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Trump-Defying Conservatives Shower Massie With Cash After President's Latest Rant

Tyler Durden's Photo
by Tyler Durden
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In a new iteration of a seemingly self-defeating tactic, President Trump's latest social media rant against Republican Rep. Thomas Massie has triggered a deluge of contributions to the man Trump has targeted for a primary challenge in May. However, with three billionaires on his side, Massie's challenger is building a formidable war chest, making this -- at least in dollar terms -- the most serious challenge he's faced to date. 

On Monday, Trump used a lengthy Truth Social post to reiterate his endorsement of Massie's primary challenger, Ed Gallrein, a donor to Sen. Lindsey Graham and former Navy SEAL. Trump called Massie "the Worst 'Republican' Congressman we have had in many years...a Weak and Pathetic RINO." In his parting shot, Trump accused Massie of insufficient affection for a foreign country, calling him "a true hater of Israel."      

Though Trump urged "all MAGA Warriors" to rally behind Gallrein, money immediately started flowing into the Massie campaign. In a Tuesday evening post on X, Massie celebrated having received over $41,000 in donations from 667 people in 24 hours. "Maybe we schedule a tweet from Donald Trump every week ... because every time he does it, it boosts my fundraising," Massie previously told the Cincinnati Enquirer.  

If past remarks in the ZeroHedge comment section are any indication, there are people for whom each Trump attack on the libertarian-minded Kentuckian is something akin to the Bat-Signal, spurring them to chip in a little more money to Massie's re-election campaign. "I donate to Massie every time I learn about a new attack on his House seat by Trump or the Israel-Firsters," one such commenter wrote after the Trump team launched a SuperPAC focused solely on ousting Massie. The commenter likened his donations to the "Money Bomb" events used to solicit large numbers of small-dollar donations to Ron Paul's presidential campaigns. 

Though it's called the "MAGA Kentucky" PAC, federal filings revealed the anti-Massie PAC was funded entirely by three Israel-backing billionaires who live somewhere else: Miriam Adelson, John Paulsen and Paul Singer initially poured in a combined $2 million. On top of that PAC stash, Gallrein's campaign last week announced it raised $1.2 million in 2025's fourth quarter.

On the other side of the board, Massie's campaign had a little over $2 million on hand as of Sep 30, and Massie now has his own out-of-state billionaire in his corner: Jeff Yass, co-founder and managing director of trading-and-tech firm Susquehanna International Group, gave the Massie-backing Kentucky First PAC $1 million on Oct. 23.  

Massie has clashed with Trump on a variety of issues. He's been leading the drive to force the release of the Epstein files -- which Trump now calls a "Democrat hoax." He has routinely opposed US aid to Israel and condemned Trump's decision to join Israel's war on Iran in June. He first notably triggered Trump's wrath in March 2020, when Massie tried to derail the $2 trillion Covid relief bill, and he's continued to resist Trump's other big spending initiatives, such as 2024's Big Beautiful Bill. A fiscal hawk, the MIT graduate built his own digital lapel pin that tracks the growing national debt in real time. 

The Kentucky primary is 132 days away -- on May 19. While there are no recent, credible, public polls on the race, Massie says he'd confident he'll win, and that, in the face of what's shaping us a grim midterm for the Republican Party, the Trump Team is squandering scarce resources: 

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