The Memo: Massie seeks to buck GOP trend, survive Trump-enforced exit

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) will be the latest Republican to face his fate against a Trump-backed primary challenger on Tuesday.

Retired Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein is Massie’s official opponent. But the real threat comes from the White House, where President Trump has repeatedly blasted the libertarian-minded incumbent.

Massie is extremely skeptical of government spending in general and foreign wars in particular. He has been probably the single most emphatic critic, among Republicans on Capitol Hill, of Trump’s war on Iran.

Just as importantly, Massie worked with Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and a small number of Republican dissenters to force the release of government files related to the deceased sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein. 

Trump, who has been frustrated by persistent questions about his friendship with Epstein decades ago and who adamantly denies any wrongdoing, opposed the Massie-Khanna effort until the last minute, when he made an expedient U-turn rather than suffer a defeat in Congress.

To say the president is unimpressed by Massie’s independent streak would be putting it much too mildly. 

“The worst Congressman in the long and storied history of the Republican Party, is Thomas Massie. He is an obstructionist and a fool. Vote him out of office tomorrow, Tuesday. It will be a great day for America!” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday.

The previous day, he had branded Massie a “Third Rate Congressman.” Prior Trump blasts at Massie had included calling him “absolutely terrible and unreliable,” a “lowlife” and “a sick Wacko.”

Another controversial intervention in the race came on Monday when Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth traveled to Kentucky to campaign for Gallrein. It is extraordinarily rare for any Defense Secretary to hit the campaign trail in a party........

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