GOP maverick triggers alarm as surprise Iowa visit signals party ripping apart
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who was defeated by a Trump-backed primary challenger earlier this year, made a visit on Sunday to Iowa — a traditional destination for candidates exploring a presidential run.
Massie, who broke with Donald Trump in opposing the Iran war and defied the administration through his sponsorship of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, has emerged as a leading figure, alongside former congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and conservative commentator Tucker Carlson, of a new anti-interventionist, populist faction challenging the GOP.
Addressing Gun Owners of America’s annual gathering in Des Moines, Massie thanked the organizers “for having this event in Iowa,” adding, “There’s no place I’d rather be — maybe New Hampshire or South Carolina. Just kidding.”
The remark was met with only tentative applause as Massie laughed at his reference to other early-primary states, hastily adding, “Some people got my joke.”
While Massie’s presidential tease received a muted reaction in Iowa, it’s not the only indication that he’s laying the groundwork for a potential presidential run.
A photo posted by Greene on X on Aug. 1 — and re-posted by Massie — shows the two seated around a table with Carlson and Joe Kent, former director of the National Counterterrorism Center, at Carlson’s cabin-studio in Maine. Greene’s post accused Trump of betraying MAGA by pursuing foreign wars, while concluding, “The movement has begun.”
After he and Greene both announced they were breaking with the Republican Party, Carlson told the Columbia Journalism Review last month that he’s committed “to help build a third party,” while stipulating that he doesn’t intend to be a candidate.
Massie could not be reached for this story, but Kent described discussions among the group at Carlson’s cabin during an appearance on “Piers Morgan Uncensored” on Monday as “the initial phases” of a movement to give voice to a growing bloc of voters across the political spectrum who are “sick and tired” of both political parties and “want us out of these foolish wars.”
Kent, who resigned from the Trump administration over his opposition to the Iran war, said during a podcast interview last month that Republican candidates face bleak prospects in the November midterm elections — in part, he said, because many Trump voters feel betrayed by the war.
“There are a lot of people who I think really kind of, you know, crawled through broken glass for President Trump who are pretty frustrated right now,” Massie told Brandon Straka, an election denier who volunteered for the Stop the Steal campaign to overturn the 2020 election and was convicted of misdemeanor disorderly conduct at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. “I think November’s going to be rough, just to be honest.
“I think a lot of people who were really inspired to vote for President Trump in 2024, they were already low-propensity voters who probably don’t participate in primaries, they don’t participate in midterms,” Kent continued. “To get them to come out now, because Trump endorsed somebody or they have an R next to their name, I just think that’s going to be a very, very hard sell.”
Looking forward to 2028, Kent predicted that the political fight within the right will “be MAGA versus America First,” with someone like Secretary of State Marco Rubio representing the new MAGA “establishment.”
But even outsider candidates who tell voters they are “America first, but I mean it this time,” will face a credibility challenge, Kent said.
“One of my big concerns is that we had so many low-propensity voters, people who had never voted before, younger people who came out and voted for President Trump and then they feel like they’ve been betrayed,” he said. “And they have good reason to feel that way. Now, they’re going to say, ‘I don’t care. I don’t even want to hear it.’”