President Donald Trump lashed out at several conservatives, including his least favorite Republican congressman hours before he visits his home base.
The 79-year-old president will visit Kentucky's 4th District – home to Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) – on Wednesday for a speech at a packaging facility in Hebron before heading about 30 minutes up I-75 for another speech in Reading, Ohio. He launched a volley at the lawmaker before his arrival.
"I predict that 'Representative' Thomas Massie will go down as the WORST Republican Congressman in the long and fabled history of the United States Congress," Trump posted at 7:45 a.m., "even worse than Crazy Liz Chaney, Cryin’ Adam Kinzinger, and Marjorie 'Traitor' Brown (Remember, Green turns to Brown under stress!)."
"They are all misfits and losers, but Massie, who is running against a great American Patriot in the Kentucky Primary, will hopefully lose BIG. I LOVE KENTUCKY!!! President DJT," Trump added.
Trump has clashed frequently with Massie over the years, but the congressman's instrumental role in forcing the Department of Justice to release the Jeffrey Epstein files prompted the president and his MAGA allies to target him for a primary challenge. However, the seven-term lawmaker said he wasn't overly concerned about the intra-GOP feud.
"People support Trump, but they also support what he campaigned on," Massie told NBC News. "When people support me, they're supporting the things that Donald Trump campaigned on actually getting done, and when they support Donald Trump, they're supporting the man they voted for in the last election."
The president spent months searching for a GOP challenger after Massie voted against the “big, beautiful bill" last summer, and Trump preemptively endorsed former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein before he officially entered the race in October, as the congressman was working to gather signatures for a discharge petition to force a vote on the Epstein files.
"My opponent is running a Joe Biden-type campaign from the basement," Massie told NBC News. "[He] refuses to debate, won't show up at public forums, and I think the president's coming to try and resuscitate and prop up his campaign."
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt denied the president's Cincinnati-area stops had anything to do with the Kentucky GOP primary, which will be held May 19.
"Why not?" Leavitt said. "The president will be joined by lawmakers from both states who he greatly admires and respects and supports. And he’ll be meeting with business owners in both of these places and talking about the economy, which is, of course, the utmost importance to him.”