Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie, who voted with his GOP colleagues more than nine times out of ten, lost in his state’s Republican primary after incurring Trump’s wrath for not showing complete fealty, including pushing for the release of the Epstein files, among other “betrayals.”
Last night’s electoral outcome underscores Trump’s enduring sway over Republican primary voters and his capacity to retaliate against party adversaries in petty, and not necessarily politically advantageous, ways.
While Massie’s defeat reflects Trump’s continued dominance among his most ardent admirers in the Republican Party, his approval ratings have dropped among the general electorate due to rising gas prices, an unpopular conflict in Iran, and a growing acknowledgment of his corruption and diminished capacity for anything resembling rational thought.
Determined to unseat Massie due to his opposition on issues such as the Iran war, Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” and the Epstein files, the president and his allies threw their support behind Ed Gallrein, a former Navy SEAL.
Gallrein’s campaign even received a boost from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who stumped for the candidate in Kentucky during its final stages. The contest escalated into a $33 million showdown, making it one of the most costly House primaries in recent history.
Trump, of course, crowed about Massie’s defeat:
“He’s a bad guy. He serves to lose.”
Petty revenge doesn’t necessarily make for good politics
Sure, Trump gets to revel in defeating someone with the audacity to hold him to his previous word about releasing the Epstein Files (more often known these days as the “Trump/Epstein Files”).
But at what cost?
First, there’s the price tag associated with booting Massie-The-Betrayer from office – donors spent $33 million on a primary race, which is bonkers.
That’s $33 million that won’t be spent on close races in November’s general election, when Democrats, if they don’t find a way to self-sabotage, as they too-often do, should win the House and perhaps even the Senate, though the latter is far less likely.
Second, to his detractors, Trump seems more dangerous than ever, having vanquished Massie, who next year will join the ranks of the ousted loyalists, turned critics, like Marjorie Taylor Greene.
However, until then, Massie can make Trump’s life miserable in Congress by escalating his calls for more transparency around the Epstein files and, say, the 3,700 stock trades Trump made in a single quarter of this year, many of which seem to have been based on insider information.
There’s also the Iran War fiasco that Massie opposes.
Now that he’s a lame duck, and I’m guessing angling for a seat on a cable news set, the Kentucky congressman can sharpen his criticisms of Trump’s foolhardy decision to support Benjamin Netanyahu’s decades-long fever dream about toppling that theocracy.
Massie should spend every day he has left on Capitol Hill, which amounts to more than seven months, crowing about what colossal clusterfuck this war is for the American and global economies, and subsequent surging gas prices, which affect every aspect of our daily expenditures.
Unfettered by reelection concerns and eager to exact his own revenge, Massie is poised to become a real pain in the ass for a president with a 37% approval rating that keeps dipping.
Clearly, Trump didn’t think this one through.
Shocking, I know.
