Trump zeros in on 'bum' Republican as next target following Bill Cassidy ouster

By VICTORIA CHURCHILL, US POLITICAL REPORTER Published: 17:49, 17 May 2026 | Updated: 17:49, 17 May 2026 President Donald Trump has ramped up his attacks on Republican Congressman Thomas Massie as the next target on his retribution tour. Massie, a Kentucky Republican, has been constantly in Trump's crosshairs over the last year, due to his push to release the Epstein files and his opposition to the GOP's signature tax bill last summer. Their feud only escalated after Massie refused to endorse Trump's military action in Iran. Fresh off his ousting of incumbent Senator Bill Cassidy, who did not make the Republican runoff in Louisiana on Saturday evening, Trump savaged Massie in a Sunday morning Truth Social post.   'Bad Congressman Tom Massie voted against Tax Cuts, the Border Wall, our Military and Law Enforcement. Actually, he voted against almost everything that is good,' Trump wrote. 'The Worst Republican Congressman in History. Kentucky, vote the bum out on Tuesday. We can’t live with this troublemaker for another two years. He is a true negative force,' the president concluded. Despite Trump's disdain, not all conservatives want to see Massie out of office. Alex Clark, host of the Culture Apothecary podcast, which is a project of Turning Point USA, called Massie one of the 'true MAHA [Make America Healthy Again] fighters in government.' President Donald Trump has escalated his attacks on Republican Thomas Massie as he continues his retribution tour Republican Congressman Thomas Massie has clashed with Trump on everything from the Epstein files to the war with Iran 'One person who was fighting for these issues long before MAHA even had a name? Thomas Massie,' Clark wrote in her own Sunday morning post on X. 'We need to keep him in office.' Massie also got a boost from his Capitol Hill colleague, Lauren Boebert, a Colorado Republican, over the weekend. But in a scorching Truth Social tirade, the president mocked the firebrand Colorado congresswoman as 'Weak Minded Lauren Boebert' while accusing her of betraying the MAGA movement by campaigning alongside Massie. Bobert replied to the president's attack on X, stating that she was 'not mad or offended.' 'I knew the risks when I agreed to stand by my friend Thomas Massie,' she added. Massie, well-liked by many of the state and local politicians in his northern Kentucky region, is being challenged by former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein, who was handpicked by Trump's political team.  The incumbent has accused the challenger of abandoning the Republican party in the wake of Trump's 2016 election win, brandishing voter registration cards he claims show Gallrein quit the GOP and didn't re-register until 2021. Massie campaigned back home in Kentucky this weekend to packed crowds Fellow Republican Representative Lauren Boebert joined Massie to campaign in Kentucky this weekend, much to the dismay of President Donald Trump 'I call them voter transition cards. He transitioned out of the party and stayed out for five years,' Massie said at a GOP event back in March. The cards - that were since posted on Massie's X account and played front and center in a scathing campaign ad - have been central to his case against Gallrein, whom Massie is portraying as a fair-weather Republican whose party loyalty only returned when Trump was out of power. In the ad, Massie's campaign claimed that 'woke Eddie left the Republican Party right after President Trump won the Republican nomination in May of 2016.' The ad also notes that as the MAGA movement is taking off, 'disgusted by what he sees, woke Eddie Gallrein turns his back on Trump and walks away.' Gallrein's campaign did not dispute the validity of Massie's ad, choosing to blast the incumbent through a statement shared with the Daily Mail back in March, in which they noted: 'Clearly Thomas Massie is desperate because he knows the fact is that he has been exposed as a RINO [Republican in Name Only] and an ally of the Democrats and he has fallen to the bottom in the polls.' A poll released last Wednesday by Quantus Insights showed Massie trailing Gallrein, just days before the May 19 Republican primary in Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District. The survey, conducted Monday and Tuesday of last week, found that 48.3 percent of 908 respondents backed Trump-endorsed Gallrein, while 43.1 percent backed the incumbent. More than 8 percent of respondents were undecided last week. Trump hopes to add a defeat of Massie to his list of wins behind Cassidy, as well as a slew of Indiana state senators who were toppled in primaries on May 5 after refusing to back a Trump-backed redistricting plan to redraw the state's congressional map. No comments have so far been submitted. Why not be the first to send us your thoughts, or debate this issue live on our message boards. By posting your comment you agree to our house rules. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual We will automatically post your comment and a link to the news story to your Facebook timeline at the same time it is posted on MailOnline. To do this we will link your MailOnline account with your Facebook account. We’ll ask you to confirm this for your first post to Facebook. 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