Mitt Romney cast his vote to remove Donald Trump from office in February 2021 – and then announced he wouldn't seek reelection rather than face Utah voters.
Now he's lecturing Louisiana about consequences.
Romney went on X Sunday to eulogize Bill Cassidy – the Louisiana senator who just became the first Republican to lose renomination in fourteen years.
The Verdict Louisiana Delivered Saturday Night
Trump-backed Rep. Julia Letlow and Treasurer John Fleming didn't just beat Cassidy.
They buried him.
https://twitter.com/MittRomney/status/2056014105262076213?s=20
Both candidates topped Cassidy in Saturday's primary, sending him into a runoff he has no path to winning.
John Kennedy called the result predictable.
"Unless you're your god's perfect idiot, the result was predictable," Kennedy said Sunday on Fox News. "I mean, ground control to Major Tom. The polls have shown for well over a year that Sen. Cassidy was in trouble."
Kennedy said Trump's endorsement of Letlow "was sort of the icing on the cake."
He thanked Cassidy for his service.
He did not pretend it was a surprise.
What Romney and Cassidy Both Got Wrong
The seven Republican senators who voted to convict Trump in February 2021 made a calculation.
They figured the party would move on.
It didn't.
Richard Burr retired before voters could weigh in. Pat Toomey retired. Ben Sasse resigned to run a university. Lisa Murkowski survived – but only in Alaska, where ranked-choice voting saved her from a primary she was losing.
Cassidy didn't have that luxury.
He ran in Louisiana – Trump country – five years after stabbing the president in the back, and voters remembered every single day of it.
https://twitter.com/ElectionTime_/status/2056185414776766661?s=20
Lindsey Graham went on Meet the Press Sunday and said the quiet part out loud.
"There's no room in this party to destroy his agenda or to destroy him and his family as a Republican," Graham said. "If you align with Democrats to stop his agenda like Massie does, you're going to lose. If you align with Democrats to drive him out of office like Cassidy did, you're going to lose."
That's not revenge politics.
That's a party telling its members the rules.
Trump put it differently on Truth Social: "His disloyalty to the man who got him elected is now a part of a legend, and it's nice to see that his political career is OVER!"
Romney Has Been Here Before
This is the same Mitt Romney who called Trump a phony and a fraud in 2016 – and then asked him for the Secretary of State job.
He knew what was coming.
So did Cassidy.
Cassidy said something revealing in his concession speech – a veiled jab at Trump about not manufacturing excuses when you lose.
"You don't pout, you don't whine. You don't claim the election was stolen," Cassidy told supporters.
https://twitter.com/GigaBeers/status/2056404746798608745?s=20
The irony is that nobody claimed this election was stolen.
Louisiana Republicans just voted.
And they voted the way Republican voters have voted in state after state since January 6 – rewarding loyalty, punishing betrayal.
Cassidy knew the math.
Kennedy said he ran anyway.
That was his choice – and Louisiana Republican voters made theirs.
This Pattern Is Not Going Away
Richard Lugar lost renomination in his Indiana primary in 2012 after drifting too far from his base.
He never saw it coming either.
https://twitter.com/BeforeTheHype/status/2055998354086093103?s=20
The Republican Party has a simple operating principle right now: you can disagree with Trump on policy at the margins, but you cannot align with Democrats to destroy him personally and then expect those same Republican voters to save you when you need them.
Cassidy violated that principle in the most visible way possible – a nationally televised impeachment vote – and then compounded it by running for reelection without ever genuinely reconciling with the voters he betrayed.
Romney calling this "a loss for the country" is the last move of a man who made the same bet and folded before the hand was even played.
Louisiana Republicans didn't lose anything Saturday night.
They sent a message.
Sources:
- Stephen Sorace, "Cassidy primary defeat is a 'loss for the country,' Romney says," Fox News, May 18, 2026.
- "Trump Scores Major Republican Primary Victory as Cassidy Ousted in Louisiana," Fox News, May 18, 2026.
- "Trump Turns Sights on Bill Cassidy, Thomas Massie After Decisive Indiana Primary Victories," Fox News, May 18, 2026.
