Sen. Bill Cassidy cast the deciding vote to confirm Todd Blanche as the nation's 88th attorney general in a razor-thin 50, 49 Senate tally, then went on national television to explain why he nearly voted no.
Cassidy, the Louisiana Republican who is already on his way out of the Senate after losing his primary to a Trump-backed challenger, appeared on CBS's "Face the Nation" on Sunday and told host Margaret Brennan that the confirmation was not a simple call. He described the choice as a "gradation of gray," not a "black-and-white" decision, and disclosed that concerns about IRS protections for President Trump and his family had brought him to the brink of opposition.
The Saturday morning vote capped weeks of uncertainty over whether Republican holdouts would fall in line behind Blanche, who had served as acting attorney general since Pam Bondi's ouster in April. Two GOP senators, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, ultimately voted against the nominee, citing concerns about the Department of Justice's independence, the Epstein files, and what they characterized as politicization of the department. That left Cassidy as the make-or-break vote, and he delivered it for the administration, but not without airing his reservations publicly.
The central sticking point for several Republican senators was the Anti-Weaponization Fund, a $1.8 billion pool that would have paid out to Trump allies, including Jan. 6 rioters pardoned by the president. The fund drew bipartisan criticism, and GOP holdouts demanded it be dismantled before they would support Blanche.
On Aug. 2, Blanche reached a deal with Sen. John Cornyn of Texas to nullify the fund's payouts. Cornyn, a former Texas attorney general, told National Review he believed Blanche was "as good as you're going to get" and that the DOJ needed Senate-confirmed leadership "to prevent some of the chaos and dysfunction over there."
Cassidy pointed to that deal as the factor that tipped his vote. He told Brennan on CBS:
"What I'm told as regards to the Anti-Weaponization Fund, if you put it in the context of the political environment, the judicial environment, the process you would have to go back through in order to reinstate it, that effectively it's dead."
The deal also reportedly included written confirmation from Blanche that audit immunity for Trump and his family was narrower than originally understood, a concession that helped bring Cornyn and Sen. Thom Tillis on board, the Washington Examiner reported.
But Cassidy made clear the IRS issue had almost sunk his support entirely. Blanche has continued to grant protections shielding Trump and his family from IRS probes, a practice Cassidy flagged as deeply troubling. Cassidy's yes vote cleared the path for Blanche, but the senator did not pretend to be comfortable with every element of the nominee's record.
"That is wrong, and no American should be targeted by the law, but no American should be above the law. And that, frankly, almost weighed to vote 'No.'"
That statement, from a Republican senator, about a Republican president's hand-picked attorney general, is not the kind of endorsement the White House wanted on the Sunday shows.
Cassidy did not try to sell Blanche as an ideal nominee. He said there were "a lot of positive things to say about Todd Blanche" and that "stable leadership" was necessary for the DOJ to do its job. But he also faulted Blanche for what the New York Post described as "poor judgment" on both the Anti-Weaponization Fund and the IRS audit exemptions.
His framing was blunt: "Mr. Blanche is not perfect, and he will tell you this, but the choice is not between perfection and Mr. Blanche."
That is a fair summary of where many Senate Republicans landed. The confirmation fight was never about whether Blanche was the strongest possible pick. It was about whether enough GOP senators would accept an imperfect nominee rather than hand the administration a high-profile defeat heading into the August recess.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa framed the stakes in starker terms, calling a vote for Blanche "a vote for the safety of the American people." Grassley's endorsement carried weight with rank-and-file Republicans who might have otherwise wavered.
Cassidy's willingness to air his misgivings so publicly is easier to understand in context. He is a senator with no political future to protect. Louisiana GOP voters ousted him in his primary after he voted to convict Trump following Jan. 6, one of seven Republican senators who did so and one of the few who paid a direct electoral price.
Trump endorsed Cassidy's opponent, and the effort succeeded. Julia Letlow won the runoff, capping what amounted to a years-long campaign to remove Cassidy from the Senate.
So when Cassidy cast the deciding vote for Blanche, he was not angling for a reward or hedging against a primary challenge. He was a lame-duck senator making a judgment call on the merits as he saw them, and then explaining it in public without spin. That does not make the vote right or wrong. It does make his candor more credible than the usual confirmation-week talking points.
Blanche, for his part, struck a more conventional tone after the vote. He said he was "deeply honored by the trust and confidence President Trump has placed in me to lead the Department of Justice as our great nation's 88th Attorney General."
Collins and Murkowski were the only two Republicans to vote no. Both cited concerns about DOJ independence, the Anti-Weaponization Fund, and the broader question of whether Blanche would run the department as a law enforcement agency or as an extension of the White House. Their opposition was not a surprise, both have broken with the party on high-profile Trump-era nominations before.
But their votes alone were not enough to block the confirmation. Without Cassidy joining them, the math was settled. And Cassidy, for all his stated reservations, chose to vote yes, a pattern that has repeated itself across multiple confrontations between Trump and Senate Republicans this year.
The result is an attorney general confirmed by the narrowest possible margin, with the deciding vote cast by a senator who publicly questioned the nominee's judgment on two of the most politically sensitive issues in the confirmation, the Anti-Weaponization Fund and IRS protections for the president's family.
Several questions remain unanswered. The precise legal mechanism by which the Anti-Weaponization Fund has been "effectively" killed is unclear. Cassidy himself used the word "effectively", not "permanently", and acknowledged he was relying on what he had been told about the political and judicial environment, not on a binding legal instrument.
The nature of the IRS protections Blanche has extended to Trump and his family is also murky. Whether those protections are formal orders, written policies, or informal practices has not been publicly disclosed. Cassidy flagged the issue as serious enough to nearly change his vote, but neither he nor the administration has offered a detailed accounting.
And the Cornyn-Blanche deal itself, struck on Aug. 2, just days before the vote, has not been released in full. Its specific terms beyond the fund's nullification remain opaque. Cassidy has reversed course on high-profile votes before, and the question of whether this deal holds up under pressure will define the early months of Blanche's tenure.
Blanche now leads the Justice Department with a one-vote mandate, a confirmation record marred by public criticism from the senator who saved him, and a set of unresolved commitments that skeptics on both sides will be watching closely. The DOJ deserves leadership that earns confidence, not leadership that squeaks through on assurances.
