Kentucky could also be the final place in America the place you’ll be able to take on President Donald Trump as a hard-right Republican and carry a GOP voting card in Congress. At least for now.
A pair of twangy Kentucky rebels – Rep. Thomas Massie and Sen. Rand Paul – are teaming as much as defend Massie in the largest combat of his political profession as Trump intensifies efforts to oust the seven-term Republican from Washington subsequent yr.
Massie is dealing with the full would possibly of Trump’s political operation in a nasty GOP primary in northeast Kentucky, the place MAGA world has poured hundreds of thousands to assist the president’s most well-liked candidate, former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein. And Massie and his allies argue it’s no extraordinary race – it’s an try to silence the president’s remaining critics in Congress.
“I think that’s one of the reasons they’re attacking me and putting so much money into my race, is to keep the others in line, and so far, it’s working,” Massie informed NCS in a latest interview. “I just think there’s so much political pressure from the president and the people surrounding him that they can’t withstand it.”
The assaults from the president have solely intensified since the House margins have narrowed to just a single vote – giving Massie outsized energy in the fractious chamber. In the final week, Trump personally went after Massie with crass feedback about his latest marriage and even made a swipe at the National Prayer Breakfast calling him a “moron.” (Paul’s response? “Doesn’t sound very charitable to me.”)
So far, Paul appears to be the solely congressional Republican working to assist Massie cling on in what some take into account the final vestige of the pre-Trump Tea Party model of fiscal restraint and hands-off authorities. The Kentucky senator informed NCS he plans to marketing campaign with him for a number of days this spring forward of the May primary, after different joint occasions final fall. Massie informed NCS the solely different assist on the stump he’s been provided is former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who left Congress last month after Trump’s repeated tirades in opposition to her.
Even Speaker Mike Johnson informed NCS that he’s not dedicated to backing Massie, a shocking transfer for a sitting celebration chief.
“I generally run the incumbent protection program here. But it’s gotta be a cooperation. I gotta have a conversation with Thomas to see if he wants to be on the team,” Johnson informed NCS when requested if he would again Massie in the primary. “Stay tuned on that.”
In immediately’s GOP, assist for Massie has develop into its personal sort of political litmus take a look at. That contains in Kentucky’s heated three-way Senate primary, the place a type of contenders, GOP Rep. Andy Barr, formally endorsed Massie’s opponent in a bid for Trump’s assist in his personal race. (One of Barr’s opponents, Nate Morris, rapidly adopted.)
And final week, Trump endorsed in opposition to a MAGA hardliner in a particular election in Georgia who has been supportive of Massie.
But Massie stays undeterred. Both he and Paul stay unwilling to have interaction in the sort of MAGA-world apology tour that lots of his colleagues have unfurled to avoid wasting their very own political careers. And Paul informed NCS that he believed a few of Trump’s assaults – together with in opposition to Massie’s spouse, who’s a former Paul staffer – would backfire in the primary. (Massie was widowed in mid-2024 and lately remarried.)
“I think a lot of people at home are seeing the attacks on Thomas Massie’s wife as being unseemly,” Paul informed NCS. “People are rallying around him because to talk about his hurried wedding, and, ‘Oh, she’s much younger than him.’ … I think they’re going to react the opposite to what the president thinks.”
Paul believes that Massie can fend off the problem, pointing to his reputation in the district however added: “It’s not easy to have a president of your own party do that.”
Trump and his allies have threatened to spend tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in the combat. Still, even some senior Republicans in Washington stay uncertain that Trump’s machine can defeat Massie.
Massie’s district – which runs from the outer bands of the Louisville suburbs, up north to the suburbs of Cincinnati all the option to the outskirts of Appalachia – contains huge swaths of farmland and voters with a libertarian streak. Trump received there with 67% of the vote in 2024 and Massie ran in the common uncontested.
State Rep. Steve Doan, an ally of the congressman, informed NCS he believed Massie would nonetheless prevail.
“I always frame this race as mommy and daddy are fighting. We love Trump and we love Thomas. It is a DC fight. It is not a Kentucky fight,” Doan mentioned.
“It’s going to be really hard to convince the people of this district who have consistently voted for Trump and Massie that a Lindsey Graham donor who is going to continue to vote for foreign aid in Ukraine and bailouts and wasteful spending is going to be a better fit in Washington, DC, than Thomas Massie,” he continued.
The Gallrein marketing campaign shot again that Massie is “anti-Trump” and votes with Democrats on key points, whereas their candidate has the president’s endorsement.
“Ed Gallrein is endorsed by President Trump who won the district by 35 points. That alone shows Thomas Massie is nowhere close to in line with KY04,” marketing campaign spokesman Lance Trover mentioned.
For his half, Massie has solely dug in in opposition to the president in latest weeks, championing the probe into Jeffrey Epstein that Trump sought to kill whereas supporting Democratic measures to rein in the president’s powers overseas.
No different Republican, moreover maybe Paul, has so usually, and so publicly, voted in opposition to a Trump precedence.
Both Massie and Paul have brazenly criticized Trump on points like authorities funding, voting in opposition to Congress’ large spending bundle final month. They’ve opposed his actions in Iran and Venezuela and the two had been a few of the solely GOP votes in opposition to his large tax breaks and immigration enforcement bundle final yr. (The solely different Republican to oppose Trump’s large coverage invoice was centrist Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, who represents considered one of his celebration’s bluest seats in the House.)
Massie’s opponent, Gallrein, who can be an area farmer, has explicitly framed his marketing campaign as a referendum on loyalty to Trump. In his most up-to-date advert, Gallrein depicts himself as “Trump’s handpicked choice.”
But as a lot as Massie’s model of independence could also be revered in the 4th District, in Washington, members of his personal congressional delegation acknowledge that Massie’s streak of opposition is creating complications for celebration leaders.
“I think the thing that makes the Republicans from Kentucky frustrated with Massie is he is always tweeting like negative stuff about other Republicans, not just Trump. … We are all trying to work together to help the state and help the president be successful and we take a lot of incoming from Massie’s Twitter followers a lot,” mentioned Rep. James Comer, one other Kentucky Republican and chairman of the highly effective House Oversight Committee.
Rep. Brett Guthrie, one other Republican in the state, lamented it’s not that lawmakers should adhere to the president’s each whim, however that Massie can seldom be counted on for any of Trump’s priorities.
“I think people have disagreed … but Thomas has disagreed almost a lot,” Guthrie mentioned.
Massie’s adherence to his personal libertarian streak has develop into much more acute since Johnson has seen his majority dwindle to historic lows.
Last week throughout a vote to fund the authorities, Johnson couldn’t afford to lose greater than a single Republican on a procedural rule vote, however management was working as in the event that they couldn’t lose anybody as a result of they knew they’d already misplaced Massie.
For his half, Massie makes no apologies about his inflexible adherence to his beliefs nor does he again down when challenged by Trump. After the prayer breakfast Thursday, Massie tweeted, “The President of the United States called me a moron at the National Prayer Breakfast this morning because I’m still fighting for what he promised the American people.”
Asked if he had another remark to the president’s assaults by way of textual content Thursday, Massie added solely: “I feel blessed to know I’m in Trump’s prayers.”