After losing a primary challenge to a Donald Trump-backed candidate last week, Republican Rep. Thomas Massie is already preparing for a return to politics in 2028.
The Kentucky congressman has already filed a statement of candidacy with the Federal Elections Commission, which will allow him to continue fundraising for any potential campaigns before the next congressional elections.
“I haven’t made a final decision about which office to seek, if I run,” he said Monday.
In an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, Massie said he wasn’t ruling out “anything” for his political future.
“Look, I’ve spent the last five days on my farm with my grandkids, and my cattle, and my peach trees, and it’s a pretty nice life,” he said. “I don’t know if I want to screw that up again. I’ve been in Congress 14 years, fighting. Every hour that passes, I get decompressed a little bit more.”
Massie’s loss to Trump-backed candidate Ed Gallrein in Kentucky’s GOP primary for the state’s 4th Congressional district followed the most expensive House primary in history, with nearly $35 million spent on ads and other media.
The congressman had characterized the primary race as a “national referendum” on Trump’s influence in his second term and whether the Republican Party can survive without the president.
Massie emerged as one of a handful of Republican lawmakers who defied the president’s agenda, drawing fire from Trump over opposition to his “One Big Beautiful Bill” domestic spending package and the war in Iran while fighting with the administration over the release of the government’s files on Jeffrey Epstein, an issue that blew up into a massive political liability for the president and his allies.
Trump responded to that perceived disloyalty by backing Gallrein, a former Navy SEAL whose campaign was heavily supported by pro-Israel interest groups. After his defeat, Massie joked to supporters at his election night party that he “would’ve come out sooner, but I had to call my opponent and concede,” he said. “And it took a while to find Ed Gallrein in Tel Aviv.”
Massie’s supporters also chanted “president” when he floated a possible return to politics at the end of his current term.
“All right, well, you’ve made a compelling argument, you spoke your peace, but I need a medical margarita right now and we’ll talk about it later,” he said.
He told NBC News on Sunday that he wasn’t necessarily ruling out a campaign for president, either.
“It’s like coming up from the bottom of the ocean, and I’ll take some time and decide what’s next, but I think I will stay engaged in some way or shape,” he said. “Maybe it’s from the outside. I’ve been exposing what’s going on in Washington, D.C., for years, and I’ll keep doing it.”
Massie will likely face off against Gallrein if he returns to the fight for his congressional seat — but he warned that his party and the incoming Congress will be “very vulnerable” in upcoming elections for their loyalty to the president.
“The president was bragging on the Roman architecture, when in fact we’re operating like a Roman Empire,” Massie said Sunday as he criticized Trump’s $1 billion White House ballroom project as “a slap in the face of Americans.”
“We’re overextended overseas with our foreign aid, with our foreign bases. We’re spending money that we don’t have, and the gasoline and rent and groceries are so high that people can’t afford it,” he added. “I do think it’s dangerous to indulge in these things like a gold-plated ballroom in Washington, D.C., while Americans are suffering.”
Massie is among several Republicans who previously had Trump’s endorsement only to see the president toss a grenade into their political futures over their insufficient deference to his agenda.
After backing Massie in his re-election campaign, Republican Rep, Lauren Boebert — who Trump once labeled a “MAGA warrior” — was called “weak minded” and a “carpetbagger” by the president.
“Is anyone interested in running against Weak Minded Lauren Boebert in Colorado’s Fourth Congressional District?” the president fumed on Truth Social. He accused her of campaigning for the “Worst ‘Republican’ Congressman in the History of our Country.”
“I knew the risks when I agreed to stand by my friend Thomas Massie,” the Colorado congresswoman wrote on X in response. “I was, and will be, America First, America Always, and MAGA. Onward,” she added.
