Republican Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie warned that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and President Donald Trump’s attempts to primary him in the upcoming midterms could backfire in an exclusive interview with the Daily Caller.
“The political calculus that both the president and AIPAC have to consider is, if they go after me and lose, they’ve lost a lot of credibility — both of them,” Massie told the Caller.
The Caller reported exclusively Thursday that AIPAC is fielding primary challengers to take on Massie in the 2026 midterm elections. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: AIPAC Seeking Out Challengers To Unseat Rep. Thomas Massie)
“I’m aware that foreign lobbyists have conducted a push poll and are trying to recruit another candidate to run against me, due to my opposition to foreign aid and forever wars,” Massie told the Caller in a statement.
Trump’s political allies are also gearing up to replace Massie, Axios reported, as the president attacked him for his positions on the Israel-Iran war and the “Big Beautiful Bill.”
Massie suggested, however, that such efforts might be in vain.
He noted that his team typically puts out a poll in his district regarding support for foreign aid for Israel. Over time, he explained, support for military and foreign aid for Israel has gone down.
“I think with the general public and outside polls I’ve seen bear this out nationwide, the appetite for foreign aid has gone down. I think what Israel is doing in Gaza has diminished their standing in the United States, especially among younger people in the district,” Massie said. “But I will say this — they still have a tight grip on Congress. So the disparity is growing between what Congress is doing and what the people are thinking.”
Massie alleged that AIPAC is trying to tamp down dissent in Congress so they can continue to threaten lawmakers with their own primary challenges if they stray from an aggressively pro-Israel line.
“AIPAC is motivated to attack me, largely in the same way the president is motivated to attack me, which is to say they don’t want any outliers, and the attacks and the threats of attacks are meant to keep my colleagues in line, not to change my positions.”
Speaker and Republican Louisiana Rep. Mike Johnson and Republican Kentucky Rep. and Oversight Chairman James Comer have publicly been careful about offering their full support to Massie.
“I’m a leader of my party here, and the speaker leads the incumbent protection program. I got to make sure everybody gets re-elected,” Johnson told NBC News Tuesday, but added that he “certainly understands the president’s frustration about the colleague you named, and he and I talk about that quite a bit.”
“I try to get along with my colleagues, but I sure want to get along with the president,” Comer said.
But Massie said he’s been receiving private “fist bumps” and other signs of encouragement from many of his Republican colleagues in private.
“Just yesterday, I decided to start asking my colleagues for checks from their campaigns to help me, and they’ve been supportive — nobody’s turned me down,” he said.
Massie also scoffed at the idea that Johnson would have much, if any, influence in his district.
“The best way I describe the speaker’s influence in Kentucky is, whether he’s for me or against me, the result would be the same,” he explained.
Massie’s behind-the-scenes support comes as the president has ramped up his attacks on the six-term congressman. During Trump’s visit to the Republican conference on Capitol Hill in May, Massie says the president repeatedly went after him in front of his colleagues. The snipes include jokes comparing his hair to that of a fellow Kentuckian, Sen. Rand Paul — though Trump allegedly said he prefers Massie’s curls — and suggesting he has “better genetics” than Massie because he went to the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School while Massie went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
“He said that in front of 200 members of Congress,” Massie told the Caller, adding that he hasn’t spoken to the president this week since Trump called for his ouster on Truth Social.
“There basically have been three attacks this year. And, you know, there are several volleys associated with each attack. And on the first attack, we raised $370,000, on the second attack, we raised $50,000, and the running total this week is $177,000,” he said.
“What’s ironic about that is usually the conventional wisdom is, if Trump is on the other side of you in a Republican primary, that will dry up your fundraising, the money will go to the person he endorses. But we’ve achieved a situation where each time he attacks me, it increases my fundraising,” Massie explained.
He continued, “It’s not Democrats who are sending me money. I’m as pro-life, pro-Second Amendment, reduce the size and scope of the federal government as you can get. So it’s actually mostly people who like Trump who are sending me money because they think that he’s misguided in his attack and they want to see me stay in Congress.”
Massie also said that the situation with Trump may be very fluid, as Trump is known to back off of primary challenges or endorsements if his chosen candidate isn’t performing well. In 2022, for example, he un-endorsed Mo Brooks in the Alabama Senate race in favor of Katie Britt. More recently, he hedged his bets in the Arizona gubernatorial race by co-endorsing Karrin Taylor Robson and Andy Biggs. (RELATED: Trump Issues Scathing Warning To Republican Congressman)
A couple of weeks before his 2022 primary, Massie’s team released a poll that showed him beating an ostensibly more ‘MAGA’ challenger. Trump’s team called Massie and told him the president wanted to offer his endorsement.
“I agreed to it, and then that’s when I talked to Trump, and he told me that he was 54-0 on endorsements,” Massie recalled.
“So it might be the case that he comes out and endorses right off the bat because he’s dug in so far with so much rhetoric that he almost has to, but that wouldn’t keep him from getting back out of the race in order to preserve his political legacy, right?” Massie posited.
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