Amid an unpopular conflict with Iran and declining poll numbers tied to a slow economy, Donald Trump resorted to sharp criticism Wednesday while trying to boost Ed Gallrein in his GOP primary challenge against Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie.
Trump took a break from overseeing the 12-day bombardment of targets inside Iran to visit the congressman’s 4th District in the Bluegrass State. The Republican leader is attempting a rare move for a sitting president: removing a seven-term lawmaker from his own party while maintaining Republican control of the House.
Speaking on stage in Hebron, Kentucky, Trump called Massie “the worst person,” telling the crowd “there’s something wrong with him.” He also claimed the incumbent has been attacking farmer and former Navy SEAL Gallrein, whom Trump has endorsed in the GOP primary. The president began his critique by telling supporters the lawmaker “voted with the radical left Democrats in Congress” on several issues.
“Thomas Massie is a disaster for our party,” Trump said. “He comes from a state that I won by a landslide. I got the highest vote in the history of your commonwealth. … That means that people like me and I love them.
“We got to get rid of this loser. This guy is bad. 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,” the president said of Massie. “And he’s got to be voted out of office as soon as possible.”
Trump tied Massie to several issues central to his early midterms campaign speeches, including tax cuts and immigration. On immigration, he said of Massie: “He voted against our historic funding for border security. He voted against border security, where we took the worst border in the history of our country, made it the best border in the history of our country.” Massie was the lone Republican to oppose the Homeland Security spending bill that passed the House Jan. 22.
After Trump invited Gallrein onto the stage, the candidate led the crowd in a “U-S-A” chant before saying: “Tom Massie stands with the ladies of ‘The View.’ Mr. President, we stand with you, ‘Fight! Fight! Fight!” — the phrase Trump shouted during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania after surviving an assassination attempt while campaigning in 2024.
Gallrein also echoed the president’s rhetoric, saying, “Democrats are trying to destroy our nation.” Moments earlier, Trump said Gallrein “has my complete and total endorsement.”
‘Misfits and losers’
Before bringing Gallrein on stage, Trump told the audience in Hebron that Democratic lawmakers “want to raise your taxes higher than you’ve ever had before,” adding, “We have to win the midterms. The midterms are going to be very, very important to keep it going.”
Massie has opposed Trump on several issues, pushed for the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, and most recently criticized the Iran conflict.
“They’re paying to bus people to the Trump event in my Congressional District,” Massie wrote on X. “What they’ll discover is Trump fans in KY-4 and across the entire Commonwealth also support my work on the Epstein files, reigning in spending, ending forever wars, draining the swamp, and food freedom!”
Even before leaving the White House Wednesday morning — first heading to Cincinnati, Ohio and then crossing into Massie’s district — Trump had already targeted the lawmaker he hopes to defeat.
In a social media post earlier that day, Trump attempted to boost Gallrein — though he did not mention the challenger by name. Longtime incumbents like Massie often rely on name recognition to maintain their seats.
“I predict that ‘Representative’ Thomas Massie will go down as the WORST Republican Congressman in the long and fabled history of the United States Congress, even worse than Crazy Liz Cheney, Cryin’ Adam Kinzinger, and Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Brown (Remember, Green turns to Brown under stress!),” Trump wrote, referencing former ally-turned-critic Marjorie Taylor Greene. He also misspelled Cheney’s name.
“They are all misfits and losers, but Massie, who is running against a great American Patriot in the Kentucky Primary, will hopefully lose BIG,” he wrote. “I LOVE KENTUCKY!!!”
‘For them, it’s a war’
Trump also shifted into campaign mode Wednesday, part of what aides describe as a “robust” midterm election schedule.
He again defended the U.S. military action against Iran, which several polls show most Americans oppose. During an earlier stop at a pharmaceutical facility in Reading, Ohio, Trump attempted to reframe the conflict he previously described as a war when announcing the operation Feb. 28.
“It’s an excursion that will keep us out of a war,” he told reporters traveling with him. “For them, it’s a war. For us, it’s turned out to be easier than we thought.”
His explanation for launching strikes against the Islamic Republic comes as influential conservative voices have criticized the move. The decision appears to contradict Trump’s long-standing position against U.S. military interventions, while his administration has yet to clearly outline the purpose of the strikes, define victory, or present an exit strategy.
Popular podcaster Joe Rogan, who endorsed Trump before the 2024 election but has criticized him on several issues since, recently challenged the arguments made by GOP senators including Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz, calling their comments “insane.”
“I mean, this is why a lot of people feel betrayed, right? He ran on ‘no more wars, end these stupid, senseless wars,’ and then we have one that we can’t even really clearly define why we did it,” Rogan said on his show this week. “It just doesn’t make any sense to me, unless we’re acting on someone else’s interests, like particularly Israel’s interests.”
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