Written by Cody Ares Baynori of Newport
Toward the end of last year, tech billionaire Jack Dorsey tossed Thomas Massie a national-scale compliment, floating him as “presidential” material. Massie downplayed it, but it’s hard to deny his growing national profile. Meanwhile, President Trump has endorsed a primary challenger, former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein, and Massie is asking constituents to help him fend off the attempt to oust him.
So are we supposed to treat this as our emergency?
Since the challenge, Massie has rolled out an upgraded version of himself, with a sharper haircut, the glasses gone, and an ex–Capitol Hill staffer as his new wife. That is his right. But it’s also a signal. My problem is not that Massie wants attention. My problem is that he wants it in the national spotlight, and Northern Kentucky is expected to clap on cue.
Massie sits on the House committee that oversees roads and bridges, yet he voted against the 2021 infrastructure law now underwriting Brent Spence. And when he got his turn to question witnesses about how that law is being implemented, he picked a national fight over in-car alcohol detection mandates, not the timelines and guarantees the I-71/I-75 corridor needs.
Here is the core question in front of KY-04. Massie is a 12-year incumbent under real pressure. A super PAC backing him now has support from Jeff Yass, one of the biggest Republican mega-donors, enough to offset what Trump is trying to raise to beat him.
Massie’s defenders say he’s principled, the same contrarian he’s always been, and that making enemies proves he’s doing something right. Maybe. But watch the pattern. He turns procedural fights into headline moments. In March 2020, he forced a recorded-vote showdown on COVID relief and drew Trump’s fury. More recently, he was removed from the House Rules Committee after being the lone Republican to vote against Mike Johnson for speaker.
The point is not whether every one of those fights was right or wrong. The point is that Massie is consistently drawn to the kind of conflict that produces national attention and internal punishment, which then produces more attention. That is a pattern. It is also a career strategy.
This is why I do not buy the clean story some people are now selling, where Massie is suddenly the brave “America First anti-Trump wing” of the Republican Party. Massie has his own breakup-and-makeup arc with Trump. Trump endorsed Massie in 2022 after previously denouncing him. Massie endorsed Trump three times, most recently in late October 2024. Now Trump wants him gone. Massie’s posture shifts accordingly. That is not an insult. It is how politicians behave when survival is on the line. But we should call it what it is.
The Epstein-files fight shows how the spotlight works. Massie and Ro Khanna drove a discharge petition that forced a vote and became law. Now DOJ is reviewing 5.2 million documents, the rollout is chaotic, and Massie stays in the center of the frame. Call it accountability if you want. But Trump’s Epstein ties have been public for years, and Massie has sat on Judiciary. If this is the defining moral fight, it’s fair to ask why the urgency peaks right when his national brand benefits.
This would be merely annoying if his priorities were harmless performance. They are not. After a sharp jump last Congress, Massie has already introduced 19 bills in the first year of this one. Look where that energy goes. The Safe Students Act would repeal the federal Gun-Free School Zones law. His NICS Data Reporting Act would require DOJ to report demographic data on people denied under NICS, including race, ethnicity, sex, and gender. He has also reintroduced his longstanding push to dismantle the Department of Education, even as the Trump administration is already pursuing that goal.
A fair counterargument is that Massie is one of the few Republicans willing to buck Trump, and that this is valuable in itself. I understand the appeal. If you are sick of politicians who fold under pressure, a stubborn vote can look like integrity. But integrity is not just saying no. Integrity is accountability to the people you represent. As much as Massie would like otherwise, a government must govern.
So here is my ask. Before we lend Thomas Massie our hand, we should demand something basic in return. Tell him to step out of the spotlight long enough to answer, plainly, what he has done for Northern Kentucky beyond building a national brand. Ask him why these bills are his priorities. Ask him why we should treat his survival as our emergency. Then decide.
If he wants to be a national figure, fine. But he should not get there by using Kentucky as a stage prop. Northern Kentucky needs a representative who is focused on bridges, interstates, schools, and the unglamorous work of getting things done.