Thanks to his efforts to avoid foreign entanglements and wars, Representative Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) is likely to face a challenger in next year’s Republican primary courtesy of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
The Daily Caller reported Thursday that “a source familiar” with the situation told the website that “AIPAC has been actively recruiting candidates to run in a primary against Massie.”
That was at least the second outlet to report such news in as many days. On Wednesday, Politico wrote that “one Kentucky GOP political operative,” speaking on condition of anonymity, “heard rumblings that AIPAC” is “ready to spend big in the May 2026 Kentucky primary” to defeat Massie.
Massie was hardly caught off guard. In a statement to the Daily Caller, he said, “I’m aware that foreign lobbyists have conducted a push poll and are trying to recruit another candidate to run against me, due to my opposition to foreign aid and forever wars.” (A push poll is a seemingly unbiased survey that is actually used to spread negative talking points about a candidate.)
However, Massie added, “Their previous efforts have failed completely, and I expect this race to be no different.”
Massie was referring to the 2024 GOP primary, when AIPAC, via its super PAC, spent about $320,000 running ads lumping the congressman in with Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah as “hostile to Israel.” (AIPAC’s was “the only outside spending against Massie in last year’s primary,” noted Politico.) In the end, Massie walloped his opponents, walking away with three-quarters of the vote.
AIPAC and Massie have been at odds for years. AIPAC, which was founded by an Israeli lobbyist, lobbies Congress to give the Israeli government whatever it wants, which usually means foreign aid, assistance in its various conflicts, and backing at the United Nations and other international bodies. Massie, who has a lifetime score of 99 percent on The New American’s Freedom Index, votes against all foreign aid and undeclared wars, both of which are unconstitutional.
There is nothing unique about AIPAC’s desires; any foreign country would like to get the same things out of Washington. What is unique is AIPAC’s extraordinary level of influence.
In an interview with Tucker Carlson last year, Massie claimed that every other Republican congressman has an “AIPAC babysitter” who ensures that he does as AIPAC says.
“When they come to D.C., you go have lunch with them,” he said. “And they’ve got your cell number, and you have conversations with them.”
In fact, he alleged, “I’ve had four members of Congress say, ‘I’ll talk to my AIPAC person.’”
Massie says he does not have an “AIPAC person.” That is undoubtedly because he doesn’t accept money from AIPAC and has refused the group’s offer — extended to all Republican (and possibly Democratic) congressmen and their spouses — of an all-expense-paid trip to Israel. Indeed, so peeved was he with AIPAC after it tried to primary him last year that he banned the organization from his office.
Still, he certainly recognizes AIPAC’s effectiveness. According to the Daily Caller:
Massie appeared on Theo Von’s podcast “This Past Weekend” on Tuesday, where he shared his views on AIPAC’s political influence, stating, “I think they’re the best lobbying group in Washington D.C., and the reason they can do it is you can have dual citizens — people who are American and Israeli — who are allowed to give money into American politics because they’re American.”
Massie accrued his most recent AIPAC demerit when he cosponsored a resolution that would have ordered President Donald Trump not to commit any acts of war against Iran without congressional approval — and then condemned Trump’s unilateral decision to attack as “not Constitutional.”
For that, of course, he also earned Trump’s enmity. In a Sunday Truth Social post, Trump called Massie “a simple minded ‘grandstander’ who thinks it’s good politics for Iran to have the highest level Nuclear weapon, while at the same time yelling ‘DEATH TO AMERICA’ at every chance they get.”
He further stated:
MAGA should drop this pathetic LOSER, Tom Massie, like the plague! The good news is that we will have a wonderful American Patriot running against him in the Republican Primary, and I’ll be out in Kentucky campaigning really hard.
Unlike 2020, when Trump called for Massie’s ouster from the entire Republican Party but didn’t lift a finger to make it happen — he even endorsed Massie for reelection in 2022 — this time the Donald means business. Axios reported Sunday that Trump’s political operation had created a super PAC called Kentucky MAGA for the express purpose of unseating Massie next year.
Trump is miffed at Massie over much more than just Iran, though that seems to have been the final straw. What really annoys him is that Massie actually follows the Constitution both men have sworn to uphold instead of ignoring it when it conflicts with whatever Trump wants. In 2020, it was Massie’s attempt to force the House of Representatives to take a recorded vote on Trump’s $2 trillion Covid-19 relief bill. This year, it’s been, among other things, his vocal opposition to Trump’s equally spendthrift “Big Beautiful Bill.”
According to Politico, Kentucky MAGA plans to spend more than $30 million to defeat Massie, but the congressman doesn’t appear too concerned.
“In 2020, I got my Trump antibodies from a natural infection when he came after me,” he told reporters Tuesday, “and I survived.”