{"id":816,"date":"2026-05-19T19:42:04","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T19:42:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arabnewsmonitor.com\/2026\/05\/19\/trump-vs-massie-in-kentucky-is-israel-breaking-maga\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T19:42:04","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T19:42:04","slug":"trump-vs-massie-in-kentucky-is-israel-breaking-maga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/?p=816","title":{"rendered":"Trump vs Massie in Kentucky: Is Israel breaking MAGA?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Israel lobby is breaking spending records to oust Rep. Thomas Massie<\/strong><\/p>\n

The most expensive primary election in US history is underway in Kentucky, as President Donald Trump and the Israel lobby try to unseat Representative Thomas Massie, a hardline conservative who broke with the president over Israel, Iran, and Epstein.<\/p>\n

\n Read more<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n \"Congressman
US lawmaker accuses Trump of trying to bury Epstein with Iran<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Pro-Israel groups have pumped more than $10 million into Tuesday\u2019s primary, which pits Massie against Ed Gallrein, a military veteran who ran an unsuccessful Senate campaign in 2024.<\/p>\n

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 \u2018America First\u2019 allies such as Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tucker Carlson.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s war on Gaza.<\/p>\n

Why does Trump want Massie out?<\/h2>\n

Trump endorsed Massie in the 2022 Republican primary, calling him a \u201cconservative warrior\u201d<\/em> and a \u201cfirst-rate defender of the Constitution.\u201d<\/em> However, the two had an uneasy relationship, with Trump branding Massie a \u201cthird rate Grandstander\u201d<\/em> and suggesting he be thrown out of the GOP for opposing the president\u2019s $2 trillion Covid-19 bailout bill in 2020.<\/p>\n

The relationship worsened during Trump\u2019s second term. After Massie opposed Trump\u2019s \u2018One Big Beautiful Bill\u2019 spending package last year, Trump described the Kentuckian as a \u201cnegative force who almost always Votes \u2018NO\u2019,\u201d<\/em> and promised that \u201cwe will have a wonderful American Patriot running against him in the Republican Primary.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\n
\n <\/figure>\n

Massie\u2019s opposition to Trump\u2019s 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 \u201ccomplete and total endorsement,\u201d<\/em> describing him as a \u201ctrue American hero.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Ed who?<\/h2>\n

Trump\u2019s endorsement of Gallrein is illustrative of the president\u2019s recent embrace of the \u2018Never Trump\u2019 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. <\/p>\n

Gallrein is a relatively unknown figure. His campaign website lists a series of generic Republican policy priorities \u2013 \u201cunleash our economy,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0\u201csecure the border once and for all,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0\u201cend the woke agenda\u201d<\/em> \u2013 and Trump seems to have chosen him not on any specific virtues, but because he is anyone but Thomas Massie. At the endorsement rally in March, Trump devoted more time to attacking Massie than promoting any of Gallrein\u2019s policies, telling the crowd \u201che\u2019s got to be voted out of office as soon as possible.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

How is Israel involved?<\/h2>\n

Massie\u2019s persistent criticism of Israel has made him a target of wealthy pro-Israeli donors, who have spent more than $9 million bankrolling Gallrein\u2019s campaign. According to Massie, more than 95% of Gallrein\u2019s 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 the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) pitching in more than $4.1 million, the Republican Jewish Coalition\u2019s \u2018RJC Victory Fund\u2019 spending $3.9 million, and MAGA KY \u2013 a super PAC funded by pro-Israel philanthropists Paul Singer and Miriam Adelson \u2013 spending $7.9 million, according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir position is more war, it\u2019s more strife, it\u2019s more bombs, it\u2019s more foreign aid, and those are the things that I\u2019ve been voting against,\u201d<\/em> Massie told Tucker Carlson earlier this month. \u201cSo 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\u2019ve never done in any Republican race ever before, my opponent.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Massie has accused AIPAC of controlling Congress, telling Carlson in 2024 that every US lawmaker \u201chas an AIPAC person\u2026 like a babysitter\u201d<\/em> who works to ensure that they vote in line with Israel\u2019s interests. He has since voted against military aid to Israel, boycotted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s address to Congress, and introduced legislation that would force AIPAC to register as a foreign agent.<\/p>\n

\n Read more<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n \"RT\"
\u2018We voted for walls, not wars\u2019: Did strikes on Iran just break MAGA?<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/blockquote>\n

AIPAC and Gallrein\u2019s other megadonors have made no secret of their work to oust Massie. \u201cHe\u2019s the most anti-Israel Republican in the House,\u201d<\/em> a spokesman for the group\u2019s \u2018United Democracy Project\u2019 PAC told Politico. \u201cThis is a competitive, close primary situation. It\u2019s always hard to defeat incumbents\u2026 But we think there\u2019s an opportunity here.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Who will win?<\/h2>\n

Massie has easily defeated every primary challenger in his 14-year career in Congress. However, he has never faced such a concerted campaign against him, and almost all recent polls show him neck and neck with Gallrein. A Big Data Poll survey published on Monday showed a dead heat between the two candidates, while a Quantus Insights poll published last week put Gallrein in the lead by five points. <\/p>\n

Polls close at 6 PM local time in Kentucky. When the results come in, two key questions will be answered: Are Republican voters more loyal to Trump or \u2018America First\u2019 principles? And can the Israel lobby buy whatever congressional seats it wants?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Israel lobby is breaking spending records to oust Rep. Thomas Massie The most expensive…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":817,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}