SILVER LINING

GOP Rebel Begs for Cash After Being ‘Threatened’ by Trump

The president had accused Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky of being a “grandstander,” and said he should be voted out of office.

Deficit hawk Rep. Thomas Massie is seeking campaign donations after President Donald Trump called for him to be voted out of office over the congressman’s criticism of the president’s “one big beautiful” spending bill.

The latest version of the 1,000-page bill extends Trump’s 2017 tax cuts benefiting the wealthiest Americans, with the lost revenue partly offset by rolling back Medicaid coverage, food stamps and green energy tax breaks, The Washington Post reported.

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The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget has said the bill is shaping up to add about $3.3 trillion to the federal deficit over the next decade—a number that could increase to $5.2 trillion if the bill’s temporary provisions are made permanent.

The White House has insisted that the bill would not add to the deficit.

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“Now that’s a joke,” Massie, a MAGA Republican who represents northeastern Kentucky, told CNN’s Manu Raju on Tuesday. “We’re going to add $20 trillion to the debt over the next 10 years, which is three and a half to $5 trillion more than would have been added otherwise.”

Trump responded by calling Massie a “grandstander” who doesn’t understand government.

“He’ll probably vote. We don’t even talk to him much. I think he should be voted out of office, and I think he just doesn’t understand government,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday.

Massie then shared a clip of the president’s remarks and turned them into a fundraising plea.

“I need your help,” he wrote in a social media post Tuesday. “For having the audacity to say this bill does NOT repeal the green new deal, but DOES increase the deficit and debt substantially, I was threatened by Trump today. Can you contribute to my reelection at this link?”

The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.

Trump and Massie have sparred on and off since Trump’s first term in office, when the congressman opposed Trump’s COVID-19 stimulus bill. In January this year, Massie opposed House Speaker Mike Johnson’s candidacy, and in March he opposed Johnson’s short-term spending bill.

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“HE SHOULD BE PRIMARIED, and I will lead the charge against him,” Trump wrote on Truth Social at the time. “He’s just another GRANDSTANDER.”

On Tuesday, Trump said of Massie, “If you ask him a couple of questions, he never gives you an answer. He just says ‘I’m a no.’ He thinks he’s going to get publicity, and you have that. You have that. They’ve got some too.”

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