Hand-picked Trump candidate no-shows TV debate — and won't explain why

President Donald Trump at the Kaseya Center in Miami, Florida on April 12, 2025 (Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok/Flickr)

LEXINGTON — Republican U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie — who has become a target of President Donald Trump this election cycle — took to KET’s debate stage alone Monday night to pitch himself to voters ahead of the state’s primary two weeks away.

Massie, who represents Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District, was interviewed on air by KET’s Renee Shaw for nearly half an hour. Afterwards, he spent another half-hour taking questions from reporters in the studio’s lobby.

Trump’s endorsed candidate, Shelbyville Republican Ed Gallrein, did not accept an invite to debate Massie on the state TV network. His campaign did not respond to a Kentucky Lantern inquiry asking why.

With Trump’s political tirade against Massie, the primary in the district has become a referendum on whether the president’s endorsement will be enough to defeat a popular Congressman who has defied him.

“I don’t think you’re well served by a rubber stamp,” Massie said on KET in his closing remarks. “The problem with congressmen that I serve with in Washington, D.C., is they make promises while they’re campaigning, and then they go up there to go along, to get along. The guy I’m running against promises to go along, to get along. Nobody is well served that way. The founders never intended for the legislative branch to be a rubber stamp.”

Massie also reiterated throughout the night that he largely does agree with Republicans and Trump, but said “in the few times that I do disagree with Trump, I’m voting for the voters of Kentucky, for the constituents here,and for our future and to put America first.”

Some issues that Massie has drawn the president’s ire for include leading the charge to release the federal investigation files into the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffery Epstein. Another was Massie’s vote against the GOP megabill, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, saying it would increase federal deficits and the national debt.

Trump has hurled online insults against Massie over the past year, like calling him a “Third Rate Congressman” and even taking a jab at Massie’s wife, Carolyn Grace Moffa. During a March Northern Kentucky rally to support Gallrein, Trump said Massie was “disloyal” to Republicans, Kentucky and the country, before declaring that “somebody with a warm body” could beat the seven-term incumbent.

On KET, Massie said he doesn’t take the put-downs personally.

“I know why I’m getting attacked — it’s to keep the other congressman in line. He’s under no illusion that I’ll abandon my principles if he calls me a bad sounding name,” Massie added before saying Trump has called him a “sharp cookie” when they’ve talked on the phone before.

Afterwards, Massie told reporters he last spoke to Trump over the phone in July “when I tried to negotiate some kind of truce, and it didn’t work,” but said it was a genial conversation.

Asked on KET about how he could be effective in Washington if he wins reelection and has to work with the president and his allies, Massie pointed to a policy that he’s advocated for, the PRIME Act, being included in this year’s Farm Bill. The PRIME Act, or Processing Revival and Intrastate Meat Exemption Act, would allow states to facilitate farmers selling meat directly to consumers. Massie said he’s worked on the policy for 11 years, and through that, “eventually, the president will sign that bill, and that will become law, something that will help Kentucky.”

Another policy Massie spoke about was a package proposing federal gun laws, including a federal standard for permitless carry, as well as a previous bill that would repeal gun-free school zones.

On the permitless carry standard, Massie said the U.S. Constitution already sets the standard with the Second Amendment, but some states “don’t acknowledge your uninfringed right to bear arms.”

Debate attendance

Keeping score of who has and hasn’t attended a debate has become a point of contention in the 4th Congressional Republican primary. Massie has frequently berated Gallrein for not attending debates on X, and tweeted a photo of himself shaking hands with an empty chair in an April forum. Gallrein criticized Massie for not attending the Kenton County Republican Party’s Lincoln Day Dinner last week and sending state Sen. Gex Williams as a surrogate, who said he was in Washington.

Republicans have declined other invites to recent KET debates. Ralph Alvarado, a 6th Congressional District candidate who is a former commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Health and a former Kentucky state senator, declined last week due to a scheduling conflict, but was “grateful to Renee Shaw and the entire KET team for the invitation and for consistently providing fair, balanced, and professional coverage to both Republicans and Democrats,” his campaign said.

For the U.S. Senate debate, U.S. Rep. Andy Barr and Lexington businessman Nate Morris declined an invite, leaving former Attorney General Daniel Cameron a half hour to make his pitch to voters. Barr’s campaign questioned why Republicans would “appear on PBS, a left-wing outlet that Andy Barr and President Trump defunded?”

Trump endorsed Barr and Alvarado in their primaries on Friday. Morris dropped out of the Senate race after the president announced he would give him an unspecified ambassador role.

Kentucky’s primary elections will be held on Tuesday, May 19.

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