President Donald Trump has raged at Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie after he criticized the decision to bomb three Iranian nuclear sites on Saturday night.
“Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky is not MAGA, even though he likes to say he is,” the president fumed.
“Actually, MAGA doesn’t want him, doesn’t know him, and doesn’t respect him. He is a negative force who almost always Votes ‘NO,’ no matter how good something may be.
“He’s a simple minded ‘grandstander’ who thinks it’s good politics for Iran to have the highest level Nuclear weapon, while at the same time yelling ‘DEATH TO AMERICA’ at every chance they get.”
Massie had spent his Sunday lambasting the president’s actions in support of Israel’s Operation Rising Lion offensive against Tehran, first by calling the bombing raid “not Constitutional” because he did not consult Congress before acting.
Trump went on to claim his decision to blast the Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan facilities with “bunker buster” bombs had been a “spectacular military success” before returning to Massie.
“As usual, and despite all of the praise and accolades received, this ‘lightweight’ Congressman is against what was so brilliantly achieved last night in Iran. Massie is weak, ineffective, and votes ‘NO’ on virtually everything put before him (Rand Paul, Jr.), no matter how good something may be.
“He is disrespectful to our great military, and all that they stand for, not even acknowledging their brilliance and bravery in yesterday’s attack, which was a total and complete WIN.”
He continued: “Massie should drop his fake act and start putting America First, but he doesn’t know how to get there – he doesn’t have a clue! He’ll undoubtedly vote against the Great, Big, Beautiful Bill, even though non-passage means a 68% Tax Increase for everybody, and many things far worse than that.”
Still not finished, the president pledged to support a Republican primary challenger to Massie at the first opportunity.
“MAGA should drop this pathetic LOSER, Tom Massie, like the plague!” he said.
“The good news is that we will have a wonderful American Patriot running against him in the Republican Primary, and I’ll be out in Kentucky campaigning really hard. MAGA is not about lazy, grandstanding, nonproductive politicians, of which Thomas Massie is definitely one.”
Trump has since revived the matter, writing in all-caps: “GET THIS ‘BUM’ OUT OF OFFICE, ASAP!!!”
The congressman responded to the initial rant on X by saying simply: “Donald Trump declared so much War on me today it should require an Act of Congress.” He added the tongue-in-cheek hashtag “#sassywithmassie.”
The Independent has reached out to his office for comment.
On Sunday, Massie slammed the administration’s claim that the assault did not mean the U.S. is now at war with Iran by marvelling at “the mental gymnastics being undertaken by neocons in DC” to support that argument.
Massie then attacked House Speaker Mike Johnson for failing to call back representatives from their summer vacation to debate the War Powers Resolution, the Kentuckian had introduced last Tuesday, a point he also made during appearances on CBS News’s Face the Nation and CNN’s Inside Politics.
On the latter, he likened Trump’s insistence that the bombing of just three targets meant a total end to the rogue state’s nuclear ambitions to his blithe optimism surrounding Covid-19 in the spring of 2020.
Finally, Massie called out a Trump post on Truth Social in which the president appeared to be testing the water regarding regime change in Iran by responding: “This is not America First folks.”
Prior to that, the president had been angered by the representative holding out against his “Big, Beautiful Bill,” which only narrowly passed the House last month and is currently mired in the Senate, as a handful of Republicans refuse to fall in behind it without raising objections on behalf of their districts.
Trump complained that Massie and other disobedient members of their party should be “voted out of office” as he visited Capitol Hill to drum up consensus among the GOP, warning that a refusal to support his bill would mean higher taxes for Americans.
In March, Massie was the lone Republican to vote against a stopgap spending bill to keep the U.S. government open until September, drawing the president’s ire again.
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