Trump Knocks Off Thomas Massie in Heated Primary |
President Donald Trump has knocked off another GOP dissident in his effort to cleanse the Republican Party of anyone who has even modestly challenged his agenda.
Rep. Thomas Massie lost Tuesday’s Kentucky primary to challenger Ed Gallrein, following a bitter race full of dirty tricks and astonishing amounts of money. At upwards of $35 million, the contest had become the most expensive primary in US history.
Massie is a seven-term libertarian who came to Congress in 2012 during the tea party movement that swept in a new class of deficit hawks and “constitutional conservatives.” Virtually all of those original tea partiers eventually migrated to Trump’s MAGA movement, where their concerns about the budget deficit, endless wars, and adherence to the Constitution have been sublimated to their fealty to Trump, who has no interest in any of these values. Massie was the last man standing, and as such, had made Trump’s life difficult, ultimately embarrassing the president by forcing him to make good on his campaign promise to release the government’s files on Trump’s friend, the late sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein.
As I explained recently:
Trump was only two months into his second term when he first threatened to have Massie primaried. “I will lead the charge against him,” Trump pledged on Truth Social after the congressman had refused to vote for a short-term spending bill. Massie didn’t seem too worried. “He’s going after Canada and me today,” he told reporters. “The difference is Canada will eventually cave.” Massie........