Introduction
Introduction Statistics Contact Development Disclaimer Help
.-') _ .-') _
( OO ) ) ( OO ) )
.-----. ,--./ ,--,' ,--./ ,--,'
' .--./ | \ | |\ | \ | |\
| |('-. | \| | )| \| | )
/_) |OO )| . |/ | . |/
|| |`-'| | |\ | | |\ |
(_' '--'\ | | \ | | | \ |
`-----' `--' `--' `--' `--'
lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
ARTICLE VIEW:
GOP leaders won’t help Massie’s bid for reelection as Trump plots
his ouster
By Manu Raju, Sarah Ferris, CNN
Updated:
7:00 AM EDT, Sun September 7, 2025
Source: CNN
and his top political advisers are plotting an aggressive push to oust
one of his most persistent Republican adversaries: Rep. Thomas Massie.
And House GOP leaders won’t stand in Trump’s way.
Speaker Mike Johnson and his leadership team are sending their clearest
signals to date that their conservative colleague will have to fend for
himself as Trump’s allies prepare to dump millions into Massie’s
district to purge him from the Northeastern Kentucky district he’s
represented for nearly 13 years. In interviews with CNN, five members
of House GOP leadership declined to offer their backing for Massie’s
reelection bid – and Johnson would not say if he’d support his
colleague.
Instead, the speaker admonished Massie for undercutting his party’s
agenda – as the libertarian-minded Republican intensifies his furious
battle to force the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files and derides
Trump’s signature domestic policy achievement for driving up the
national debt.
“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,”
Johnson told CNN, delivering a firm message that party leaders would
not intervene to protect Massie in the escalating feud with Trump.
While Johnson said his job is to “lead the incumbent protection
program,” the speaker chided Massie for waging “unfounded
attacks” against him. And he added: “My way is to reach out an
olive branch to everybody and be a peacemaker. And some people make
that very difficult for me.”
The lack of support among House GOP leaders is a reflection of months
of mounting frustration with the Kentucky Republican as he’s
personally antagonized both the speaker and president in a series of
fights – most recently in trying to force a vote on a bill to release
the Epstein files over intense opposition from Johnson and the White
House. Massie needs the support of just five other Republicans –
along with all Democrats – to put the bill on the floor, but he
remains two GOP signatures short.
Trump and his team are still searching for a candidate who can go
toe-to-toe with the 54-year-old Massie, who has burnished a brand of a
party maverick not afraid to break from his leadership and the
president of his own party – namely on issues of government spending
and budget deficits. But Trump views Massie as a deeply disloyal actor
in a party where he demands unflinching support.
Trump has met with state Sen. Aaron Reed, who has privately expressed
interest in a primary challenge against Massie, according to three
sources familiar with the meeting from earlier this summer. But Trump
still has yet to signal he’d endorse Reed, a former Navy SEAL who is
staunchly conservative, as the presiden’ts team is weighing other
potential challengers ahead of the January 9 candidate filing deadline,
according to the sources. (Reed did not respond to requests for
comment.)
But Trump allies fully expect the president to put his muscle behind a
candidate after his outside group pummels Massie with millions in
attack ads.
In an interview, Massie brushed off the attacks and voiced confidence
in his reelection chances. He pushed back on the criticism from the
speaker as he defended his push for the government’s files on
Epstein’s sex trafficking case, citing broad support based on public
opinion polls. And he claimed that Trump was trying to spare some of
his allies and donors from “embarrassment” by shielding the files.
“The speaker’s position depends on him rubber stamping, not just
rubber stamping, but reinforcing anything Donald Trump wants, even if
Donald Trump is wrong,” Massie said. “So the speaker’s in a tough
spot.”
He added: “I don’t see that I’m making their life hard at all,
unless they think it’s hard, because they’re going to have to take
a vote to put them on record. If that’s hard, I’m sorry, that’s
your job.”
Trump and his political advisers are girding for a blockbuster primary
fight next year. A pro-Trump super PAC called “MAGA Kentucky” has
reserved $1.6 million in ads this summer, according to AdImpact data
reviewed by CNN. The group is being led by Chris LaCivita, Trump’s
2024 campaign co-manager, and pollster Tony Fabrizio.
And there could be a lot more anti-Massie money to come. Pro-Israel
groups like AIPAC also plan to spend big to oust Massie, who has a long
history of voting against US support for Israel, according to a person
familiar with the plans.
With the May primary still months away, Massie has yet to spend much on
air, having spent just $418,000 on ads this year. Whether he gets some
outside help – including from the world’s richest person, Elon
Musk, who posted on X in June that he’d help Massie as he was railing
against Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act – remains to be seen.
In his more than a dozen years in Congress, Massie has never been a
leadership loyalist, opposing plenty of party priorities on the floor
under several GOP speakers – and even unsuccessfully sought to oust
Johnson from the speakership last year.
But his standing within the party has shifted recently, and many
Republicans privately argue that he has become more of an agitator to
Trump and leadership, according to multiple lawmakers and senior aides.
He retains staunch support from fellow conservatives like Sen. Rand
Paul of Kentucky, who also voted against Trump’s megabill earlier
this year.
“I’m a big supporter of Thomas Massie,” Paul told reporters in
July, according to the Louisville Courier Journal. “He’s a man of
principle who votes against the deficit like I do, whether it’s
Republicans proposing spending or Democrats.”
Within the House GOP, Massie has won over some key Trump allies like
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who is forcefully backing his
push to release the Epstein files and has personally spoken to the
president about the importance of the matter.
Even so, other GOP colleagues working with Massie on the Epstein push
said they wished he’d taken a different approach with Trump.
“I will tell you that I like Thomas on a lot of positions,” said
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Florida Republican who has long demanded the
Epstein files be released but has yet to sign onto Massie’s push to
force a vote in defiance of the White House. “But I think that the
way that this has kind of flushed out between his personal relationship
with the president is unfortunate to see unfold.”
Luna declined to say whether she’d back Massie’s reelection.
“There’s a way that you can debate and disagree with people, but
the moment that you get personal and the moment that you start doing
things for reasons other than what you’re telling the public, I think
that kind of crosses the Rubicon,” Luna said. “There’s no turning
back from that.”
Rep. Jeff Van Drew, a New Jersey Republican who has supported
Massie’s bill but said he will not go against his own leadership to
force a floor vote, said he wished his colleague had made it a “less
confrontational” issue.
“I didn’t make that choice. He did,” Van Drew said. “He has
chosen his bed. Now he’s gotta lie in it.”
Massie has fended off every previous challenger in his district, a
fiercely independent, deeply conservative stretch of Northeastern
Kentucky that is known to local political operatives as the “Wild
West” of the state. It’s also an extremely expensive district for
anyone running for office: It’s split into four media markets in
three different states. Still, senior Republicans believe Massie could
be vulnerable given the right candidate.
“I would not underestimate the president’s grip on the base,”
said one senior House GOP lawmaker, speaking on condition of anonymity
to freely discuss a colleague’s political future. But the member said
they still need a Republican there who can win: “That’s a problem.
The candidate matters. Ultimately, it’s not a plebiscite. It’s an
election, right? It’s not – do you like this person or not?”
Massie vs. MAGA
Massie would not be the first Republican targeted for defeat by Trump.
Last March, then-Rep. Bob Good of Virginia was after sparring with GOP
leadership and backing Trump’s opponent, Ron DeSantis, in the 2024
presidential primary.
Some Republicans believe the Massie vs. MAGA primary will be even
nastier, given the Kentucky congressman’s repeated votes against
Trump priorities — including his signature tax and spending cuts bill
— and his disparagement over Trump’s handling of Epstein.
On the leadership level, top Republicans are typically reticent to
publicly criticize their own members. But some, like House GOP
Conference Chair Lisa McClain, struck a note of disappointment about
Massie’s rogue push to defy Johnson over the Epstein vote.
“He’s challenged us, and disagreement is not disloyalty. … But at
the end of the day, when we decide to call a play, we’ve got to run
the play the coach calls,” McClain said.
As for his reelection, McClain said leadership tends not to get
involved in primaries and stressed she simply wants to keep the GOP
majority.
“Whoever is going to stay in that seat and keep that majority,
that’s what I want, right?” McClain said. “If Thomas Massie is
the best person to do that, then absolutely, I want him to do that,
right? I also think it’s up to his voters to decide, not necessarily
for me.”
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, the No. 3 Republican, said it was up to
Massie to figure out his own reelection bid.
“I work with every single member of our team,” Emmer told CNN when
asked about how party leaders would handle the White House’s efforts
to oust Massie. “I have to work through their relationships with each
other. I have to work through their relationships with their
constituents. I leave all of our members to take care of their own
business, both in the policy arena and in the campaign.”
Rep. Richard Hudson, the House GOP’s campaign chief, signaled he was
staying away from the internal feud as well.
“My focus is on beating Democrats,” Hudson said. “I don’t get
involved in primaries.”
Asked about GOP leaders’ views about his race, Massie shrugged it
off.
“I thought about this yesterday in our press conference with the
survivors,” Massie said, referring to an emotional, 90-minute event
where nearly a dozen women spoke about how Epstein abused them when
they were children. “My life is difficult in a political sense, but
they’re living a nightmare of shame. I think it’s kind of petty for
me to complain about some political race that I have to be in when
there are other people who are making much greater sacrifices.”
<- back to index
You are viewing proxied material from codevoid.de. The copyright of proxied material belongs to its original authors. Any comments or complaints in relation to proxied material should be directed to the original authors of the content concerned. Please see the disclaimer for more details.