'Impervious': Rebel GOP lawmaker unfazed by Trump's 'vendetta'
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) has frequently faced Donald Trump's wrath, but he's not worried that the president will get him ousted from office.
The Kentucky Republican has bucked the president's agenda by opposing the current continuing resolution to fund the government and Trump's “big, beautiful bill,” and last month he threatened a war powers resolution to block military action against Iran, but Massie believes he'll survive the political fallout, reported Politico.
“I don’t really think he has a vendetta against me,” Massie said. “He’s trying to keep the other people in lockstep with him by attacking me. He knows I can weather it.”
MAGA campaign heavyweights Chris LaCivita and Tony Fabrizio are working to find a primary challenger to topple Massie, long known as "Mr. No" for opposing most everything in Washington, and Trump has called him a "LOSER" and "Rand Paul Jr.," but the congressman has nurtured a network of like-minded libertarians in Kentucky that give him protection.
“I have actually distributed about a quarter million dollars directly to local candidates,” Massie said, adding that his "Liberty Republican" acolytes “were all challenged significantly in their last election, and they all survived.”
Massie believes the president has been able to punish other Republicans who've defied him by scaring away donors, but he said his occasional opposition to Trump has actually helped him raise money, and he said that he and tech mogul Elon Musk are mutual fans, although they've never met.
“I have a fundraising model that is impervious to that,” Massie said.
Musk has said he'll support Massie's re-election next year, but the congressman isn't sure whether the Tesla CEO would help with a super PAC.
“I haven’t heard that he is, but I can tell you there will be a super PAC that will be helping me,” Massie said.
The peculiar dynamics of his fourth congressional district, which winds from Appalachia along the Ohio River through the Northern Kentucky suburbs of Cincinnati down to the Louisville exurbs, help isolate him from political pressures in Washington and his state's capital, which views portions his home region as essentially part of Ohio.
“I am consequential here in Washington, D.C. In between launching B-2 bombers to the other side of the planet, the president spends some portion of his attention worried about what I’m going to do next,” Massie said.