MAGA and Israel-aligned lobbying group target Thomas Massie

President Trump and Congressman Thomas Massie are in a somewhat peculiar standoff. The President takes issue with Massie’s opposition to bombing Iran and to the Big, Beautiful Bill. In an over 300-word Truth Social tirade, Sunday, Trump called Massie a “pathetic LOSER,” “lazy,” “grandstanding,” “weak” and “ineffective.” Massie has remained relatively calm. On Monday, he posted a screenshot of Trump’s Truth Social jabs alongside a video of one of the national debt trackers he designed. “I’m going to program my debt badge to display the number of milliseconds that have elapsed since @realDonaldTrump has tweeted at me last,” he wrote.

But it’s not just Trump who is targeting Massie’s seat. According to reports this week, AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, is also trying to primary the Kentucky Representative. “I’m aware that foreign lobbyists have conducted a push poll and are trying to recruit another candidate to run against me, due to my opposition to foreign aid and forever wars,” Massie told the Daily Caller Thursday. “Their previous efforts have failed completely, and I expect this race to be no different,” he said.

A GOP political operative told Politico a super PAC called Kentucky MAGA was going to spend $30 million to defeat Massie in the 2026 primary. But Massie is anti-war and anti-debt – and his followers and constituents appear to be the exact same way. In a poll he posted on X last week, Massie asked which war their tax dollars should be spent on, listing Ukraine versus Russia, Israel versus Iran, both and neither. From over 100,000 votes, 90 percent said money should go to neither.

“The political calculus that both the president and AIPAC have to consider is, if they go after me and lose, they’ve lost a lot of credibility – both of them,” Massie told the Daily Caller’s Amber Duke. “AIPAC is motivated to attack me, largely in the same way the president is motivated to attack me, which is to say they don’t want any outliers, and the attacks and the threats of attacks are meant to keep my colleagues in line, not to change my positions.”

Unless AIPAC and Kentucky MAGA can show Kentucky’s 4th district pro-war, debt-oblivious TV ads with hypnotic power, Massie may well keep his seat.

The return of Pastor Mark ‘minisoldr’ Robinson

Cockburn is in a prayerful mood, seated at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority Conference at the Hinckley Hilton. In the opening session yesterday, the gathered faithful chanted “U-S-A” to cheer God on for his protection of the pilots who bombed the Fordow nuclear facility. The notoriously pious Congresswoman Nancy Mace interpreted that event, as well as the failed assassination attempt on Trump and the turning tide on transgender ideology, as signs of America’s monopoly on divine protection. 

But for your correspondent, another Carolinian is the main draw. Pastor Mark Robinson, a paragon of Christian virtue, will take the stage this afternoon. Robinson dropped out of the 2024 North Carolina gubernatorial race when CNN uncovered a plethora of obscene comments that he had posted on Nude Africa, a forum for discussing sexually explicit material. Under the alias “minisoldr,” the Republican lieutenant governor declared himself a “black Nazi,” expressed his penchant for transgender pornography and described explicit acts he had supposedly participated in with his wife’s sister.

Yet apparently Robinson is welcomed back as an exemplar of faith (in Donald Trump, at least) and freedom. Aren’t evangelicals a forgiving bunch?

On our radar

JUDGE NOT In a 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court limited judges’ power to issue nationwide injunctions pausing President Trump’s executive orders, leaving the fate of the President’s birthright citizenship EO uncertain.

BLUE ORIGIN In another 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court upheld a Texas law requiring consumer age verification to gain access to websites containing sexually explicit content. It is not clear how the law applies to X.

GAV SOME OF THAT Governor Gavin Newsom of California has filed suit against Fox News for defamation. He wants $787 million in damages and is saying the network’s Jesse Watters lied about Newsom’s phone calls with President Trump during the LA riots.

But Grandma likes being in Congress!

Washington, DC’s Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton turned 88 this month – and she wants nothing else but to continue her work on the Hill. Holmes Norton has told reporters she doesn’t know why people keep questioning whether she is planning on running for re-election. On Wednesday she told an NBC reporter, “Yeah, I’m gonna run for re-election.” Yet Holmes Norton’s staffers keep cutting in to say she’s got to talk the decision over with her family. “No decision has been made,” her spokesperson told Axios later that day. Cockburn can’t help but wonder who’s really in charge of her office.

In the House, Holmes joins 11 other octogenarians who are steadfastly refusing to retire: Hal Rogers, 87; Maxine Waters, 86; Steny Hoyer, 86; Nancy Pelosi, 85; Jim Clyburn, 84; Danny Davis, 83; John Carter, 83; Frederica Wilson, 82; Rosa DeLauro, 82; Virginia Foxx, 81; and Anna Eshoo, 82.