Rep. Thomas Massie wants to make “money bombs” great again.
The Kentucky Republican is borrowing a page from former Rep. Ron Paul’s playbook with a one-day “Save the Republic Moneybomb” fundraising drive Monday — and he’s going to need every dollar he can raise.
Mr. Massie is President Trump’s top target in the GOP primary. Mr. Trump is backing Ed Gallrein, and some of the party’s biggest, pro-Israel donors are also lined up behind the challenger.
Mr. Paul popularized the money bomb concept during his 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns. He raked in millions of dollars in 24-hour bursts from donors energized by his libertarian platform.
The drives became synonymous with the Ron Paul Revolution.
Mr. Paul was also famous for his opposition to nearly every major spending bill, the Iraq War, and the Patriot Act, as well as his criticism of the Federal Reserve.
Mr. Massie has developed a similar reputation in Congress.
Like Mr. Paul, he has been dubbed “Dr. No” and “Mr. No” for his willingness to buck his party and Mr. Trump on fiscal and foreign policy issues.
He has drawn strong backing from Mr. Paul’s son, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky.
“What he represents is an independent voice in the Republican Party, who believes in balanced budgets, low taxes and less foreign war,” the younger Paul says in a video clip included in an online ad for the money bomb.
Mr. Massie pushed for the release of the government files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. He also voted against Mr. Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” over concerns it would add trillions to the national debt and argued that U.S. military strikes on Iran required proper constitutional authorization.
The fundraising push comes weeks after Mr. Trump traveled to Hebron, Kentucky — squarely inside Mr. Massie’s 4th Congressional District — where he sharply criticized the seven-term incumbent.
“He is disloyal to the Republican Party. He’s disloyal to the people of Kentucky. And most importantly, he is disloyal to the United States of America,” Mr. Trump told the crowd at a warehouse rally. “He’s the worst. He only votes no. He just votes no. It doesn’t matter. I could give him the best things in the history of a Republican voter, and he’d vote no. There is something wrong with him.”
Mr. Trump kept up the attacks at the White House this week.
“We have guys like Tom Massie, who is just terrible, he is a terrible person,” Mr. Trump said.
Mr. Massie did not attend the Trump rally. He fired back on social media, accusing the Trump campaign of busing in supporters from outside the district and pointing to prediction markets that put his odds of winning the May 19 primary at 65%.
The latest campaign finance reports show Mr. Massie had raised $2.5 million and had nearly $2.2 million cash on hand at the end of the year, while Mr. Gallrein reported raising $1.2 million and having $933,000 cash on hand.
