Congress

‘He got tired of me winning’: How Thomas Massie outmaneuvered Trump on Epstein

Published

7 months ago

November 17, 2025

President Donald Trump’s call for House Republicans to support releasing Jeffrey Epstein-related documents was a stunning capitulation after a months-long campaign to block the vote.

It was also a specific defeat for Trump at the hands of a despised GOP opponent: Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky.

“He got tired of me winning,” Massie said of Trump’s U-turn in an interview Monday morning.

Insisting “I DON’T CARE!” in a late-night Truth Social post, Trump was bowing to the inevitable — a broad House Republican mutiny on a vote that was only scheduled because Massie forced it. It was the result of Massie and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) launching a discharge petition aimed at sidestepping senior GOP leaders who desperately wanted to avoid bringing the issue to the House floor.

The campaign to avoid the vote got remarkably ugly in the days before Trump finally conceded, with the president personally attacking Massie for recently remarrying after the sudden death last summer of his wife of more than 30 years. Just hours before Trump’s reversal, one of his top political advisers called him “garbage” in an X post.

That adviser, Chris LaCivita, is carrying out a Trump-ordered effort to unseat Massie from the rural northern Kentucky seat he has held since 2012. Trump recently endorsed a challenger, former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein, in the GOP primary.

Massie has not flinched from the threats. Politically, he has seen the best fundraising of his congressional career, entering October with more than $2 million in his campaign coffers. As for the personal attacks, Massie said Monday he and his wife were laughing them off.

“She said, ‘I told you we should have invited him to the wedding!’” Massie said.

Massie’s efforts around Epstein have been no laughing matter for the White House, with top aides and legislative affairs staff furiously scrambling late last week to head off the completion of the discharge petition.

That included pulling Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) into the White House Situation Room in the final hours to try to persuade her to remove her name from the petition she had signed alongside GOP Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Nancy Mace of South Carolina, a survivor of sexual assault. All three have cast their support for the petition as an effort to protect women.

The effort failed. The three female House Republicans held firm, and the petition notched its final and 218th signature Wednesday moments after Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) was sworn in following her September special election win.Despite a final barrage of attacks from the president over the weekend — which included Trump calling his once-close ally Greene a “traitor” and threatening a GOP primary against her — backers of the Massie-Khanna discharge effort knew they had the president beat.

There were emerging signs that it was Massie, not Trump, who had his fingers closer to the pulse of the MAGA base.

Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas), a top Trump ally in the House, posted online he would be “voting NO on the Epstein Hoax” as he sought to rally Republicans to “stand by” the president’s side. Nehls received an immediate barrage of online pushback, suggesting a position against full transparency on Epstein would not be sustainable.

Massie, in conjunction with the three GOP women who signed the discharge petition, have sought to put Epstein’s victims front and center amid the battle. They invited several to Capitol Hill in September to keep the fight in the public eye as members returned from the summer recess. They are tentatively scheduled to appear together again Tuesday ahead of the final House vote.

“This shouldn’t have been a battle, and unfortunately, it has been one,” Greene said as she left a meeting with Epstein victims in September.

Yet for months, senior White House officials labored to convince rank-and-file Republicans to keep their names off Massie’s discharge effort. That, according to five people granted anonymity to discuss private conversations, included warnings that any effort to support an Epstein vote would be viewed as a direct and personal move against the president.

Trump has denied wrongdoing in relation to the Epstein allegations, and no evidence has suggested that Trump took part in Epstein’s trafficking operation. The president also has maintained that he and Epstein had a falling out years ago.

In an effort to undercut Massie’s effort, GOP leaders and the Justice Department worked to release 30,000 pages of DOJ documents in early September, right after Massie could begin gathering signatures on his petition. But lawmakers quickly realized most of the materials had been previously released.

Around that time, the White House’s key legislative affairs liaison to the House, Jeff Freeland, was on Blue Light News, seeking to head off Massie right after lawmakers returned from recess.

“Jeff introduced himself to me outside of the Capitol, and he said I was moving too fast for him,” Massie said in the interview. “I told him I made a mistake by getting 12 sponsors [on the Epstein bill], because I had given him his whip list to block the most likely signers” of the discharge petition.

Over the past week, it became clear to House GOP leaders that they would no longer be able to keep the Epstein measure off the House floor. Shortly after Grijalva signed, Speaker Mike Johnson announced he would expedite the vote, holding it this week rather than next month as required under the discharge petition. Still, with Trump opposing the effort, he maintained Massie’s legislation was reckless and “moot” now that the House Oversight Committee was heading up its own probe.

Last week, Johnson tried calling one of the three GOP women who had signed on to Massie’s discharge petition. The member looked down at her phone and let the call go to voicemail, according to two people granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter who declined to identify the specific lawmaker.

Trump’s Sunday night edict was directed only at House Republicans, according to Trump officials. The president could order the release of the entire Epstein document trove at any time, vote or no vote. So far, he’s declined to do so.

Senate GOP leaders have not committed to holding a vote on the Epstein bill if the House passes it as expected this week. While Republicans still widely assume the measure will die in the other chamber, it will be hard to argue to GOP senators that they should take the political heat while their House counterparts get to take a consequence-free vote.

Massie has been working with Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), who authored a Senate version of the bill, to bring the matter to a head across the Rotunda. Senate Democrats are already exploring options to force a vote in the coming weeks.

Massie said last week that the Epstein drama reflects how Republicans are starting to take stock of a post-Trump political world.

“They need to look past 2028 and wonder if they want this on their record for the rest of their political career,” he said.

“Right now, it’s OK to cover up for pedophiles, because the president will take up for you if you’re in the red districts — that’s the deal,” Massie told reporters last week. “But that deal only works as long as he’s popular or president. … If they’re thinking about the right thing to do, that’s pretty obvious: You vote for it.”

Congress

Capitol agenda: SAVE America swallows Washington

Published

3 hours ago

June 30, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Speaker Mike Johnson’s day will be consumed by the SAVE America Act — again.

President Donald Trump’s signature election security bill is on track to derail his chamber’s agenda for the rest of the week as a small group of hard-liners demand House GOP leaders somehow find a way to force the Senate to pass the measure.

Johnson Monday night tried to appease the group by leveraging an unusual procedural maneuver that would send the elections measure and the annual Pentagon policy bill to the Senate in a single package.

But Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, who has led the bloc halting House business, dismissed Johnson’s move, arguing it’d allow the Senate to easily strip out the SAVE America Act.

It “will not work,” Luna said Monday night after demanding “a full bakeage” into the must-pass defense bill earlier in the day.

To be clear: Her own proposal to simply add SAVE America as an amendment could be removed just as easily in the Senate as with Johnson’s plan.

But with the speaker needing a unified conference to unlock floor business for the rest of the week — he may be forced to deal with Luna and allied hard-liners regardless of legislative logic.

Meanwhile, a Supreme Court decision Monday only sharpened Trump and his allies’ fixation on the legislation, as the court ruled states may accept mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day so long as they are postmarked by that day.

“In light of the tremendous loss in the Supreme Court today concerning Voter’s Rights, and the fact that ‘people’s’ votes are allowed to be counted LONG AFTER an Election is over, it is more important than ever to pass THE SAVE AMERICA ACT,” Trump said on Truth Social, reinvigorating hard-liners’ crusade despite his calls last week for them to stop threatening “No’s” on rule votes.

The court’s ruling spotlights another complication for Johnson: The version of the elections bill he is proposing to attach to the Pentagon legislation doesn’t include the latest demands from Trump — including a near-total ban on mail voting that is opposed by many Republicans.

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, for example, was noncommittal Monday when asked about supporting Trump’s full demands for the bill.

“The voter ID part I’m fine with,” he said in an interview. “I’ve already voted for that.”

Even if the House somehow overcomes a tight rule vote and subsequently passes the merged bills, Senate Majority Leader John Thune has said the combo could not pass his chamber.

Senators are set to debate their own version of the defense bill next month, and it is all but certain the election overhaul would be removed in negotiations between the two chambers.

What else we’re watching:

— JOHNSON HUDDLES WITH TRUMP ON HOUSING BILL: Johnson said a landmark housing affordability package Congress cleared last week will become law, and that Republicans won’t have to take an uncomfortable vote to override a presidential veto to make that happen. Johnson in an interview Monday said he’d speak again with Trump Tuesday about signing the bipartisan housing bill. The president tanked plans last week to swiftly sign into law one of Republican lawmakers’ top priorities before the midterms, saying he’d hold the measure hostage until Congress passed his election security bill.

— RELATIONSHIP FRAYS BETWEEN SENATE’S TOP APPROPRIATORS: It’s getting harder and harder for the top Republican and Democrat overseeing government funding in the Senate to keep up the collegial working relationship they’ve long prided themselves on. Sens. Susan Collins and Patty Murray have been increasingly at odds as the midterms approach and spending priorities diverge. It comes after their successful collaboration on bipartisan legislation during Murray’s two-year reign as chair of Senate Appropriations, which continued when Collins took the gavel last year.

Meredith Lee Hill, Kelsey Brugger, Jennifer Scholtes and Jordain Carney contributed to this report.

Congress

The messy standoff driving a wedge between a bipartisan Senate duo

Published

6 hours ago

June 30, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sens. Susan Collins and Patty Murray have long prided themselves on working together to advance government funding bills. That collegiality is now showing signs of decay.

The Maine Republican and Washington Democrat have been openly feuding about the path forward on spending measures this summer. It comes after their successful collaboration on bipartisan legislation during Murray’s two-year reign as chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, which continued when Collins took the gavel last year.

Democrats attribute the clash to Collins’ pursuit of President Donald Trump’s demands for a record military budget that eclipses domestic spending, as she fights to retain her Senate seat in November. Republicans say Murray is playing midterm politics by trying to prevent Collins from landing a deal before Election Day, when Democrats hope to regain House and Senate majorities — and the upper hand in year-end funding talks.

“It’s not personal, but it is very frustrating,” Collins said last week, while insisting she and Murray are still on good terms.

All Murray would say about the state of their relationship was, “We’re talking.”

While that impasse doesn’t necessarily heighten the odds of a government shutdown this fall, it could delay any meaningful Senate appropriations action until after the elections. The outcome of congressional races — including Collins’ toss-up contest against Democrat Graham Platner — could change the power balance in government funding negotiations.

“It certainly looks to me like the Democrats don’t want to give Susan Collins a victory,” House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said in an interview. “I really think it’s intensely political. She is a very reasonable legislator. If you can’t make a deal with Susan Collins, you don’t want to make a deal.”

Part of Collins’ campaign-trail pitch to Mainers is that she gets results in Washington, and her inability to advance the dozen annual appropriations bills through her committee undercuts that narrative.

Collins isn’t refuting the idea that Democrats might want to deprive her of legislative success as she competes against Platner in one of the closest and most-watched races in the country.

“That’s certainly a viable theory, which is pretty pathetic,” she said in an interview.

This month Collins publicly accused Murray of sending government funding offers that have “made it clear that Democrats are abandoning the appropriations process.” Murray, meanwhile, suggested Collins was at fault for the stalemate by divulging she hadn’t responded to Murray’s latest offer in more than two weeks.

It’s a major tone shift for the two lawmakers, who have earned a reputation for trying to stay out of the partisan fray since they became their party’s top leaders on the Appropriations Committee in 2023. They’ve consistently resisted broadcasting behind-the-scenes friction during tough negotiations and succeeded in reaching cross-party compromises to advance funding bills each year — even after the record government shutdown last fall.

But they’re now at loggerheads over funding totals for the military and domestic programs, along with votes on hot-button Trump policies. Senate Republicans are seeking a military funding boost more than four times larger than any increase in domestic spending, as Trump calls for a record $1.5 trillion defense budget.

“We do not have an agreement,” Murray said, because Republicans “are set on increasing defense in an increasingly huge way that we’ve never had to deal with before.”

GOP senators also want to avoid any amendment votes that could sink approval of appropriations bills, including some related to the Justice Department’s “Anti-Weaponization Fund” administration officials have promised not to pursue.

The result is that Collins has yet to hold a committee markup on a single government funding bill with just three months left before federal dollars expire. And some Republican appropriators acknowledge it’s possible the panel won’t vote on any of the spending measures this year given the deadlock.

“Obviously Susan is up this year. And Democrats, at every level and every opportunity, are playing politics with it,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said in an interview. “The appropriations process used to be fairly bipartisan. … Murray and the Democrats have turned it into a partisan game.”

Some Democrats openly sympathize with Collins’ predicament in trying to represent politically moderate Maine while holding one of the most influential positions on Capitol Hill during Trump’s second term and unified Republican control of Congress.

“The chair of the committee is being squeezed in every direction,” Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a senior Democratic appropriator, said in an interview.

Many Senate Republicans don’t “give a damn” about funding domestic efforts like public education and biomedical research, Baldwin continued. “I believe that the chairwoman does care about those issues. But you know, she’s in an unenviable position.”

Since Trump was reelected, Collins has worked to negotiate funding bills that spend far more on domestic programs than the president sought. The result has been essentially flat funding for nondefense programs and a 17 percent increase in military spending, which includes the billions of dollars Republicans enacted along party lines last year.

“Chair Collins is very devoted to, or interested in, following through to help the president get more money for the Department of War and munitions, et cetera,” said West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, a top Republican appropriator. “And I think Senator Murray is on the opposite page.”

“Rather than legislate and work these things out,” Capito added, “I think it’s been decided on the other side to just be obstinate and not participate and not negotiate.”

Trump is calling this year for boosting Pentagon spending by more than 40 percent while slashing domestic programs by 10 percent. Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, a senior Democratic appropriator who has served in Congress for more than 40 years, calls it “a massive change” in the way government funding has been divvied up for decades — by negotiating matching dollar-for-dollar increases in both military and nondefense funding.

“We’re so far apart. We haven’t faced anything like that in recent memory,” Durbin said in an interview. “And to accept the premise of it — what’s left for nondefense is terrible.”

Collins could proceed with markups this summer without an agreement with Democrats, as the House Republican majority has done for years. But Republican senators would need to be willing to vote on controversial amendments Democrats might offer — including proposals that defy Trump.

Senate Republican appropriators faced that issue last summer, when the panel unexpectedly adopted an amendment barring the Trump administration from repurposing cash intended for relocating the FBI headquarters. That outcome prompted several GOP senators to withdraw support for the funding bill.

“The challenge is that, if you have every Democrat voting against reporting the bill out — and then they also are offering poison pills — it’s hard to move those bills,” Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), chair of the Appropriations subcommittee that funds the FBI, said in an interview.

During the two years Murray chaired the full committee, Moran recalled, “We had members who wanted to offer what would probably be considered poison pills by Democrats. And Senator Collins talked Republicans out of doing so, to move the process.”

The two sides could easily reach an agreement on amendments and policy stipulations, some Democrats contend, if only Collins and Murray could bridge the divide between the president’s military funding demands and their own domestic priorities.

“Senator Collins is carrying out the administration’s wishes,” Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley, another senior Democratic appropriator, said in an interview. “And Senator Murray is noting that a reckless increase in defense spending is not in the best interest of Americans.”

“So they’re both advocating for their viewpoint,” Merkley added. “That’s what we do in a democracy.”

Katherine Tully-McManus contributed to this report.

Congress

Johnson-backed plan to combine Pentagon and election bills advances to floor

Published

13 hours ago

June 30, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The House Rules Committee advanced a procedural measure aimed at breaking an intra-Republican deadlock Monday night. But GOP leaders are still facing a major battle Tuesday to regain control of the House floor.

The panel approved on party lines a measure to set up Republicans’ $1.1 trillion defense policy bill, a government funding bill and other GOP bills for floor debate. It would then combine the Pentagon bill, once passed, with the contentious elections overhaul known as the SAVE America Act and send it to the Senate as one piece of legislation.

That maneuver, telegraphed by Speaker Mike Johnson earlier Monday, is aimed at appeasing House GOP hard-liners who have blockaded the floor, demanding the Senate pass the elections bill that has languished there for months.

However, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, the Republican leading the blockade, said in an interview Monday before the Rules Committee acted that Johnson’s plan is not sufficient — raising the possibility she and allies could vote down the measure on the floor. Other House GOP hard-liners say there are other outstanding issues to battle over Tuesday.

Rep. James McGovern of Massachusetts, the top Rules Democrat, called the merger move “a big waste of time.” The panel voted down a motion by McGovern to remove the provision to combine the two bills in a party-line vote.

The Senate is set to debate its own version of the defense bill next month, and it is likely that the elections overhaul will be removed in negotiations between the two chambers — as McGovern acknowledged Monday and House GOP leaders privately concede.

“The Senate will just strip the SAVE Act out,” he said at the meeting. “There is a zero percent chance SAVE ends up in the [Pentagon bill] because of this rule today.”

The defense bill faces a tight vote if Republicans can pass the procedural measure. Most Democrats are expected to oppose the measure over its massive price tag, which they contend is wasteful.

The panel is set up debate on 312 amendments to the bill. The slate includes GOP measures to codify a Trump executive order to block transgender people from serving in the military, prohibit coverage of gender-affirming care, block aid to arm Ukraine and strip Democratic-backed protections for collective bargaining for Pentagon civilian workers.

The committee also voted down Democratic proposals to slash $150 billion from the bill’s topline and limit the war against Iran.

Mia McCarthy contributed to this report.