Donald Trump got his revenge on Sen. Bill Cassidy. The Louisiana Republican says he isn’t planning to return the favor — yet.

Freed from political constraints after decisively losing his battle for renomination Saturday, Cassidy could — if he chooses — gum up major parts of Trump’s agenda on Capitol Hill. To start with, he holds what amounts to veto power over key nominees as chair of the Senate committee overseeing health care, labor and education and as a member of the powerful Senate Finance Committee.

Cassidy, in multiple lengthy chats with reporters Monday around the Capitol, batted down any suggestion he is now liberated to challenge Trump head-on. But he also declined to say how he would handle tricky upcoming votes on the Iran war or an immigration enforcement bill and urged Washington to embrace bipartisanship.

“Am I going to deliberately push back on things? No, I’m going to do what’s good for my country and my state,” he said.

Asked about the nominees coming through the panel he chairs — which could include a new Labor secretary and FDA commissioner — Cassidy noted that there were already nominees who were not able to get through the committee.

“I’m going to continue to do what is best for my state and best for my country and try and make every decision with that consideration,” he said about whether his approach to the administration will change.

Those comments came after Cassidy delivered a withering, if veiled, condemnation of Trump in his concession speech, raising the possibility that he could become increasingly outspoken in his disagreements with the president over the next seven months.

“Insults only bother me if they come from somebody of character and integrity. I find that people of character and integrity don’t spend their time attacking people on the internet,” Cassidy said during the speech Saturday night.

Cassidy largely avoided addressing Trump directly when speaking with reporters Monday. He declined to say, for instance, if he thought Trump had done something that constituted a high crime or misdemeanor during his second term. He was one of the seven Republicans to vote to convict the president on impeachment charges after the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters.

Instead, Cassidy said he wanted to “give a better vision of how we should do things” and signaled that’s an area where he will speak out on before his term ends in early January.

“I think people want me to say negative things,” he said. “I’m saying positive things, positive things that may reflect upon the current circumstance, but it’s coming from my heart about making my country a better place, and that’s my goal.”

Cassidy’s avowed attitude could be a sigh of relief for Senate Republicans, who need near-complete unity to confirm nominees or advance legislation through the Senate unless they can win over Democratic votes.

Republicans already have several members who are retiring, and while they generally vote with the party, former GOP Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina have shown a willingness to break with the president on key issues.

“I don’t see him going in the way of a Thom Tillis, or something like that, to cause unnecessary problems,” said a former Cassidy aide granted anonymity to candidly assess the senator’s thinking. “I think he’ll continue to do what he’s always done, which is just kind of do what he feels is right. I would be surprised if he goes on the warpath.”

Saturday’s loss was the culmination of a politically tortuous year for Cassidy, who stifled his concerns and advanced several controversial Trump nominees — most prominently HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

He also told colleagues — and Blue Light News — last year that the White House had assured him Trump would stay neutral in the primary, something some GOP senators were privately skeptical about given the president’s mercurial nature and lingering anger over the 2021 vote.

Trump instead endorsed a primary opponent, Rep. Julia Letlow, as payback for Cassidy’s 2021 conviction vote. She won a plurality Saturday and will face former Rep. John Fleming in a June 27 runoff.

Cassidy said Monday he had no regrets over the conviction vote.

“I actually voted to uphold the Constitution — that’s a better way to put it,” Cassidy said. “That may have cost me my seat, but who cares?”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment on concerns over Cassidy blocking legislative priorities or nominees.

A former administration official from Trump’s first term said the president’s team understood the risks of not endorsing Cassidy and isn’t worried about the senator going into YOLO mode now.

“This is the outcome they wanted — I think that they had factored all of that in from the beginning,” the person said. “I don’t see any regret coming out of them. Cassidy would have been a thorn in the side all the way through the end. And, to be honest, once he got past an election, I don’t think he would care anymore, because who’s going to be gone first — Trump or Cassidy?”

The person added that Cassidy won’t be the only senator on his way out the door looking to block nominees from the president, suggesting the White House could keep acting officials in place until a new Congress is seated next year.

Several of his colleagues downplayed that Cassidy, who is known within the conference for being a low-key health-policy wonk, would suddenly reinvent himself as a major gadfly for Senate leadership or the White House.

But there are already signs that Cassidy might be freer with his post-election tongue.

Asked Monday about the Justice Department’s establishment of a controversial “antiweaponization” fund to pay settlements to people allegedly targeted by Democratic administrations, the senator said he didn’t see a “legal precedent” for it.

Cassidy’s delegation mate, GOP Sen. John Kennedy said, he is “very nonemotional in the way he makes his decisions.”

“He’s very analytical, and personally, I think Bill will just continue to do what he’s always done, just call it like he sees it,” he added.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune called Cassidy a “team player” who wants to “see our team succeed.”

“He’s got several months here in which he can be a real force for change and a factor in trying to get some things done, and chairs an incredibly significant, powerful committee here, and we look forward to continuing to work with him,” Thune said.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), a member of the committee Cassidy chairs, largely declined to comment on the race but noted that he’s got bills he wants to get through the panel before the end of the year.

“I’m going to be really nice to him,” Hawley said.

Kelsey Brugger, Calen Razor and Hailey Fuchs contributed to this report.

House GOP leaders are pulling a long-stalled college athletics bill from a planned House vote for a second time after they failed to secure the required votes, according to two people granted anonymity to describe internal deliberations.

The SCORE Act, if enacted, would reshape oversight of college athletics in the “name, image and likeness” era of student-athlete compensation. But a pocket of GOP opposition has imperiled the bill, even after Republican leaders negotiated alterations with Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) and others.

Last week, Republicans on the leadership whip team privately acknowledged the bill was in trouble as Reps. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) and others remained skeptical of the entire effort.

Speaker Mike Johnson, who would need near GOP unanimity to pass a procedural measure teeing up the bill for a final vote, said in an interview Friday he would talk to Perry and others but remained confident he could get the legislation across the finish line.

While Democrats were never expected to support that procedural step, the Congressional Black Caucus dealt a significant blow to the overall legislation Monday when the influential Democratic group came out against the bill, threatening any semblance of bipartisanship.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has scheduled a Tuesday news conference with NAACP President Derrick Johnson to rail against the legislation.

The two people familiar with the decision to pull the bill said it was a result of both the CBC move and continued opposition from Perry and Donalds, who is running for governor of Florida.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told a group of people in the housing industry last week that he’s open to supporting the House version of an embattled housing affordability package if it were to pass in the House and emerge as the most viable path towards a final bill, said three people familiar with the conversations who were granted anonymity to speak about private discussions.

The House is expected to pass its bipartisan housing bill on Wednesday and send the legislation back to the Senate.

The House bill would amend the Senate-passed 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act that received 89 votes in March and was endorsed by the White House. The two bills are largely similar and aim to increase housing supply and affordability and individual homeownership.

Republican and Democratic lawmakers view passage of the bill as a key policy win during an election year that is increasingly being dominated by voters’ concerns over rising costs.

The House legislation would significantly scale back the Senate bill’s restrictions on large investors buying up houses and add some additional Democratic and Republican priorities. The House bill earned the support of both House Financial Services Chair French Hill (R-Ark.) and ranking member Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and is expected to move under special fast-track procedures that will require significant bipartisan support. House GOP leaders have been adamant that they do not have the support to pass the Senate-passed housing package as-is.

A spokesperson for Schumer said it was “not true” that the New York Democrat is in support of the House’s bill.

“Leader Schumer supports the Senate-passed housing bill and wants to get a good housing bill done that meaningfully takes on the housing affordability crisis facing American families. That’s why, the House should take up the Senate bill,” the spokesperson said.

Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and ranking member Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), the architects of the Senate-passed housing bill, have both continued to push back against the House version, urging their colleagues on the other side of the Capitol to pass the Senate’s language.

The White House is also pressuring the House to pass the Senate bill, arguing that the Senate’s language on large institutional investors better aligns with President Donald Trump’s priorities for cracking down on Wall Street’s role in the housing market.

However, the housing industry has largely backed the housing language from the House. A coalition of more than 30 national housing-related groups sent a letter to House leaders Monday urging the chamber to pass the housing package immediately. Other housing groups, which had previously spoken out against the Senate-passed housing bill, publicly supported the House’s version over the past few days.