Donald Trump managed to get his preferred spending bill passed in the House of Representatives without Thomas Massie. The Kentucky Republican’s was the only vote Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson lost in their bid to send the bill to the Senate and avert a government shutdown on Friday. In the process, though, MAGA subjected one of the Right’s best ambassadors to a fresh round of abuse in a doomed pressure campaign that never had a chance of succeeding.

“POTUS is spending his day attacking me and Canada,” Massie posted online yesterday afternoon. “The difference is Canada will eventually cave.”

Massie is an eccentric libertarian budget hawk who rarely comes to the table on deals like this one, and his principled position on spending is an asset to Republicans — even when it’s frustrating. Libertarian Sen. Rand Paul is already voting against the legislation as well. Massie agreed with an X post from Paul on Monday that said: “The bill continues spending at the inflated pandemic levels and will add $2T to the debt this year. Count me as a hell no!”

As nervous Republicans tried to whip votes, Trump posted on Truth Social yesterday: “Thomas Massie is a GRANDSTANDER, and the Great People of Kentucky are going to be watching a very interesting Primary in the not too distant future!” This threat, by the way, came as Trump’s former campaign manager Chris LaCivita posted “Tick tock Tommie” that same day.

Other budget hawks, including Rep. Chip Roy of the House Freedom Caucus, got on board with the bill by putting faith in DOGE, Russ Vought, and Trump’s intent to use impoundment power. Massie and Paul find this argument for adding to the national debt unpersuasive, though it managed to sway many of their fellow conservatives whose argument for slash-and-burn DOGE cuts is mostly predicated on the county’s dire fiscal health. They were willing to take a leap of faith, but MAGA insiders weren’t willing to let Massie be Massie. That is amusing, since they often benefit from his sharp edges when, for example, the congressman challenges Democrats on the events of 6 January 2021.

House sources aren’t at all surprised by Massie’s decision on the CR. One senior staffer put it thus: “Trump doesn’t really care about the ideological tribe affiliations. Some people just saying ‘Hey, Massie’s a good guy, whatcha doing?’ are putting themselves in the Conservatism First camp. LaCivita is interested in being the Trump First camp. Trump doesn’t seem to prioritise one over the other, he just knows that each serves a purpose. And that’s healthy.”

This is a smart way to handle party dynamics, but Trump’s lieutenants don’t seem to have understood the memo.

Massie, who’s never been afraid to oppose the President, was MAGA and MAHA before either movement was popular in the GOP. Attacking the nation’s debt pile, bureaucracy, intelligence agencies, and imperial foreign policy are all priorities Massie pursued before Trump forced the GOP to care.

Disagreeable as Massie is, the Kentucky Republican is a perfect brand ambassador for the Right on social and independent media, where his unique personal story and consistency appeals to younger voters distrustful of virtually all politicians. That explains why he has over a million followers on X, and over 100,000 on Instagram.

Want to Make America Healthy Again? Massie, an MIT-graduate, gave up lucrative work in the corporate world to build a thousand-acre homestead on his family’s land. As one site put it, his “off-grid house is powered by solar panels and Tesla batteries run by a custom-programmed computer. Peach and apple trees grow next to a fully automated chicken tractor, complete with its own rain catchment system”.

Back in 2017, Massie told me that as he campaigned with Ron and Rand Paul, he’d pick up on a lot of excitement among voters. “All this time, I thought they were voting for libertarian Republicans,” he reflected. “But after some soul-searching I realised when they voted for Rand and Ron and me in these primaries, they weren’t voting for libertarian ideas — they were voting for the craziest son of a bitch in the race. And Donald Trump won best in class, as we had up until he came along.”

Trump is negotiating, so it’s fair not to put much stock in his stance on Massie this week. He’s taken a similarly hot-and-cold approach to Chip Roy. It’s hardball. But LaCivita and others like to impress Trump by talking tough and negotiating on his behalf, when the President is the one with all the leverage. In the process, they end up convincing supporters that a powerful weapon in MAGA’s arsenal like Massie is a damaged brand, not to mention needlessly pitting people against one another over a vote that was never going to change.

It’s short-sighted and self-serving. Indeed, Massie posted earlier today that he was raising money off the primary threats.

Roy and the Freedom Caucus have a great argument, but Massie was never going to vote for this bill. That’s part of his charm. When it comes to curiosities like the congressman from Kentucky, MAGA can’t have its cake and eat it too. Trump likely knows that, but does his army of consultants and influencers? The answer appears to be no.

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