Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie has been persona non grata in MAGA circles since he co-sponsored the bill that forced the release of the Department of Justice files on late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. The regular target of Donald Trump and his allies explained the growing rift between himself and the president during a stop by CNN on Sunday.
Massie touted his Republican bona fides in an interview with “Inside Politics” host Manu Raju, saying he votes the party line the overwhelming majority of the time. He’s broken with the president on foreign policy and the Epstein controversy, and that’s been enough for Trump to put a target on his back. The president has encouraged his supporters to vote for Massie’s primary opponent ahead of the upcoming midterm elections.
“I vote with the president 91% of the time. The 9% of the time my party is taking up for pedophiles, bankrupting this country or starting another war, I don’t vote with them,” Massie said. “They want 100% compliance. That’s why they’re trying to take me out.”
Massie said that, ultimately, Trump means to make an example of him to keep his colleagues “in line.”
“It’s going to be tough, but I’m going to win,” he said.
Massie claimed the effort against him was funded by the “Epstein class,” billionaires whose names appear in the case files of Jeffrey Epstein. To that end, he also called on Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to step down over his correspondence with Epstein.
“He should just resign,” Massie said. “Lutnick clearly went to the island…He was in business with Jeffrey Epstein and this was many years after Epstein [was convicted] for sexual crimes.”
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Massie also opened up a new front against Trump, condemning a racist video that was shared by the president on Truth Social. The clip depicted Barack and Michelle Obama as apes. Massie called the since-deleted video “beyond the pale” and called on the president to apologize.
“I do think there are limits. For a while it’s kind of funny,” he said. “Once you’ve passed certain guardrails like… getting into racist tropes. Somebody at the White House needs to go to the president and ask him for his phone.”
Watch the full interview below via YouTube:
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