Donald Trump, President of the United States, is preparing to fight a decisive electoral battle this Tuesday in Kentucky to secure firm control of the Republican Party in Congress. After taking the political head of Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy this weekend, one of the seven party colleagues who tried to remove him in 2021, Trump hopes to get rid of Thomas Massie, the Republican congressman from Kentucky who challenges him in Congress.
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Massie is an eccentric Republican congressman, with libertarian tendencies, and is one of the most critical voices in the conservative party against the president. He has repeatedly warned against the increase in debt, last year he voted against the Build Back Better Act (BBBA), unleashing the fury of the White House occupant. He led the parliamentary initiative to force the Trump Administration to publish the full content of Epstein’s files and is a staunch opponent of the war in Iran.
The occupant of the Oval Office has sent Ed Gallrein, a former Navy SEAL member, to face Massie in the primaries for Kentucky’s fourth district held this Thursday to decide the name the conservatives will present in the midterm elections next November. The president is trying to influence the campaign by mobilizing money to support Gallrein and launching offensive messages against Massie through his social network, Truth, the platform that serves as his megaphone: “Third-rate Congressman Thomas Massie — a weak and pathetic RINO (Republican In Name Only) from the great Commonwealth of Kentucky, a place I love and where I won by a wide margin SIX TIMES, including all the primaries — must be removed from office as soon as possible!”.
Trump has set the political machinery in motion to provide resources to his candidate in order to defeat Massie. The confrontation between the two contenders has made the contest in the House of Representatives primaries the most expensive in history, with $32 million spent on advertising to discredit the opponent and on campaigns to improve the contenders’ images.
Gallrein has about seven million dollars provided by the president’s circle of influence and strong support from the pro-Israel lobby (AIPAC), which finances him with nine million dollars. In total, Trump’s candidate has about $18.5 million to spend on the campaign, compared to Massie’s $13.5 million. Although the current congressman has fewer resources than his rival, he enjoys a considerable amount mainly from small farmers in his electoral district, which stretches along the Ohio River.
A $32 million campaign
“How is it possible that this contest has become the most expensive in the history of congressional primaries? It’s because three billionaires from outside Kentucky have invested millions of dollars. They are trying to buy a seat,” Massie said this weekend in an interview on ABC News.
Massie tries to exploit his role as an opponent of Trump. He is undeterred. He insists that the war against Iran harms the United States. He is one of the legislators who accuse Trump of entering the conflict because of Israel. And he accuses the pro-Israel lobby of wanting to buy the elections. “That’s where all the money comes from. It will be a referendum on foreign policy, on whether Israel can dictate it by pressuring members of Congress. I am the one they have not been able to pressure, so they are putting all the pressure on me,” he told the cameras.
Born in Huntington, West Virginia, 55 years ago, Massie is a peculiar man. He holds an engineering degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), lives isolated in the northern Kentucky mountains, on a farm he built himself that runs on solar panels. He is handy and an inventor with more than 30 patents. He has a Tesla with a license plate that reads “Friends of Coal.”
Against Israeli influence
Massie is also a millionaire. When he finished his engineering studies, he founded a virtual reality company that simulates the sense of touch. He sold it for a fortune, although the exact amount was never known.
He believes he is ahead in the polls and attributes the White House’s “desperation” to that. “That’s why the president can’t sleep and is tweeting about this,” he said.
Trump has been launching furious attacks against Massie on Truth for several days to try to tilt the race. “He is the worst ‘Republican’ congressman in history, as he votes against tax cuts, the Wall, law enforcement, and in favor of transgender mutilation of our children, men competing in women’s sports, and so many other horrible things,” the president wrote on his social platform.
“He doesn’t have much to gain. And he has a lot to lose if he loses this contest against me,” he told the Financial Times referring to Trump. He is a familiar face in Congress, serving seven terms in the House of Representatives since 2012, when he won a seat thanks to the support of the Tea Party ultraconservatives.
Although he boasts of being ahead in the polls, the latest surveys place him behind Gallrein, who is maintaining a low profile with few public appearances and relying entirely on the huge advertising campaign.
Party control
The U.S. leader has gradually been eliminating his critics within his party. He has transformed the traditional conservative party into a cohort of legislators where loyalty to the leader prevails over independence or respect for institutions.
This Saturday he managed to get rid of Republican Senator Bill Cassidy from Louisiana. The candidate supported by Trump, Julia Letlow, managed to win the party primaries against one of the Republican senators who in 2021 voted in favor of the impeachment trial to remove Trump for his role in the Capitol assault scandal on January 6, 2021.
