A Republican lawmaker’s flirtation with MAGA reached its final demise Sunday afternoon after he criticized President Trump’s decision to drop bunker buster bombs on Iran’s nuclear installations, prompting a combative Truth Social post from the president and the announcement of a full-on primary challenge to be coordinated by the president’s chief election gurus.

No love was lost previously between Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky and the president, who said back in March that he wanted to primary the seven-term congressman for voting against a stopgap bill to keep the government from shutting down. Since then, Mr. Massie has also voted against the reconciliation bill promoted by the president and joined Congressman Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California, to introduce legislation limiting the president’s war-fighting authority. 

Appearing Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Mr. Massie suggested that as a MAGA supporter, he and others in the movement who have campaigned against going to war have been ignored by the president.

“I wouldn’t call my side of the MAGA base isolationists,” Mr. Massie said. “We are — we are exhausted. We are tired from all of these wars. And we’re non- interventionists. I mean this is what — this was one of the promises. I mean are you going to call President Trump’s campaign an isolationist campaign? What he promised us was, we would put America first.”

Mr. Trump must have been watching, because not long after the appearance the president — who had no public appearances scheduled Sunday — took to social media to challenge the Bluegrass State lawmaker.

“Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky is not MAGA, even though he likes to say he is,” Mr. Trump said. “Actually, MAGA doesn’t want him, doesn’t know him, and doesn’t respect him. He is a negative force who almost always Votes ‘NO,’ no matter how good something may be. He’s a simple minded ‘grandstander’ who thinks it’s good politics for Iran to have the highest level Nuclear weapon, while at the same time yelling ‘DEATH TO AMERICA’ at every chance they get.” 

“MAGA should drop this pathetic LOSER, Tom Massie, like the plague!” 

Mr. Trump promised that, come next year, he will be out campaigning in Kentucky for Mr. Massie’s primary opponent. 

“MAGA is not about lazy, grandstanding, nonproductive politicians, of which Thomas Massie is definitely one,” he said. 

On Sunday, Axios was first to report that members of the president’s campaign team have now launched Kentucky MAGA, a super PAC organized to upend Mr. Massie in the May 2026 primary.

Run by Trump’s senior political advisers, Tony Fabrizio and Chris LaCivita, they have vowed to do “whatever it takes” to defeat Mr. Massie. On Sunday, Mr. LaCivita posted the scoop, calling it the “FO” in “FAFO,” the acronym for “F— around and Find Out,” a favorite phrase of the online MAGA crowd.

So far, two names have been floated as potential primary challengers to Mr. Massie in the 2026 election: State Senator Aaron Reed and state Representative Kimberly Moser. Neither lawmaker has publicly indicated that they plan to run, however, on Sunday, Mr. Reed congratulated the president for the Iran strike. 

“President Trump’s decisive strike on Iran’s nuclear sites was a masterclass in leadership,” he wrote on X. “This bold move may have stopped WW3 before it started. No other military could’ve pulled this off. God bless our American warriors.”

Mr. Massie, who styles himself a libertarian in the vein of former Congressman Ron Paul and his son, Senator Paul, has trounced primary challengers in his last three elections. He ran unopposed in the 2024 general election. 

He has objected to the president’s agenda on numerous occasions, backed Florida Governor DeSantis in the 2024 Republican primary, and endorsed Mr. Trump just 11 days before the election. 

As a lawmaker, Mr. Massie has repeatedly voted against sanctions on Iran and North Korea and opposed giving authorization to strike the Houthis. He has also opposed multiple bills supporting Israel, including funding for the Iron Dome, strategic partnership legislation, a resolution denouncing anti-Semitism, and a bill to end the boycott, divest, and sanctions movement.

On Sunday, he suggested AIPAC, the Israeli lobby in Congress, had bought support among his colleagues for the president’s bombing campaign.

“If you look at my colleagues’ feeds now, they all look the same. They’re all tweeting the same message, that we’ve got to support Israel and we’ve got to do this,” he said, adding, “I’ll concede this: it was a good week for the neocons in the military industrial complex who want war all the time.”