A heated exchange took place during a meeting behind closed doors in the Capitol Wednesday after Republican senator Bill Cassidy (R-La.) accused President Donald Trump of not being forthright with the American people about the Iran war.
The argument got so loud and intense between Trump and Cassidy that a senator next to the Louisiana senator had to pull him back down into his seat.
It started when Trump expressed his frustration over the Senate approving a war powers resolution on Tuesday directing him to withdraw US troops from hostilities against Iran, sending a powerful rebuke to the president.
BREAKING: In an incredible moment, CNN just broke down the fight between Senator Bill Cassidy and Donald Trump. Republicans are fracturing in real time. Let's go. pic.twitter.com/LjHZri3eJb
— Democratic Wins Media (@DemocraticWins) June 24, 2026
Trump asked “why would anybody vote for the war powers” resolution, according to Cassidy, who later recounted his tense debate with the president.
“I stood and said, ‘Is that a rhetorical question or would you like to really know?’” Cassidy said.
When Trump said he really wanted to know why Cassidy and three other Republicans — Sens. Rand Paul (Ky.), Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) — voted with Democrats to attempt to curtail his authority as commander in chief, Cassidy stood up and ripped into Trump’s handling of the unpopular war.
President Trump's meeting with GOP senators on Wednesday turned testy, and at one point, he told Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) to sit down, after questions arose about the War Powers Resolution, according to sources directly familiar with the meeting.
— CBS News (@CBSNews) June 24, 2026
“I’m not going to be bullied… pic.twitter.com/lAQ9NiXu8h
“I stood and said, ‘You have not told the American people what’s going on. It was supposed to last four weeks, it’s lasted four months. Our original objectives have not been achieved and I want to know what’s going on,’” Cassidy said, recounting the heated back-and-forth.
Trump, infuriated over the Cassidy’s defiance in front of the entire Senate GOP conference, started yelling at the senator and Cassidy yelled back – matching the president’s tone and anger.
“He did not particularly care for my comments, raised his voice. I lost my temper, that’s not appropriate – it’s the Irish in me,” Cassidy said. “I matched his tone and his volume and it went back and forth.”
Cassidy said Trump then got personal, insulting him over his primary election loss.
“What does President Trump say? ‘Oh, you lost the election,’ that sort of thing, whatever comes to mind to demean another person,” Cassidy said.
Cassidy said he sat down at the urging of the senator next to him in an attempt to “de-escalate.”
But the Louisiana Republican said he’s not sorry about clashing with Trump because he argued “the American people need to know” and “the Senate needs to know” more about what’s happening with the conflict with Iran.
After the closed-door Senate meeting, Trump hailed a ‘a really well-unified party’, despite the shouting match.
President Trump hailed a 'a really well-unified party' after a closed-door Senate meeting that devolved into a shouting match with Senator Bill Cassidy over the Iran war https://t.co/4X0DXQG0CK pic.twitter.com/eQwb1AWPqD
— Reuters (@Reuters) June 25, 2026
Source: Agencies (edited by Al-Manar)