Trump takes his revenge on disloyal Republicans

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1:14Anthony:This is how Donald Trump feels about a seven-term Republican congressman. We got to get rid of this loser. This guy is bad. He's disloyal to the Republican Party. He's disloyal to the people of Kentucky, and most importantly, he is disloyal to the United States of America. The president's talking about Thomas Massey. Thomas Massey is a Republican congressman from Kentucky who has stood up to Donald Trump, particularly on the Epstein files, and Trump is now funding an opponent in a primary election to get him to lose his seat. The president is not just acting in Kentucky. He's wiped out his critics in Indiana, in Ohio as well.

1:55Anthony:He's pushing to oust a Republican senator in Louisiana. So what happens to Republicans who go up against Donald Trump? Are they all still going to lose? Might they manage to fight back? Welcome to AmeriCast. AmeriCast. AmeriCast from BBC News. You hear that sound? Oh, I think when I hear that sound, it reminds me of money. We didn't start this war, but under President Trump, we are finishing it. This is a big cover-up, and this administration is engaged in it. This guy has Trump derangement syndrome. I have four words for you. Turn the volume up!

2:37Anthony:Hello, it's Justin in the worldwide headquarters of AmeriCast in London, England. And it's Anthony in the American headquarters of AmeriCast in Washington, D.C. And it's 20 past three in the afternoon in London, Anthony. Let us launch ourselves straight into this conversation about, I mean, something that normally, it is fair to say, isn't it, we would not be talking about. So a set of primaries, the spring primaries, not all of them for congressional seats. That's the point, isn't it? Not all of them for seats that matter at all outside individual states. And yet, not only do they matter politically, but they matter to the president.

3:14I'm disappointed in you, Justin. You don't dig down deep into Republican state legislative primaries in Indiana to glean what is going on in American politics. But yes, this is unusual, and it's unusual because Donald Trump has made it his personal mission to unseat a handful of Republican state senators in Indiana who voted against him on congressional redistricting, which we talked about in the past, redrawing the line maps in order to give Republicans an advantage in the House elections later this year. And that vote was on Tuesday. And Trump, by and large, was successful in ousting these folks.

3:59Anthony:Yeah. And that's a big deal, isn't it? Because we're so used to talking about Donald Trump's waning power, politically speaking. And we've got used to the idea that the Democrats are winning election after election, which they are, in places that they haven't won for some time, which they also are. You think of Mar-a-Lago as one of those. And yet, actually, this is a bit of a reminder, isn't it, that this guy is still able to swing the stick around, certainly when it comes to his own side. Yeah, and I think that is the difference here. Donald Trump's grip on the Republican Party clearly is still very strong.

4:40His endorsement is still the most valuable thing that a Republican candidate running in a Republican primary can have. Now, when you get to the general election, Donald Trump's poll ratings across the board with independents and Democrats, I think that is where real damage is being done. And actually, there was another election on Tuesday, a state Senate race in Michigan in a district outside of Detroit that was kind of a swing district. It was very close two years ago during the presidential election. And the Democrat won that handily by double digits. So, you know, another another little data point in that it's an uphill climb for Republicans in a general election.

5:24But in the primaries, what Donald Trump says tends to go. And we had more evidence of that just this week.

5:31Anthony:Yeah. And they spent money, too, didn't they, in the Indiana situation? I mean, one of the people who lost his seat was 80 years old and had stood countless times, hadn't he? And must have been surprised slash shocked, to put it mildly, when the president of the United States, of his own party as well, intervenes to get him to lose his job. Yeah, it's difficult to overstate how unusual it is for the president of the United States, the White House, to get involved in state legislative races, intra-party state legislative contests like this. But there's a reason why he did it. And the reason is he wants to send a message to the party as a whole around the country that if you go against Donald Trump's wishes, you will pay a price for it.

6:21Anthony:And is that why there's so much money coming into this? Because another weirdness about Indiana, before we go on to other things, but the weirdness, not only is this effectively a local election, a state election that the president shouldn't be involved with and this shouldn't be happening, wouldn't be happening in a normal year, but also just amazing sums of money suddenly being spent by outside groups on making it happen. Say about$13.5 million was spent on these primary campaigns in Indiana. That is a roughly 5 ,000 % jump from the$250 ,000 spent on state Senate races in 2024. I mean, it is orders of magnitude larger, and it doesn't take a lot of money to change the dynamics of these smaller state legislative races.

7:10So when you're talking about more than$13 million being spent, that just swamped these four incumbents who didn't know what hit them. And I think that is the lesson that a lot of other Republicans in other states are going to take out of this. They could have the money avalanche fall on them if they're not careful.

7:28Anthony:OK, let us turn to Thomas Massey, this Republican congressman in Kentucky, who is an interesting character, isn't he? An eccentric character anyway. He's not exactly a national figure, is he? But it's worth just talking a little bit about him, isn't it? Because he's become, can I call him a semi-national figure because of the Epstein files? Yeah, you know, Massey's been around for seven terms, so 14 years in the House. And he's been on the radar for people who pay attention to American politics because he's an interesting character because he is a libertarian, a kind of a fiscal conservative. He doesn't like spending money, running up the deficit, a bit of a contrarian, kind of like Rand Paul, the senator from Kentucky as well, and Rand Paul's father, Ron Paul.

8:17So of that kind of independent-minded mold, willing to take a stand, which has been fine for many of these years for Massey because Republicans had a comfortable majority. Democrats were in the majority for a while. But the spotlight has been on him, directly on him now over the past several years because it's been such a narrow House majority. And so his iconoclastic stands have have cost Republicans and created very real headaches for Republicans when they've been trying to pass, say, spending bills or tax cut bills or vote on authorizing Donald Trump's military excursions. And then, of course, one of the big things that he got a lot of attention for was the Jeffrey Epstein files.

9:03He joined with Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, and Marjorie Taylor Greene, another former Republican from Georgia who left office at the beginning of this year, in order to force a vote in the House of Representatives to release these files. So that has made him the target of Donald Trump's ire, probably more than anyone else in the Republican caucus in the House of Representatives.

9:26Anthony:So you mentioned he's living off grid. He's very much a local character. He's someone who's been around for a long time, represented his district for a long time. Let's get a flavour of him because I think what we're about to hear, and this is actually an interview he did, he talked to the podcaster Theo Vaughan and it's from last June. But he's talking to Theo Vaughan about his cattle and this conversation, it seems to me, kind of establishes in our minds just what his strengths might be. Oh, there's a picture of my cattle. They are Angus crossed with Wagyu. I call them Wangus. Oh, wow. Wangus beef.

10:03Oh, yeah. It's a little urban over there. Definitely. That's definitely... There's the, you know, not the black sheep, but the white cow. He kind of stands out. I say, I feel like that white cow in D.C. some days. Like, do I really belong in this herd? Yeah. Yeah. You seem like a little bit of like an outsider, I think, like, or, you know, like a black sheep or like a maverick? I feel like people say if they talk about a maverick, then they say Thomas Massey, you know. Yeah, so a maverick, an outsider, I think those are fair ways to characterize him. He does not fit in with the rest of the Republican caucus.

10:36And, you know, I've been in the House chamber up in the gallery looking down, and he often kind of hangs in the back, not seated with the rest of the Republicans. Sometimes he's even kind of leaning over onto the Democratic side of the aisle. So he marches to the beat of his own drum, And that has led to to some conflicts, although I will also say that by and large, he is still a conservative Republican. He tends to vote conservative. And interestingly enough, in an interview with Caitlin Collins last November, he emphasized that he really doesn't have that many disagreements with Donald Trump.

11:09It's just there are a few that have gotten an outsized amount of attention. I vote with my party 91 % of the time, which means I have agreed with the president 91 % of the time. But when they're protecting pedophiles, when they are blowing our budget, when they are starting wars overseas, I'm sorry, I can't go along with that. And back home, people agree with me. They understand even the most ardent Trump supporters understand sometimes he gets bad advice. Sometimes he gives bad advice and we wouldn't model our lives after him, his personal life. And they're OK with that. I mean, they can still you can still like Donald Trump in Kentucky and like what I'm doing and what Ro Khanna is doing, which is trying to get transparency.

11:56Anthony:Anyway, Donald Trump, whatever he makes of remarks like that, which we can assume is not much, actually, way, way too critical. Although he's saying he votes with him 91 % of the time. Actually, the fact that he brought up those various things about Trump that he doesn't like won't have endeared him when he was making those remarks. So Donald Trump either finds or has found for him a challenger, a serious challenger, are we saying? this guy, Ed Galrain, he's a Navy SEAL, isn't he? A former Navy SEAL. So in many respects, he will fit the bill of a challenger that Donald Trump would like to put in to this area.

12:36Anthony:Is he someone who is a feasible candidate? A feasible candidate in as much as he has Donald Trump's support. And he's kind of running a campaign where he is the not Thomas Massey, the Donald Trump pick. And that may be all it takes for him to win this Republican primary. You remember Liz Cheney, who was also an outspoken Donald Trump critic, served on the January 6th committee investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol campaign for Kamala Harris when she was running for president in 2024. Donald Trump also found a challenger or had found a challenger of hers in the primary, and she went down in a blazing defeat by a comfortable margin.

13:20So this feels like the same kind of dynamic where it doesn't really matter who the opponent is. It's just that the opponent is endorsed by Donald Trump, and Donald Trump has made his dissatisfaction with the incumbent very well known.

13:34Anthony:Yeah, he went down to Kentucky, didn't he, in March, and he was meant to be giving a speech about the economy. But, well, you judge the extent to which the economy is mentioned, at least in this bit of it. This guy is bad. He's disloyal to the Republican Party. He's disloyal to the people of Kentucky. And most importantly, he is disloyal to the United States of America. And he's got to be voted out of office as soon as possible. On the other hand, Ed Galron has my complete and total endorsement. He's a true American hero and he's a great patriot. He's like central casting. I said, this is the guy I'm looking.

14:17I wanted to I want to just give me somebody with a warm body to beat Massey. And I got somebody with a warm body, but a big, beautiful brain and a great patriot. He's unbelievable.

14:30Anthony:Donald Trump does like, he likes a man's man, doesn't he? He likes a manly looking man. Yeah, a warm body. I mean, he came right out and said it there. Godwin doesn't really have any political experience. I think he ran for a state legislative race and lost in the Republican primary. He's a farmer and he's a decorated ex-seal. And that's about the extent of his resume. But for Donald Trump, clearly, that is enough. We're talking about money in the Indiana race. I'm guessing the amounts now are going to be even huger and presumably already pouring in. The amount of money going into this race is just staggering.

15:06We were talking about the Indiana races. Well, this dwarfs that. There are super PACs, political action committees on both sides, pro-MASI and anti-MASI, that have raised or been contributed millions of dollars,$2.75 billion for one that's pro-Galrean, another couple of million dollars for the one that is pro-Massey. And they're coming, not from inside Kentucky. Gosh, there's not enough bourbon money there, I think, to fund this. But they're coming from East Coast billionaires. Thomas Massey has one donor who is from Philadelphia who's given a million dollars. There's been a couple of hedge fund managers, Paul Elliott Singer and John Alfred Paulson, who donated money to oust Thomas Massey.

15:55I'm just pulling up the latest figures here on just the campaign spending so far by Massey and Galeraine. Massey has spent$4.3 million so far. Galeraine has raised$2.39 million and spent about$1 million. That is just for, as I mentioned, for a primary campaign in a safe seat, that is astounding. But it just shows what I guess what a battleground this is for kind of deciding where the Republican Party is and what kind of a price someone who stands up against Donald Trump and makes votes that are not always in lockstep with the Republicans. The kind of importance is to either make an example of him or show that that such a person can still exist within this party.

16:41Anthony:Talking of making an example of him, the ads that are being bought with all this money are the most tasteful in nature, aren't they? not. So there's a particular one that we ought to listen to. You don't really get the full picture by listening. So I should establish first for people what is actually happening in it or actually not happening in it because it's AI generated. It is not true. This did not happen. But Thomas Massey is shown in this ad holding hands with the two left-wing members of Congress, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar. So these two women, absolute hate figures on the Republican right.

17:21Anthony:They're having dinner together. They get into a taxi with him and then check into a hotel. So the implication, let's listen to it, but the implication is that they're basically going to go to a room, all three of them together. Thomas Massey caught in a throuple in Washington. He's cheating with the squad on the America First movement. Massey voted with the squad against Trump's tax cuts. as he voted with the squad against finishing Trump's wall. He voted with them against hiring new border agents. Well, this is worse than adultery. It's a complete and total betrayal of President Trump and Kentucky conservatives.

17:58On May 19th, fire Thomas Massey. MAGA Kentucky is responsible for the content. Yeah, a throuple. I don't think I've ever heard that referenced in a campaign advert before. But, you know, I mean, we're breaking new ground here.

18:12Anthony:It's all very what you'd call conservative and old school values, that place. So the idea of a throuple, number one, I don't think many people are going to know what it is. But number two, they will get the message, won't they? And that's the idea, this AI generated thing. And it does say AI generated, doesn't it, on it? They're in very small letters. But the overall message that they're getting across will potentially hit home. Right. They're trying to paint Thomas Massey as being in league with Democrats. And he votes with Democrats on some of these big issues, which, you know, as we discussed on things like Iran war on things like tax cuts and spending that Massey has a different kind of objection to than the Democrats.

18:54But they're on the same side of the vote table for that. And, of course, most prominently on the Epstein files, that is that's not fake. The ad itself, the AI on it is fake. And that has generated some condemnations. So Ilhan Omar, one of the people in the squad, has said the ad should be taken down. And even Marjorie Taylor Greene, who, as I mentioned, had cooperated with Massey on voting to release the Epstein files. She posted on X calling it a fake AI campaign that was lying about Thomas Massey and a violation of the Take It Down Act that First Lady Melania Trump championed. This is a fake AI act that she backed.

19:35They said Thomas Massey never dined, held hands with or intimately engaged with AOC and Ilhan Omar. Good to know. And then she goes into detailing that publishing intimate images of minors or non-consultanting adults, including AI-generated imagery, is illegal. Marjorie Taylor Greene has her own, has had her own run-ins with Donald Trump. But she still speaks for a component of the mega right conservatives and having her step up and try to defend Massey. Not surprising, but probably welcome for him.

20:10Anthony:So who's going to win? That's a good question. The polling out there shows a tight race, but there hasn't been a lot of polling. You know, if I had to guess based on everything else we've seen in Indiana and with Liz Cheney in Wyoming a few years ago, it doesn't look good for Massey. He's been around for a while, but they've gone after Massey before, but never like this. And he's never been quite the central focus before. And it was kind of interesting. There was an ad. Speaking of AI-generated ads, Thomas Massey had his own one that he wants to put up. It's on his website. Let's just talk about the elephant in the room.

20:48I agree with President Trump a whole lot more than I disagree with him. And it is an AI-generated elephant with golden Donald Trump-style hair and a Make America Great Again red ball cap on it. And he stands next to the elephant and says that he and Donald Trump really are on the same team. I approve this message because President Trump and I have a whole lot more to get done together.

21:13Anthony:OK, that's Thomas Massey. We should say as well that in Louisiana, it's not just a member of the House who's invited the ire of Donald Trump and receiving the ire of Donald Trump. It's an actual senator, isn't it? And not a local senator, a U.S. senator, Bill Cassidy, who is being challenged and being challenged again by Donald Trump with someone put up against him in a primary. Bill Cassidy is an established senator. He has been in the Senate since winning election in 2014. He is generally well-respected, a former physician. And also, again, this is Louisiana. It's a safe Republican seat. But he had one prominent transgression that has generated Donald Trump's ire, and that is he voted to convict Donald Trump after he was impeached following the January 6th attack on the U.S.

22:08Capitol. He was one of a handful of Republicans who broke with their party in voting to what would have—Donald Trump was already out of office—but would have prevented Donald Trump from ever running for elective office again. And that has, needless to say, come back to haunt him. If you look at polling for this race, he is definitely in trouble. He could very well lose to the Trump-backed challenger.

22:35Anthony:So the big question, can you be a Republican and at all critical of Donald Trump? And I think we have felt, haven't we, that the answer generally this year has been increasingly, yes you can be if you're careful about it because of the waning power of the president but it is obviously hugely a live question and possibly not quite as clear as we were suggesting at one stage or as it seemed to be at one stage and it's a question that is now being raised with members of the administration so there was a turning point usa event back in october in Mississippi. And J.D. Vance, vice president, is asked exactly about all of this, actually, about dissent by a member of the audience.

23:22Recently, President Trump endorsed a candidate to run against Republican Representative Thomas Massey, who is opposed and criticized some of the Trump administration's aims. How would you address those who fear that principal disagreement or independent thinking is discouraged within the party because of how it can be framed as a betrayal instead of as internal accountability or an opportunity for debate and negotiation? So it's a very good question. Let me say this one is hard for me. And the reason it's hard for me is because Thomas Massey and I, he's one of the first people that ever reached out to me about my book or about political office.

23:57I've known Thomas Massey well before I desire on Thomas Massey. It's because we can never count on him for some of the most difficult votes. I wish that that weren't the case. I say that as somebody who's known Thomas well before I got into politics, but politics is politics. And when you always vote against the party, you can't expect the party to actually back him. So, I mean, it's interesting listening to J.D. Vance there because, yeah, as we've discussed, Thomas Massey does vote against the House Republicans pretty regularly, even though on big conservative issues, he still sides with them.