Trump Unloads on One Republican Who Dares to Keep Defying Him

Donald Trump is kicking Representative Thomas Massie out of the MAGA tent for daring to object to war with Iran.

“GET THIS ‘BUM’ OUT OF OFFICE, ASAP!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social Monday, re-sharing a lengthy screed he had posted about Massie the day before.

Trump had written that “Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky is not MAGA, even though he likes to say he is.” “Actually, MAGA doesn’t want him, doesn’t know him, and doesn’t respect him. He is a negative force who almost always Votes ‘NO,’ no matter how good something may be,” the far-right leader posted on Truth Social Sunday.

The sudden rift followed accusations by Massie that war with Iran was “not constitutional.” Massie also chastised House Speaker Mike Johnson for practically handing over Congress’s sole authority to declare war to the White House, questioning online why the leading Republican lawmaker did not “call us back from vacation to vote on military action if there was a serious threat to our country.”

Massie offered Trump a full-throated endorsement in the 2024 race on the basis that he would prevent “needless wars abroad.”

“He’s a simple minded ‘grandstander’ who thinks it’s good politics for Iran to have the highest level Nuclear weapon, while at the same time yelling ‘DEATH TO AMERICA’ at every chance they get,” Trump continued in his brutal laceration of Massie on Sunday. “We had a spectacular military success yesterday, taking the ‘bomb’ right out of their hands (and they would use it if they could!) but, as usual, and despite all of the praise and accolades received, this ‘lightweight’ Congressman is against what was so brilliantly achieved last night in Iran.”

But Trump’s framing defies the reality of Iran’s nuclear program. For months, American intelligence officials have asserted that “Iran is not building a nuclear weapon.” In a June report, the Congressional Research Service underscored that “Tehran has the capacity to produce nuclear weapons at some point, but has halted its nuclear weapons program and has not mastered all of the necessary technologies for building such weapons.”

Instead, Iran has argued that it is seeking uranium for peaceful purposes, such as expanding its nuclear energy program. The only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East is presumed to be Israel, which will not confirm or deny possessing what the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons estimates are approximately 90 nuclear weapons.

But American intel is apparently disposable to the Republican president. Instead—just as his campaign had promised prior to the election—loyalty remains his chief internal interest. In his Truth Social post, Trump attempted to tear Massie down as “weak, ineffective,” and “disrespectful to our great military, and all that they stand for.”

“Massie should drop his fake act and start putting America First, but he doesn’t know how to get there—he doesn’t have a clue!” the president continued, calling on Massie to advance the “Big, Beautiful Bill” that would gut Medicaid, make the wealthy wealthier and the poor poorer, increase the deficit by nearly $2 trillion over the next four years, and raise it much more in the years after that, according to a Congressional Budget Office estimate. Massie was one of two Republican lawmakers to vote against it last month.

“MAGA should drop this pathetic LOSER, Tom Massie, like the plague!” Trump added, threatening to unseat Massie in the midterms. “I’ll be out in Kentucky campaigning really hard.”

By the end of the day, Trump and his extraordinarily well-funded political machine had formed a super PAC aimed at kicking Massie out of national politics for good.