President Donald Trump and his political team are actively working to primary their first Republican incumbent: Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, who has drawn Trump’s ire for questioning the president’s authority to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities without congressional approval and for voting against Trump’s sweeping tax and spending cuts legislation.
As first reported by Axios, Trump’s allies have launched a new super PAC aimed at defeating Massie in his 2026 primary race. It marks the Trump team’s first organized effort to remove a sitting member of Congress, sending a strong warning to other Republicans that opposing Trump carries political risks.
For Massie, a libertarian-leaning congressman, Trump’s threats and online attacks are nothing new. He has repeatedly clashed with the White House, most recently as one of only two House Republicans to vote against the “One Big Beautiful Bill” that Trump wants passed by July 4.
In 2020, Massie also attempted to block a major coronavirus relief package during Trump’s first term. And, he backed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis during last year’s GOP primaries.
In recent days, Massie has accused Trump of breaking his campaign promise to keep the U.S. out of foreign wars and joined Democrats in introducing a resolution that would require congressional authorization for any military action against Iran.
Now, the GOP president has pledged to campaign against Massie in his heavily Republican district, which spans northern Kentucky. And this time, Trump won’t be acting alone—he’ll have support behind him, The Associated Press reported.
The new super PAC, Kentucky MAGA, will be led by two of Trump’s top political operatives—former co-campaign manager Chris LaCivita and veteran pollster Tony Fabrizio.
The planning began weeks ago, with the team already meeting with several potential challengers. Their strategy is to unite behind a single candidate to prevent a repeat of past election cycles, where multiple challengers split the opposition vote while vying for Trump’s endorsement, the AP noted.
“If you want to be part of an effort to defeat Massie you will go through us. And the Trump political operation will run the campaign,” LaCivita said Monday, adding that the group would spend “whatever it takes.”
News of the new effort follows Trump’s public attack on Massie via his social media platform, where he called the congressman “not MAGA” and a “pathetic LOSER” after Massie criticized the airstrikes.
“Massie is weak, ineffective, and votes ‘NO’ on virtually everything put before him (Rand Paul, Jr.), no matter how good something may be,” Trump wrote. “MAGA should drop this pathetic LOSER, Tom Massie, like the plague! The good news is that we will have a wonderful American Patriot running against him in the Republican Primary, and I’ll be out in Kentucky campaigning really hard.”
So far, Niki Lee Ethington, a registered nurse, has announced her intention to challenge Massie in the GOP primary next spring, the AP reported.
Massie, for his part, used humor to deflect from the president’s criticism, writing on his X account that Trump had “declared so much War on me today it should require an Act of Congress.”
“I suspect the President isn’t doing this out of spite for me, but instead to intimidate my colleagues into rubber stamping his actions,” Massie told The Associated Press Monday in a statement. “He knows me well enough to know he’s not changing my mind with these threats.”
Until now, Trump had refrained from using his vast war chest to target Republican incumbents, despite voicing frequent frustrations, which marks a shift from the 2022 election cycle, when he aggressively went after Republicans who voted to impeach him.
This time, Trump is taking a more strategic approach, mindful of the GOP’s slim majority in the House and the risk that losing even a few seats could jeopardize his agenda or lead to renewed impeachment efforts, the AP noted.