Why Donald Trump Is Trying To Make An Example Out Of This One House Republican
WASHINGTON — In his second term, President Donald Trump has turned most Republican members of Congress, from the House speaker who declared Congress has no war powers to the backbench wingnuts nominating him for the Nobel Prize, into his stooges and henchmen.
Except for Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.).
The Kentucky Republican has stood athwart the tide of Trumpism, not yelling 'stop!' exactly, but at least not going along with the tide.
And Trump clearly hates it.
'He votes, 'NO!' on everything, because he thinks it makes him cool, but he's not cool, he's a LOSER!' Trump wrote on his platform Truth Social on Tuesday, the latest in a series of similar slams.
'GET THIS 'BUM' OUT OF OFFICE, ASAP!!!' the president posted on Monday.
'MAGA is not about lazy, grandstanding, nonproductive politicians, of which Thomas Massie is definitely one,' Trump wrote Sunday.
Massie has repeatedly voted against Trump's priorities, including the so-called Big Beautiful Bill, and this month, he also questioned the constitutionality of Trump's decision to jump into the Israel-Iran war.
So Trump has escalated his attacks on Massie, saying this week he'll recruit a primary opponent and campaign against Massie in his Northern Kentucky district. On Thursday, a new super PAC backed by Trump allies unveiled anti-Massie attack ads.
Massie says it's not actually about him — it's about intimidating the many other Republicans who've threatened to stray from the party line.
'He's doing this publicly and very flagrantly and notoriously in order to keep all of those people in line because they don't want any part of this, whereas I think I can sustain it,' Massie told HuffPost in an interview this week.
Massie and Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) were the only Republicans who voted against the Big Beautiful Bill when it passed the House in May, though a significant group of Republicans had threatened to do so. Their main gripe is that the bill's tax cuts are way bigger than its spending cuts, meaning it would increase federal budget deficits.
For years and years, Republicans have said budget deficits and the growing national debt are pure evil. The party's libertarian wing, of which Massie is a leading member, has always been particularly adamant.
The funny thing is, Massie is in no way an anti-Trump Republican. He's a reliable Trump-aligned voter on most high-profile issues and a leading voice on others.
To give one example, Massie is the foremost proponent of the theory that the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol had been at least partially instigated not by Trump, but by a supposed FBI informant named Ray Epps, with the ultimate goal of entrapping Trump supporters in the criminal justice system. Epps repeatedly said under penalty of perjury that he wasn't a federal agent. He got charged with crimes along with 1,500 other Trump supporters.
When I mentioned Epps got a pardon like the rest of them, Massie seemed a little disappointed. 'Did he get a pardon?' (All Jan. 6 participants have received executive clemency unless they proactively refused it.)
As for Trump's attacks, Massie projects confidence that nobody can beat him in his district, noting he beat primary challengers last year and that Trump has not yet recruited an actual primary opponent this year. He's raised money off of Trump's posts while avoiding a confrontational tone.
'I haven't escalated it. I just try to make a joke out of it every time. I'm ready for a ceasefire. I took three of his bunker busters and I'm still here,' Massie said. 'Privately, I'm getting a few fist bumps here and there from my colleagues for the way that I'm basically playing it off, not getting into a fight with the president, just bringing humor to it.'
Massie's biggest difference with Trump and other Republicans is on the question of federal budget deficits. On a superficial level, there's no difference — all Republicans favor fiscal responsibility, meaning all Republicans want to shrink federal budget deficits and eventually shrink the national debt. Or at least they say they do.
Massie is the only one who consistently votes against major spending bills, and he's been the only reliable 'no' vote against the Big Beautiful Bill and its promise of trillions in additional debt.
In March, a group of far-right Republicans threatened to vote against a government funding bill, then caved under pressure from the White House. One of them was Davidson, the Ohio Republican who joined Massie in voting against the Big Beautiful Bill in May.
'A lot of us want to be Massie. We want to be the person that can say no. And I think it's important for him to stake out that ground,' Davison told reporters in March. 'To me, he's like a lighthouse. He shows where we should be going, but, you know, you don't negotiate with lighthouses.'
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