GOP senator says he would ‘speak’ to No Labels about 2024 third-party run

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) on Sunday said he would be open to speaking to No Labels if they approached him about a potential third-party presidential run.

“What about No Labels?” NBC’s Chuck Todd asked Cassidy. “You’ve been showing up at their events. You even said that if, you know, people have pointed out you were once a Democrat. So, in some ways, you could some — perhaps be somebody they would look to bridge the divide. Is that something that would appeal to you?”

“Depending upon who the candidates were,” Cassidy responded. When Todd suggested that the 2024 general election candidates will likely turn out to be President Biden and former President Trump — and asked whether that scenario “suddenly” appealed to Cassidy — the Louisiana lawmaker responded: “If they came — if they came and spoke to me, I would certainly speak to them back.”

Cassidy said that he was not currently speaking to the organization, which is pushing for a bipartisan ticket as an alternative to Biden and Trump, but he said it would be something he’s open to.

“We could have the setting in which someone has been convicted and someone else shows signs of mental decline so significant 70 percent of the American people are already thinking he’s too old,” Cassidy said. “He has not been transparent like some are in terms of revealing the test. There is an actual need to know what’s going on and we’re not being told. With this, should there be another option for the American people? And I think plausibly there should be.”

Cassidy also said Sunday that while he would vote for a Republican in 2024, he might have to “write in” a candidate over voting for Trump, the likely GOP nominee.

Cassidy has previously criticized the former president and said last month that Trump should drop out of the 2024 race. He said at the time that Trump “will lose to Joe Biden if you look at the current polls.”

“I’m a Republican. I think any Republican on that stage in Milwaukee will do a better job than Joe Biden. And so I want one of them to win,” Cassidy said last month on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “If former President Trump ends up getting the nomination, but cannot win a general, that means we’ll have four more years of policies … which I think have been deleterious to our country’s future.”