NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump scored another win Tuesday against a Republican rival, dislodging Rep. Thomas Massie in Kentucky’s primary and knocking out one of his most outspoken critics on Capitol Hill.
Massie has been a particularly difficult thorn in Trump’s side. He pushed for the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, opposed the war with Iran and voted against Trump’s signature tax legislation last year. He lost to Trump-backed challenger Ed Gallrein following the most expensive U.S. House primary in history.
Massie had tried to convince Republicans that they could support both himself and Trump at the same time, a proposition that has been tried unsuccessfully in other races around the country and didn’t work here either.
Still, Massie will remain in Congress until his term ends in January, and without a Republican primary on the horizon, he now has a freer hand than ever to antagonize Trump.
Massie’s defeat is another sign that Republicans give their politicians vanishingly little leeway to cross Trump, who is bent on retribution and has persuaded his voters to defeat his adversaries again and again.