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Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) indicated that he would be open to running on the third-party ticket if Donald Trump and Joe Biden are again the nominees.
In his appearance Sunday on Meet the Press, Chuck Todd pressed the senator over potentially joining or supporting the No Labels Party’s presidential ticket in 2024 if the organization nominates one. No Labels seeks to run a “unity” ticket in 2024 if Biden and Trump are once again the nominees, with a moderate Republican and a moderate Democrat running on the same ticket.
“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.”
“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 added that he will be voting Republican in 2024 but that he may have to write in someone if Donald Trump were to be the nominee.
“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.”
Recently, Former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan (R), West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin (D), former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, and former Hawaii Rep and Democrat Presidential Candidate Tulsi Gabbard have expressed interest in joining the ticket as well.
The party has gained access to ballots in at least ten states so far, more than a year before the 2024 presidential election, and is working to gain ballot access in all 50 states for the upcoming election.