President Donald Trump called Rep. Thomas Massie a “grandstander” during his visit to the Capitol Tuesday morning to whip support for his “big, beautiful bill,” after previously calling for other Republicans to wage primary challenges against the Kentucky Republican.
Massie said he’s unbothered — and still a “no” on the legislation House GOP leaders hope to pass later this week.
“I don’t think he wants to talk about cutting spending,” Massie said of the president’s presentation to the House Republican Conference. “He just said, ‘go after waste, fraud and abuse.’ … It means: ‘Quit talking about it, Freedom Caucus.’”
Fiscal hawks like Massie — who is not a formal member of the Freedom Caucus but is aligned with its demands — have been agitating for leadership to make steep cuts to Medicaid to find savings for the party-line tax and spending package central to enacting Trump’s biggest legislative priorities. That effort has run up against resistance among Republicans across the ideological spectrum who worry about the political fallout of making changes to the safety-net program that could result in millions of Americans losing benefits.
“He does not want to cut Medicaid. … I think he genuinely doesn’t want to cut Medicaid,” said Massie. “He probably wouldn’t take off one beneficiary who’s not an illegal alien or felon. … I don’t think he cares about work requirements. If he did, they would be real and they would kick in now.”
Trump, indeed, told House Republicans “don’t fuck around with Medicaid,” according to people who were in the room for the meeting.
The president also told reporters, as he headed into the private confab with members Tuesday morning, “I don’t think Thomas Massie understands government. I think he’s a grand stander,” and reportedly made similar remarks to Massie directly inside the room.
Massie said afterward he was aware that Trump called him out by name, and that “no,” he was not bothered by it — but he said he wasn’t familiar with specific accusations of not understanding politics.
Asked by one reporter how it felt to be “called … a grandstander to your face in there,” Massie replied, “it’s fine … he says my hair is nicer than [Kentucky Republican Sen.] Rand Paul’s.”
But Massie also conceded Trump “probably did a pretty good job in there. Like, if his job was to go in there and convince the Freedom Caucus and the blue-state Republicans, I think he did a good job. And he made a decent effort at convincing me — directly.”
GOP leaders can only afford to lose a tiny handful of votes and still pass the party-line package.
