.<\/p>\n

Since then, Tillis has colorfully criticized Trump\u2019s Cabinet secretaries (\u201cThe United States is not a warmonger,\u201d he told NBC News<\/a> of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth) and the administration\u2019s proposition to invade Greenland (\u201cI\u2019m sick of stupid,\u201d he said<\/a>). He blocked Trump\u2019s nominee to chair the Federal Reserve until he got assurances that the Justice Department would set aside a criminal investigation of the current Fed chair.<\/p>

Read more Trump says he\u2019s called off an attack on Iran to give talks more time<\/a><\/p>\n

Tillis is also standing in the way of Trump\u2019s push to eliminate the filibuster in the Senate so Republicans can approve a bill to change how Americans vote, calling it \u201ca foolish and lazy idea.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like Cassidy, Tillis is not so subtly criticizing how Trump has changed American politics to be more tribal.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s become increasingly evident,\u201d Tillis said as he announced his retirement from Congress, \u201cthat leaders who are willing to embrace bipartisanship, compromise, and demonstrate independent thinking are becoming an endangered species.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) was once a loyal ally of Trump in the Senate \u2014 less so for the president’s second term. (Jabin Botsford\/The Washington Post)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

In Trump\u2019s first term, Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), then the Senate leader, was instrumental in helping the president transform the Supreme Court to a heavily conservative one.<\/p>\n

But then the Jan. 6 attack happened. \u201cThere\u2019s no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day,\u201d McConnell said on the Senate floor after the attack. \u201cNo question about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he did not vote to convict Trump, which helped enable Trump\u2019s comeback four years later.<\/p>\n

McConnell has since stepped down from the top Senate position and is retiring next year. He\u2019s voted against confirming some of the president\u2019s most controversial Cabinet picks \u2014 an unthinkable prospect in Trump\u2019s first term. And he is fervently pressing the administration to fund Ukraine so it can defend itself against Russia\u2019s invasion, pointing out that the Defense Department hasn\u2019t spent millions that Congress approved for the battlefield. \u201cWhat gives?\u201d he wrote <\/a>in The Washington Post last month.<\/p>\n

The Republican primary in the race to replace McConnell is Tuesday, and his reputation is taking a beating<\/a> among Republicans trying to succeed him.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s also true for two House lawmakers who have spoken out more publicly against Trump: Rep. Don Bacon (Nebraska), who is retiring, and former representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (Georgia), who abruptly announced she was leaving Congress last year and has since called for the Cabinet to remove Trump from office through the 25th Amendment.<\/p>\n

That will almost certainly not happen.<\/p>\n

Mike Madrid, a leader of the Never Trump movement, said that after all these years of opposing the president, he doesn\u2019t see an organized Republican resistance to Trump. \u201cVery few of the Never Trumpers call themselves Republicans anymore,\u201d he told<\/a> The Washington Post recently, \u201cor are fighting for conservatism anymore, and that\u2019s very telling.\u201d<\/p>

Read more Saints GM Loomis: the status of 3 key veterans remains unclear, but Jordan was offered a contract<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sen. Bill Cassidy joins a short but notable list<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":737,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Republican senators speaking out against Trump - Moving Insider USA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=741\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Republican senators speaking out against Trump - Moving Insider USA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Sen. 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