The biggest, most expensive test of President Donald Trump’s hold on the Republican Party is now here: whether Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky can weather the long-simmering contempt from the White House for a maverick lawmaker who, in his own words, has “no Fs to give now.”
Tuesday’s primary in Kentucky will measure if someone who runs afoul of Trump can survive in this Trump-saturated environment. Massie seems unbowed and is touting his rift with the White House as a selling point for another term. A rebel without a coalition, Massie voted against the President’s tax cuts, saying they were too irresponsible with red ink. He hates the war in Iran and hasn’t been afraid to say so. He’s been critical of political money for Israel. And he led the charge to open the Epstein files over Trump’s objections.
All of which have drawn the President’s ire in a season of bracing acts of Republican-on-Republican purity tests that are not entirely grounded in reality. Trump’s approval ratings are parked in the 30s. Fellow Republicans are, frankly, steamed at how he’s been dragging down their hopes of holding House and Senate majorities heading into November. In a highly unusual breach of protocol—and in the middle of a war—Trump dispatched Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to the campaign trail to stump for Ed Gallrein, a dairy farmer and former Navy SEAL vying against Massie for the GOP nomination. Trump has already exacted revenge on state lawmakers in Indiana for not gerrymandering the congressional map at halftime and then tanked Sen. Bill Cassidy’s re-election bid in Louisiana on Saturday. That same day, he threatened Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado with a primary for coming to the defense of Massie.
This is a President whose agenda can only be described in one bitter…
