By José Niño
President Donald Trump ventured into Rep. Thomas Massie’s Kentucky district on March 11, 2026, to savage the congressman before local voters, labeling him a “disaster for our party.” At the same time, pro-Israel billionaires are funneling millions of dollars into a campaign to remove one of Congress’s staunchest opponents of foreign entanglements.
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“Thomas Massie is a disaster for our party,” Trump declared during the event. “We got to get rid of this loser. This guy is bad.”
The president shared the stage with Ed Gallrein, his chosen candidate for Massie’s seat. Gallrein is a former Navy SEAL and farmer who mounted an unsuccessful state senate bid in 2024. Trump’s appearance roughly two months before the May 19 Republican primary underscores his determination to eliminate one of his few persistent Republican critics in the House.
Trump said:
He’s disloyal to the Republican Party, he’s disloyal to the people of Kentucky, and most importantly, he is disloyal to the United States of America, and he’s got to be voted out of the office as soon as possible.
The two men have feuded throughout the past year, with their sharpest conflict centering on Massie’s effort to force disclosure of files related to sex predator Jeffrey Epstein which could expose a mass pedophile and espionage ring including U.S. officials and foreign actors. Massie joined Democrats and several other Republicans to compel a vote on releasing the documents. Trump initially resisted but ultimately signed the measure after it became evident both chambers would approve it. Massie has kept needling Trump on the matter and has firmly opposed the Iran war. He also voted against Trump’s “big, beautiful” tax and spending legislation last year.
The war chest assembled against Massie exposes the scale of pro-Israel hostility toward his congressional career. Wealthy Jewish Republican donors recently launched the MAGA Kentucky Super PAC with $2 million earmarked specifically for his defeat. Billionaire Jewish oligarch Paul Singer gave $1 million. Miriam Adelson’s Preserve America PAC added $750,000.
According to AdImpact data reported by The Wall Street Journal, the MAGA KY and the pro-Israel RJC Victory Fund have together spent around $3.6 million on advertising to smear and remove Massie. Massie’s own campaign and a supportive super PAC called Kentucky First PAC have countered with approximately $3.1 million in ad spending.
The Republican Jewish Coalition has stated its intentions bluntly. CEO Matt Brooks announced: “If Tom Massie chooses to enter the race for the U.S. Senate in Kentucky, the RJC campaign budget to ensure he is defeated will be unlimited.”
Massie has provoked this opposition through an America-first voting record that distinguishes him from nearly every other Republican member of Congress. He has built a reputation as the chamber’s most reliable opponent of the bipartisan foreign policy establishment, routinely casting solitary dissenting votes against military adventures and pro-Israel measures.
In July 2019, Massie was the only Republican to oppose a resolution condemning the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. In September 2021, he stood alone among Republicans in voting against $1 billion for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense, arguing:
My position of “no foreign aid” might sound extreme to some, but I think it’s extreme to bankrupt our country and put future generations of Americans in hock to our debtors.
On May 18, 2022, Massie registered the sole vote against a resolution condemning anti-Semitism, which passed 420 to 1. He explained his position by posting that “legitimate government exists, in part, to punish those who commit unprovoked violence against others, but government can’t legislate thought.”
In October 2023, Massie voted against a $14 billion aid package for Israel, stating:
If Congress sends $14.5 billion to Israel, on average we’ll be taking about $100 from every working person in the United States. This will be extracted through inflation and taxes. I’m against it.
After the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the most powerful pro-Israel PAC in the world, attacked him, Massie fired back that “AIPAC always gets mad when I put America first. I won’t be voting for their $14+ billion shakedown of American taxpayers either.”
Massie’s most explosive comments about Israeli influence came during a June 2024 conversation with Tucker Carlson. He disclosed that “everybody but me has an AIPAC person. … It’s like your babysitter, your AIPAC babysitter who is always talking to you for AIPAC.”
He went further, explaining that “I have Republicans who come to me and say that’s wrong what AIPAC is doing to you, let me talk to my AIPAC person… I’ve had four members of Congress say I’ll talk to my AIPAC person and like it’s casually what we call them my AIPAC guy.”
In June 2025, Massie partnered with Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Ca.) on a bipartisan War Powers Resolution to block unauthorized military involvement in the Israel-Iran conflict. When Trump launched strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, Massie condemned the action as “not constitutional” and remained the only Republican to co-sponsor the resolution.
Trump responded with fury on social media site “Truth Social,” proclaiming
[Massie] is not MAGA. MAGA doesn’t want him, doesn’t know him, and doesn’t respect him.… He is a simple-minded “grandstander” who thinks it’s good politics for Iran to have the highest level nuclear weapon.
Trump then urged supporters to “drop this pathetic loser, Tom Massie, like the plague!”
Trump’s current hostility stands in stark contrast to his 2022 endorsement, when he praised Massie as a “conservative warrior” and a “first-rate defender of the Constitution.”
Nevertheless, Massie retains deep support among voters in his district. He crushed minor primary opponents in both 2022 and 2024, capturing roughly 75% of the vote in each contest.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has indicated that Republican leadership will not defend Massie, remarking: “He is actively working against his team almost daily now and seems to enjoy that role. So he is, you know, deciding his own fate.”
The Kentucky contest will reveal whether any elected official can withstand the combined assault of presidential opposition and unlimited pro-Israel spending, and whether principled non-interventionism has any future in the Republican Party.
