Trump's headed to Kentucky to boost GOP challenger in Massie's back yard

President Donald Trump, committed to toppling Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie (R), is traveling on Wednesday to the congressman's district to support his Republican challenger Ed Gallrein at Hebron's Verst Logistics packaging facility.

Bad blood

Massie first drew the president's ire in a big way in 2020 when he delayed Trump's $2 trillion COVID relief package.

Although the antagonism between the two men apparently subsided — Trump endorsed Massie in 2022 and characterized him as a "first-rate Defender of the Constitution" — their detente proved short-lived.

It certainly did not help that Massie backed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the 2024 Republican presidential primary; voted against Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act; criticized the president over his administration's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files; and publicly opposed the current and previous U.S. military actions against Iran; or that the president, in turn, branded Massie's Trump-voting wife a "Radical Left 'flamethrower'" and repeatedly called for the congressman's removal both from office and the GOP.

Trump allies are also behind the political action committee that has spent over $1 million on anti-Massie ads in Massie's 4th congressional district.

Trump's champion

On Tuesday, Trump once again identified his champion in the campaign to unseat Massie: Ed Gallrein, a farmer and Navy SEAL combat veteran whose website notes that he's "fighting for President Trump's and the Republican Party's America First Agenda."

'Trump fans in KY-4 and across the entire Commonwealth also support my work.'

While Trump originally endorsed Gallrein in October, the candidate officially filed to run on Tuesday.

After saying that Massie — a lawmaker with a 86.53% lifetime Turning Point Action score and a 90.74% score this Congress — is the "Worst 'Republican' Congressman we have had in many years," Trump stated that "the person that will help us do the job, and do it right, is Navy SEAL, Army Ranger, Fifth Generation Kentucky Farmer, and American Hero, Captain Ed Gallrein, a true Patriot."

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Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP via Getty Images

Trump urged individuals thinking about running against Massie to "rally behind Captain Ed Gallrein, the Candidate who is, far and away, best positioned to DEFEAT Third Rate Congressman Thomas Massie."

The president noted in a separate post hours before making the trip to Kentucky, "Massie, who is running against a great American Patriot in the Kentucky Primary, will hopefully lose BIG."

Blaze News reached out to Massie's office for comment but did not receive a response by deadline.

Massie claimed in an X post ahead of Trump's visit that interlopers may discover "Trump fans in KY-4 and across the entire Commonwealth [who] also support my work in the Epstein files, reigning in spending, ending forever wars, draining the swamp, and food freedom!"

The congressman also released an attack ad this week, amplified by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), that portrays Gallrein as a fair-weather friend who abandoned Trump and left the GOP just after the president secured the Republican nomination in 2016.

The Cincinnati Enquirer reported that the voter registration cards referenced by Massie indicate that Gallrein changed his voter registration from Republican to independent on May 18, 2016 — around the same time Trump won the GOP nomination.

Gallrein reportedly registered as a Republican again in June 2021, when he decided to launch his unsuccessful campaign for the Kentucky Senate.

Gallrein's spokeswoman Alexandra Wilkes told the Enquirer that Massie, not Trump, prompted his flight from the Republican Party.

"Ed briefly changed registration out of frustration with the broken system Congressman Massie created in his district, which hurt the Republican Party, and he is proud to stand with President Trump and true conservative Republicans," said Wilkes.

As of midday Wednesday, the prediction market Kalshi put Massie's chance of securing the Republican nomination at 58% and Gallrein's chance at 43%.

Massie faced two challengers in the 2024 GOP primary for Kentucky's 4th congressional district and secured 75.9% of the vote. He went on to net 99.6% of the vote in the general election.

The primary election takes place on May 19.

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