Trump has ousted the Republican who released the Epstein Files

Thomas Massie is a libertarian politician in the US Republican Party. As such, he holds all manner of reprehensible views. The one thing which sets him apart from his colleagues, though, is that he’s fought tooth and nail for the release of the Epstein Files. Or it was, anyway, because those people are no longer his colleagues:

There was much speculation that the Epstein files could break Trump's hold over the GOP.

Once again, all that was wrong. One of Trump's leading Epstein files critics, Thomas Massie, just lost his primary fight- after losing Trump's endorsement. https://t.co/AcHjlaJBWj

— Lewis Goodall (@lewis_goodall) May 20, 2026

Republican ousted

In the US, it’s possible to challenge an incumbent congressman for the chance to take their place as the candidate for the next race. This is known as a ‘primary’, and it’s a very normal thing that US Democrats and Republicans do. Despite this:

The institutional stupidity of the British media really hit me when significant numbers of political journalists compared mandatory reselection – which is similar to primaries in the *United States* – to Stalinism.

Boris Johnson was entirely a symptom of these people.

— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) May 30, 2024

As a congressman, Massie pushed for the release of files related to the dead paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Everyone knows why this upset president Donald Trump; it’s because he’s in the files. And Trump barely hid the fact that he was using his position to prevent their release:

This is a bombshell revelation:

Massie reveals Trump vetoed a bill to bring water to Colorado because their Rep Lauren Boebert pushed to expose the pedophiles in the Epstein files.

Trump has fought harder to protect child rapists than he has ever fought for the American people. pic.twitter.com/JDYto0G9Vg

— Power to the People ☭🕊 (@ProudSocialist) May 7, 2026

Massie worked closely on the Epstein Transparency Act with Democrat Ro Khanna who said the following after Massie lost the primary challenge:

My good friend @RepThomasMassie lost tonight.

He lost because he had the guts to stand up to the Epstein class and against the war.

He won voters under 45 by 30 points.

Tonight, I say to this voters who feel rejected by Trump. We welcome you. Join our coalition to take on a… pic.twitter.com/tAGJjtct5b

— Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) May 20, 2026

Massie doesn’t plan to give up on that fight either, with several months left before he has to step down:

Massie: Today is the six-month anniversary of the Epstein Transparency Act. We’ve taken out two dozen CEOs, an ambassador, a prince, a prime minister, a minister of culture—that was just six months. I’ve got seven months left in Congress. pic.twitter.com/sm1nAOBVO6

— Acyn (@Acyn) May 20, 2026

Trump, meanwhile, has responded exactly as you’d expect:

🇺🇸 Trump on Thomas Massie a "terrible congressman" and a "dumocrat." pic.twitter.com/sFIwjXHB0w

— Donald J Trump Truth Social Posts On X (@TrumpTruthOnX) May 19, 2026

AIPAC

As Al Jazeera reported, Massie:

said the election will be a “referendum on foreign policy” and whether pro-Israel lobby groups will be able to “bully” members of Congress.

“You can tell that I’m ahead in the polls, and they’re desperate,” Massie told ABC News on Sunday.

“That’s why they’re sending the secretary of war to my district tomorrow. That’s why the president’s losing sleep and tweeting about this. That’s why AIPAC has dumped another $3m into my race this weekend.”

Pro-Israel groups actually made this race a record breaker:

Rep. Thomas Massie has been unseated by AIPAC’s Ed Gallrein in what is now the most expensive House primary in U.S. history. #KY04 https://t.co/CI2C8xuVql pic.twitter.com/M0HxFlJhz5

— AIPAC Tracker (@TrackAIPAC) May 19, 2026

Massie has been an outspoken critic of Israel, and this is what happens to American politicians who oppose the rogue state. And when we say ‘this is what happens’, we mean it literally keeps happening, as Jacobin reported:

The record for most expensive House race in US history has once again been broken.

And the spending was once again fueled by the pro-Israel lobby.

1. Thomas Massie vs Gallrein, $34m
2. Jamaal Bowman vs Latimer, $25m
3. Cori Bush vs Bell, $14m

That’s the work of a “grassroots” organization, as AIPAC calls itself.

If Russian backers spent $34m funding a US political race, the political and media establishment would recognise this as being somewhat disruptive to a functioning democracy. The same would be true of pretty much any other country except Israel.

The reason it isn’t called out is because Israel has historically served as America’s foothold in the Middle East. And the reason it’s so blatant is that Israel has sought to secure its position with influence operations like the one which took down Massie.

This is how Massie responded to the loss:

Massie: I would have come out sooner but I had to call my opponent to concede and it took a while to find him in Tel Aviv pic.twitter.com/DmTkDfS17a

— Acyn (@Acyn) May 20, 2026

Massie also said:

Why am I hopeful right now? Because if you looked at the cross tab in the polling, and I’m sure if we had exit polling, it would show the same thing. We have the younger demographic.

You are patriots, and you will inherit this country, and you will make it better, and I am hopeful because of that. Thank you. We accidentally, I think, I accidentally, I didn’t mean to do this. It started out as an election, and it turned into a movement.

Normalise normality

While Massie has very different politics to us, we do agree that opposing things like paedophilia, foreign interference, and pointless wars should be bipartisan. It’s telling that Trump and his cultists don’t agree.

Featured image via Getty Images (Jon Cherry) / Getty Images (Kevin Dietsch)