Cassidy Receives Iran Briefing at White House after Clashing with Trump

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Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) received a briefing about the Iran conflict from Vice President JD Vance and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff at the White House Wednesday afternoon after the senator clashed heatedly with President Trump at a meeting earlier in the day.

“I want to thank Vice President Vance and Special Envoy Witkoff for the thorough briefing this afternoon on Iran. I appreciate the quick invitation to the White House to address many of my concerns,” Cassidy said in a statement posted on X.

The White House hastily arranged the meeting after Cassidy blasted Trump at a meeting on Capitol Hill for not being forthright with senators and the American public about the conflict.

Fireworks erupted at the meeting when Trump expressed his anger over four GOP senators voting Tuesday for a House-passed war powers resolution directing him to withdraw U.S. forces from Iran.

Cassidy voted for the measure along with Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.).

Centrist Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) voted against it but the resolution still passed because Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and David McCormick (R-Pa.) missed the vote.

“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, recalling his heated confrontation with Trump.

The exchange quickly turned into a shouting match, derailing a meeting that was supposed to be about hashing out a strategy for passing the SAVE America Act and for handling another possible government shutdown in October.

“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, describing the clash with Trump. “I matched his tone and his volume and it went back and forth.”

Cassidy said Trump then accused him of being a loser.

“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 didn’t regret the blow-up with Trump because he felt that the president had kept the Senate in the dark about many key elements of the conflict.

“I make no apologies for standing up to the president, trying to demand that more information be shared with the Senate and more information be shared with the American people,” he said.

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Bill Cassidy

David McCormick

Donald Trump

JD Vance

John Fetterman

Lisa Murkowski

Mitch McConnell

President Trump

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Sen. Bill Cassidy

Special Envoy Steve Witkoff

Steve Witkoff

Susan Collins

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Vice President JD Vance

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