President Donald Trump is insisting that he wants Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., out of office and is backing his primary challenger, but Sen. Rand Paul, also of Kentucky, is endorsing his fellow incumbent congressman, saying that he can support both men at the same time.
"I support the president, and I support Thomas Massie," Paul said last month in a town hall with Massie, MyNews13 reported.
"I think you'll find a lot of voters who are going to say they support both," Paul said. "I'm not always with the president either. I have some disagreements, but I support the vast majority of his policies."
Trump has picked Massie's challenger, Republican Ed Gallrein, and traveled to Massie's district in Kentucky to campaign against him.
"He is the worst person," Trump said during an event in Hebron. "How did he ever end up in Kentucky? His name is Thomas Massie … We call him 'Rand Paul Jr.' He votes against everything."
But Paul, who also votes against much of the Trump-backed legislation, said this week that he believes Massie is the "most faithful to the Constitution in the House, the most fiscally conservative."
Massie is in his seventh term in Kentucky's fourth congressional district.
Both Massie and Paul opposed Trump's tax and spending legislation, citing concerns about the federal deficit.
They have also cosponsored resolutions aimed at reining in the Trump administration's use of military action without approval from Congress.
Rep. Andy Barr, R-Lexington, is running to replace Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., in the Senate, and has backed Gallrein over Massie, calling him a "team player" who will vote with Republicans to further Trump's agenda.
Paul, meanwhile, has pledged to match up to $5,000 in donations for Massie's campaign.
This week, a fundraising push for Massie brought in more than $350,000 in 24 hours.
The "Massie Money Bomb," hosted live on Facebook, featured guest appearances from Paul and former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who had her own falling out with Trump before leaving office.
During the event, Massie told Greene that he thinks the reports of political bickering between Democrats and Republicans are engineered as a distraction, and suggested he is comfortable with being a party outlier.
"Most of these fights are made to take your eye off the ball," he said. "They try to make you think they're in some kind of big bar fight, and it's red team versus blue team.
"The reality is, the bottles are made out of sugar, and the chairs are made out of balsa wood, and it's not a real fight," he said. "They go to Capitol Hill Grill and have drinks after the fight is over because it wasn't a real fight."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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