Rep. Thomas Massie turns Trump’s jabs at him into campaign cash

Rep. Thomas Massie is still raking in campaign cash — even as President Trump and his deep‑pocketed allies go after him and lift up his chief primary challenger, who has made an early fundraising splash of his own.

Mr. Massie raised $638,000 in the final quarter of 2025, ending the year with nearly $2.2 million in the bank. Mr. Trump has put the libertarian-leaning congressman at the top of his primary target list, labeling him a “weak and pathetic RINO” and a “true hater of Israel.”

The president endorsed Ed Gallrein, a retired Navy SEAL and farmer who is challenging Mr. Massie in the GOP primary.

Mr. Gallrein’s campaign is off to a quick start. 

He announced early this month that he’s raised more than $1.2 million since launching his campaign in October, and his new filing shows he is sitting on $933,000 in cash. Most of his donors gave more than $200, and relatively few came from within the state.

Combine the expected spending from supportive super PACs, and the primary is poised to be awash in cash and TV ads — some of which are already flooding the airwaves.

Even so, Mr. Massie, whose average donation has hovered around $100, says he’s confident he can weather the Trump backlash in the May primary — something that has spelled doom for many Republicans running in solidly red districts and states.

He said he is confident, in part, because “most of my donations come from people who still support Donald Trump.”

“One of the reasons a lot of candidates can’t survive a counter-Trump endorsement is it cuts off their fundraising,” Mr. Massie told The Washington Times. “But I’m witnessing the opposite effect in my race.”

“Every time he attacks me, I raise more money, and I think that’s because people want somebody who’s principled and willing to stand up for what they believe in, instead of just being a rubber stamp for the party,” he said.

That dynamic manifested when a headline circulating on social media, which Mr. Gallrein reposted, about Mr. Trump at the World Economic Forum saying that Mr. Massie “needs to see a psychiatrist.”

Mr. Massie turned the moment into a fundraising pitch, sending supporters a note that said, “With your support I can get some help” alongside a laughing emoji with tears of joy. He pulled in roughly $10,000 that day.

The Gallrein campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

Mr. Massie is going to need all the help he can get in a race that will test how much weight voters in Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District give to the president they overwhelmingly supported in 2024.

Mr. Gallrein has the backing of a powerful pro-Trump super PAC, MAGA KY, which reported raising $2 million as of June 30 from pro-Israel billionaires John Paulson, Paul Singer and Miriam Adelson.

Mr. Massie has drawn their ire after arguing Mr. Trump overstepped his constitutional authority by greenlighting airstrikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities and opposing additional U.S. funding for Israel, part of his long-running critique of foreign aid and military adventurism.

Mr. Massie also split with Mr. Trump over the administration’s removal of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, calling it illegal and unconstitutional. He said the president must receive approval from Congress, which he argues is the only body with the power to authorize such a mission “before American lives and treasure are spent on regime change in South America.”

“Previous presidents told us to go to war over WMDs — weapons of mass destruction that did not exist. Now it is the same playbook, except we are told drugs are the WMDs,” he said recently on the House floor.

“If it were about drugs, we would bomb Mexico or China or Colombia, and the president would have pardoned Juan Orlano Hernandez,” he said. “This is about oil and regime change.”

Speaking on behalf of Mr. Gallrein, Mr. Trump said on social media that the military veteran “is a big fan of our recent attack on Nicolas Maduro, the Dictator of Venezuela.”

Mr. Massie’s most high-profile confrontation with Mr. Trump has been over the role he played in passing legislation forcing the Department of Justice to release files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

That willingness to buck Mr. Trump has put a bullseye on his back, prompting some of the president’s most loyal allies to argue he is so out of line with the MAGA movement that he should switch parties.

Mr. Massie has countered that he votes with Republicans 91% of the time.

“The 9% I don’t, they are taking up for pedophiles, starting another war, or bankrupting our country,” he recently told a conservative blogger on Capitol Hill.