Kentucky’s maverick Republican congressman, Thomas Massie, is wearing a big bullseye on his back for casting votes President Donald Trump disapproved of. A pro-Trump super PAC recently released a brutal ad falsely accusing Massie of opposing tax cuts and border security. The ad is part of the president’s goal to oust the rogue congressman in 2026.
But there’s a good chance the effort will fail, Massie told The New American in a phone interview Monday. He told TNA he’s seen a significant uptick in fundraising just over the last week — from donors all over the country, not just Kentucky. Moreover, he believes his constituents, most of whom also support the president, will choose him over Trump’s wishes. The congressman also said he’s heard through the grapevine that someone out there may be launching a pro-Massie super PAC to help combat the effect of the one going after him.
Massie first triggered Trump’s ire by labeling the president’s decision to unilaterally order strikes Iran’s nuclear sites as “unconstitutional.” Trump took to social media and published a novella-sized post in which he called Massie a “negative force” and a “simple-minded ‘grandstander.'” He is “weak [and] ineffective” because he “votes ‘NO’ on virtually everything.”
The Trump super PAC, MAGA Kentucky, released the anti-Massie takedown ad in late June as part of a $1 million ad buy dedicated to sullying the Kentuckian’s reputation. The 30-second spot begins by asking, “What happened to Thomas Massie?” It then lists commonsense policies Massie supposedly opposes. According to the ad, Massie is against banning sex-change operations on minors, cutting taxes, and securing the border. To make matters worse, says the ad, Massie “sided with Iran” over Trump’s decision to obliterate its nuclear weapons program. “Let’s fire Thomas Massie,” the ad concludes.
The ad refers to Massie’s May 22 vote in the House against Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” (OBBB), which included provisions related to those issues. Massie voted against the OBBB not because of those specific policy items, but because it’s too expensive. He told TNA in May that the bill has about $300 billion of new spending without any spending cuts. Moreover, he said:
Even though I agree with a lot of the policy that’s in there, if you take the totality of everything, the debt will be over $50 trillion in 10 years. The Big Beautiful Bill will add, in addition to the $20 trillion that we were already going to incur by not addressing those issues and by increasing spending and cutting taxes, it’s going to add another $3.5 trillion at least to the debt.
Interestingly, the Senate took out the provision that would’ve banned sex-change operations for minors, Massie pointed out Monday. Yet Trump is still whipping up support for it. The Senate also took out the provision that would’ve banned Medicaid for illegals. So does that mean the president supports healthcare for illegals since he continues to support the bill? Massie asked rhetorically.
Massie recently spoke to popular podcaster Theo Von about disingenuous attacks such as this. Because there are so many issues crammed into massive bills like the OBBB, it is easy for opponents to craft attacks. Even though lawmakers may vote against a multi-issue bill, they may agree with a number of items in it. But opponents will attack them by claiming they oppose the good policies. Massie said to Von:
They literally will put a pay raise for soldiers in every freakin’ giant bill so that if you vote against it, you have to go back home and watch TV ads that say, ‘He voted against a pay raise for the soldiers.
Von joked that they should put “oxygen for grandmothers” in all bills; no one would ever have the audacity to vote against air for grandma. Massie followed that up, saying, “I voted against oxygen for grandmothers so many times they can’t even run that ad anymore.”
Massie told Von the solution is to get rid of the “giant bills” — the omnibus bills, the continuing resolutions, “and even the Big Beautiful Bill.” Instead, Congress should present bills centered on one issue or policy at a time.
The multi-issue bill approach triggered the disorder leading to former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy’s ousting in October 2023. At the time, Republicans sided with the point man, then-Florida firebrand Congressman Matt Gaetz (R), who insisted bills like this be vanquished once and for all. But that obviously has not happened, and the current speaker of the House, Mike Johnson (R-La.), is running the same playbook. Trump hinted during a June 26 White House press conference that it was his idea to cram everything into “One Big Beautiful Bill” when high-ranking Republican legislators had initially proposed separate bills.
Massie told TNA Monday that the campaign against him from the Trump political machine is designed to make an example of him and “keep all the horses in the barn.” He said he isn’t the only one who believes the views he’s publicly expressed. But others are afraid they’ll be in the crosshairs next. And considering the popular policies the Senate removed from the OBBB, Massie believes these attacks against him are a warning to anyone who is thinking of stepping out of line and getting in the way of Trump getting his bill through.
He said the pro-Trump PAC will flood airwaves, TV channels, and mailboxes with a deluge of attacks against him. He doesn’t know whether there are any links between MAGA Kentucky and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which he has banned from his office. The financial disclosures on MAGA Kentucky are yet to be released, he said.
Nevertheless, his campaign will need to spend money to combat the attacks. He noted that early signs look good. “We raised just last week $300,000 from over 3,000 donors nationwide. We’re receiving donations from all over the country,” he told us, adding that his campaign has $1.6 million on hand.
The congressman acknowledged that he and Trump share supporters. He expressed confidence that their mutual supporters will have a nuanced view of their feud and will stick by him despite their allegiance to the president. He said his donors certainly seem to see the difference.
Based on what Massie told TNA, it seems Trump’s attack against him has had an unintended consequence. It has brought his supporters out of the woodwork.
This isn’t the first time Trump has gone after the Kentucky representative. Massie opposed the CARES Act, the Covid-era payouts the government was doling out for people to stay home instead of work. He worried that it would balloon the debt and trigger inflation, which is exactly what happened.
Massie is among the most constitutionally obedient congressman. During his decade-plus tenure representing Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District, he has accrued a lifetime freedom score of 99 percent in The New American’s Freedom Index. The Freedom Index gauges a legislator’s fidelity to the supreme law of the land, the U.S. Constitution.
While castigated for voting “no” too often, that is the approach that aligns with the American Founders’ view of government. The Founders were wary of big government, and the first generations of Americans were jealous of their liberties. Massie’s upcoming race will serve as a litmus test for whether the people of Kentucky value adherence to the Constitution over obedience to the president.