Outgoing Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) mocked President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom in his concession speech, saying it resembled one from the Roman Empire.
Massie’s defeat in the Kentucky primary on Tuesday served as another testament to Trump’s unparalleled power over the Republican Party, almost single-handedly sinking the formerly popular representative who publicly went against him. In his speech admitting defeat, Massie tore into Trump from several different angles, including a suggestion that his rival, Ed Gallrein, was controlled by Israel.
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“I would have come out sooner, but I had to call my opponent and concede, and it took a while to find Ed Gallrein in Tel Aviv,” he said, eliciting laughs from the crowd.
Among his more notable criticisms was one targeting Trump’s ballroom, using rhetoric usually heard from across the aisle.
“I got to watch Fox also for the first time in 18 months, and there was the president talking about, by the way, while gas is almost $5 and diesel’s almost $6, they’re talking about this big ballroom they’re going to build, and … it looks like the Roman Empire, architecture from the Roman Empire. I see a few analogies there,” Massie said.
“We were promised that Miriam Adelson would pay for that ballroom, but … she spent so much money in this race, they’re going to have to reduce the footprint of that thing,” he joked.
Massie sought to see the silver lining in his loss, even claiming that his campaign had delayed the resumption of the war in Iran.
“There’s one thing I saw on Fox, they were saying, ‘Oh my goodness … we’re ready for war … we’re about to restart this war. We were supposed to restart this war today, but we can’t restart this war today. The war can’t start today.’ They said, ‘We got to wait a day,'” Massie said. “And then … it occurred to me — where was the Secretary of War yesterday? He was here!”
“When they saw the influencers here, they panicked. They sent the Secretary of War here, and you stopped the war for a day!” Massie added, referring to War Secretary Pete Hegseth’s trip to Kentucky to stump for Gallrein.
Throughout the speech, chants of “No more wars,” “End the fed,” and other slogans broke out, some of which Massie joined. At one point, there were several shouts of “F*** Israel!”
TRUMP-BACKED ED GALLREIN DEFEATS THOMAS MASSIE IN KENTUCKY
Massie’s primary served as perhaps the biggest test of Trump’s endorsement record within the party, given the independent streak of Massie’s district and close polling to the very end.
Massie earned the support of many online right-wing figures who had drawn attention for publicly crossing Trump on issues such as the war with Iran, but the Kentucky Republican’s loss showed that influence is limited.
