President Donald Trump and pro-Israel groups have helped unseat Representative Thomas Massie, a hardline conservative who broke with the president over Israel, Iran, and the Epstein files, in what became the most expensive US House primary in history.
Ed Gallrein, a retired Navy SEAL and farmer who previously ran unsuccessfully for the Kentucky state Senate in 2024, defeated Massie after pro-Israel groups poured more than $10 million into Tuesday’s Republican primary.
The election is a flashpoint in a wider battle being waged on the American right, with an ever more neoconservative Trump embracing the Bush-era interventionism of Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Senator Lindsey Graham, and publicly denouncing former ‘America First’ allies such as Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tucker Carlson.
Massie is firmly in the latter camp. In his 14 years in Congress, Massie has opposed every gun control measure that has come before the House of Representatives, pushed to abolish the Department of Education, and voted to deny citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants. On foreign policy, he has backed the withdrawal of US troops from the Middle East, voted against multiple military aid packages for Ukraine, and in October 2023 was the only Republican to vote against a resolution guaranteeing American support for Israel’s war on Gaza.
Why does Trump want Massie out?
Trump endorsed Massie in the 2022 Republican primary, calling him a “conservative warrior” and a “first-rate defender of the Constitution.”
However, the two had an uneasy relationship, with Trump branding Massie a “third rate Grandstander” and suggesting he be thrown out of the GOP for opposing the president’s $2 trillion Covid-19 bailout bill in 2020.
The relationship worsened during Trump’s second term. After Massie opposed Trump’s ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ spending package last year, Trump described the Kentuckian as a “negative force who almost always Votes ‘NO’,” and promised that “we will have a wonderful American Patriot running against him in the Republican Primary.”
Source: RT
Massie’s opposition to Trump’s war on Iran and his insistence that Trump release the full, unredacted Epstein files further angered the president.
At a rally in March, Trump gave Gallrein his “complete and total endorsement,” describing him as a “true American hero.”
Ed who?
Trump’s endorsement of Gallrein is illustrative of the president’s recent embrace of the ‘Never Trump’ neocons who despised him a decade ago.
Gallrein left the Republican Party after Trump secured the presidential nomination in 2016, vowing not to rejoin the GOP until the party was rid of him.
Now, with Trump cozying up to the interventionists, Gallrein is once again content to associate himself with the president.
Gallrein is a relatively unknown figure. His campaign website lists a series of generic Republican policy priorities:
- “unleash our economy”
- “secure the border once and for all”
- “end the woke agenda”
Trump appears to have chosen him not on any specific virtues, but because he is anyone except Thomas Massie.
At the endorsement rally in March, Trump devoted more time to attacking Massie than promoting any of Gallrein’s policies, telling the crowd “he’s got to be voted out of office as soon as possible.”
How is Israel involved?
Massie’s persistent criticism of Israel has made him a target of wealthy pro-Israeli donors, who have spent more than $9 million bankrolling Gallrein’s campaign.
According to Massie, more than 95% of Gallrein’s donations have come from pro-Israel lobbyists and interest groups.
Beyond direct donations to Gallrein, these megadonors have spent a total of $15.5 million on the primary, with:
- American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) contributing more than $4.1 million
- Republican Jewish Coalition's RJC Victory Fund spending $3.9 million
- MAGA KY spending $7.9 million
Massie told Tucker Carlson earlier this month:
“Their position is more war, it's more strife, it's more bombs, it's more foreign aid, and those are the things that I've been voting against.”
“So the real reason that this race is a serious race, and I may lose, is because a foreign lobby has fully funded, to the extent that they've never done in any Republican race ever before, my opponent.”
Massie has also accused AIPAC of exerting influence across Congress, stating in a previous interview:
“Every US lawmaker has an AIPAC person… like a babysitter.”
Who won?
Massie had comfortably defeated previous challengers throughout his 14-year congressional career.
However, after facing an unprecedented campaign effort and record spending against him, early results reportedly showed Gallrein building a widening lead.
Massie conceded.
Addressing supporters, he remarked:
“I would have come out sooner but I had to call my opponent and concede and it took a while to find Ed Gallrein in Tel Aviv.”
With the results in, two major questions remain:
- Are Republican voters more loyal to Trump than to ‘America First’ principles?
- Can lobbying money determine congressional outcomes?
Source: RT