Thomas Massie’s Revenge

The Kentucky congressman opposed the very policies that doomed Republicans in the midterms.

Jack Hunter

Nov 7, 2026

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/thomas-massies-revenge/

The reason we lost is the war,” Vice President J.D. Vance admitted Wednesday on X, explaining the Republicans’ disastrous midterm election loss the day before. He listed the top four things the GOP could do, according to a pollster with whom he spoke, to win back voters who had defected to the Democrats. These were:

1) End the war

2) Focus on cost of living/inflation

3) Put America First

4) Change our relationship to Israel

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) replied to Vance’s post, “Thanks for acknowledging these things. Better late than never.” Massie included an image of a red, MAGA-style hat. Instead of “Make America Great Again,” it said “Massie Was Right About Everything.”

“I’ll send you the hat,” he added.

Massie had a point.

“Donald Trump will put Americans first by securing our liberties at home and preventing needless wars abroad,” declared Massie in his endorsement of President Donald Trump in October 2024.

At the time, Massie’s praise for Trump expressed the most basic hope of many in the original MAGA movement, and certainly of its ideological core.

After his inauguration, Trump’s early promises of radical DOGE spending cuts and a break from interventionist foreign policy withered more quickly and completely than even his political adversaries had expected, and by March 2026, the administration had launched a war with Iran that seemed to serve Israel’s interests, first. That war cost Americans at home, at the gas pump and beyond. So did massive federal spending. So did the other wars.

Massie resisted all of this. He has remained a fiscal hawk throughout the entire Trump era, which has enraged Trump in both terms. And he has been a stalwart “America First” Republican, one who is not afraid to challenge Israeli influence and question policy (which also irked the president). Massie understood that financial and foreign policy restraint were related, something many Americans are now experiencing firsthand.

The Kentucky congressman never abandoned the old MAGA message from his original Trump endorsement. He refused. For that reason, Trump teamed with pro-Israel billionaires to defeat Massie in his primary this May—the most expensive House primary in U.S. history.

This week Republicans suffered one of the most humiliating defeats in modern American political history. And it was a loss that differed in important respects from prior reversals. “Past midterm blue waves largely involved angry Democrats and independents beating up on jittery swing-seat Republicans who weren't totally comfortable with what their president was doing, with a few genuine upsets sprinkled in,” observed Jim Antle of the Washington Examiner. “This one hit the GOP’s center of gravity.”

Indeed.

Massie tried to warn his party. After the off-year 2025 elections in which Democrats did exceptionally well, he told Republicans what they might need to do to survive the 2026 midterms. “To avoid a repeat of last night’s shellacking in the 2026 midterms,” Massie urged, “Republicans should: quit covering for pedophiles; put America before Israel; put farmers before corporations; quit funding wars abroad; reduce spending to control inflation; quit attacking independent voices.”

Take out Massie’s efforts for more transparency on the Epstein Files, also a part of original MAGA, and this sounds like Vance’s midterm postmortem list. In fact, in this election a number of Democrats ran with the “America First” message sounding more like Trump from two years ago than the president today—and sounding more like Massie on any day than the current Lindsey Graham–ified MAGA.

Resharing his November 2025 warning post, Massie wrote on Wednesday, “Instead of correcting course, the GOP chose to shoot the messenger and double down on stupid.”

Trump’s Republican party did shoot Massie the messenger, and it definitely doubled (tripled? quadrupled?) down on stupid.

But now, who looks stupid?

In the broadest sense, the America First message still remains viable and has been largely untried.

That isn’t due to Thomas Massie’s lack of trying. But judging by the midterm results, the voters believe it’s due to Trump’s.

The American people have spoken, and across the political spectrum they don’t like Israel

“Everyone knows why we lost,” J.D. Vance said after the Republican wipeout in the midterm elections, and among the reasons he cited was Israel. For decades, the Israel lobby worked to keep Zionism’s bigotry off voters’ radar. Those days are over.

By Philip Weiss November 6, 2026

https://mondoweiss.net/2026/11/the-american-people-have-spoken-and-across-the-political-spectrum-they-dont-like-israel/

“Everyone knows why we lost,” J.D. Vance said yesterday. “The reason we lost was the war.” The post distancing the Vice President from Trump is the most quoted postmortem of the election. But as usual the media have not told the whole story.

Vance also blamed Israel for the Republican debacle. He said that former Trump voters switched sides on Tuesday for four reasons, according to a smart pollster he knows. One was “Change our relationship to Israel.”

Vance’s post echoes the charge by Trump’s former counterterrorism chief, Joe Kent, who resigned after Trump and Israel launched the illegal and murderous war against Iran in February. Kent was appalled that Israeli officials who were promoting all the supposed benefits of a war had greater access to Trump than American officials. Prime Minister Netanyahu was in the White House situation room weeks before the war was launched, making a “hard sell” for regime change, The New York Times reported, and as Hillary Clinton later said, Netanyahu pushed the same war throughout the Obama administration. He finally found someone stupid enough to do it.

Trump got “pulled into” the war by Netanyahu, “let’s be clear about that,” Kamala Harris said. Harris understands the dangerous politics better than anyone. Joe Biden committed war crimes by supplying Israel with endless bombs and political support when it was carrying out a genocide in Gaza, killing over 70,000 people including at least 20,000 children. Gaza complicity played a role in Harris’s defeat by Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election.

Now J.D. Vance is doing his utmost to escape Harris’s fate by turning on his president on Israel, well before 2028.

Vance is obviously thinking of Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed of Michigan. El-Sayed is a Muslim epidemiologist who Trump did everything to smear and libel. El-Sayed barely defeated Rep. Haley Stevens in the Democratic primary in August. But in the general election Tuesday El-Sayed crushed Republican Mike Rogers by 52-45, even after Stevens endorsed Rogers in the closing days of the campaign saying that El-Sayed was unfit for the Senate. The reason El-Sayed was supposedly unfit is that he said many critical things about Israel and the Iran war. Israel is “taking us to a war we don’t need to fight,” he said in the spring. And then in a signature moment in a debate with Rogers last month, El-Sayed declined to say which was a “bigger threat” to the United States, Iran or Israel.

For decades, such a statement would have destroyed a candidacy. And this time around, AIPAC and other branches of the Israel lobby spent over $31 million to make sure that no one ever heard El-Sayed’s name again. But the Israel lobby failed miserably, and J.D. Vance took notice.

On CNN last week, the pollster Harry Enten said that bashing Israel wasn’t hurting El-Sayed, it was helping him. Because American attitudes are so negative on Israel. Over 54 percent of all Michigan voters want to reduce or end military aid to Israel. 61 percent of Independent voters back that move.

Enten says that “nationally as well” – voters think we give too much money to Israel, especially military aid. (So when Joel Rubin the Obama aide says on i24 that only the “far left” of the Democratic Party wants to end military aid to Israel, he’s wrong.) For years, this is all that my side has been asking for. For Israel to be an explicit issue in a political race. For Democratic candidates not to be bought by the lobby out of the gate. For the American people to get to weigh in on the question of supporting Israel.

El-Sayed framed the Israel question and he won. The American people spoke, and the American people don’t like Israel.

They have good reason not to do so. Israel committed genocide for years using American weapons and aid. Israel helped push the United States to an illegal and hateful war that began with the slaughter of over 100 children in Minab, and the assassination of the entire political leadership of a foreign country. (Not to mention the escalation of oil prices, which is all that Americans care about, according to the newspapers.)

These attitudes are not being driven by the New York Times’ or Dana Bash and Wolf Blitzer’s “dreamcastle” view of Israel on CNN. They are being driven by the videos coming out of Gaza and the West Bank of the slaughter of children and goats. They are being driven by European opinion, with such leaders as the British defense secretary Wes Streeting saying that Israel is a “pariah state” that espouses “ethnic cleansing” even as it commits “calculated brutality” against women and children.

Everyone in the Democratic Party understands that the ground is slipping under their feet. Liberal Zionists are trying to restrain the anti-Israel currents in American politics. They have urged us not to blame the war on Israel. They are trying to prop up Israel’s image as a supposed democracy even as its leading Jewish parties once again say they want nothing to do with Palestinian voters and all the human rights groups say that Israel is practicing apartheid.

The Israel lobby is trying to make sure that the bigotry of Zionism is never an issue for American voters.

Those days are over. Many young voters were surely thrilled when they heard El-Sayed refuse to say whether Israel or Iran is a greater threat. They see Israel as the greater threat, for good reason.

Support for Israel has damaged too many American presidents and policies for it not to be controversial – from Jimmy Carter and the first George Bush losing second terms in part over opposition to illegal settlements, to the second Bush launching the calamitous Iraq war in part for Israel, to Obama trashing his promise to oppose settlements so as to get a second term, to Genocide Joe Biden, to Trump breaking all his promises to his base to join the war on Iran.

No doubt Israel is in a desperate place. That’s why it is addicted to war. The only way to save its people and Palestinians from further bloodshed is for the U.S. to cut off support and treat it like a normal country. Politicians are finally getting the message.

Hegseth doubles down on defense of war on Iran amid threat of impeachment

The war secretary seeks at least $350 billion in new funding for the war, dismissing the impeachment push against him as 'doomed to fail'

News Desk

NOV 6, 2026

https://thecradle.co/articles/hegseth-doubles-down-on-defense-of-war-on-iran-amid-threat-of-impeachment

US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth doubled down on the war on Iran in a video message on 5 November, even as top cabinet officials conceded that the war cost Republicans the midterm elections and speculation mounts over his possible dismissal.

“Regardless of how people feel about the war, which I believe is a courageous and historic effort that will ensure Iran never gets a nuclear weapon, we need to continue, as President Trump did in his first term, to rebuild our military,” Hegseth said in the video taken in front of the Pentagon.

He went on to urge lawmakers to approve a reconciliation bill of at least $350 billion for his department, calling the funding essential for keeping the US “ahead in a dangerous world.”

Hegseth also dismissed the impeachment articles filed against him as baseless, predicting they would collapse just as both attempts to remove US President Donald Trump had. 

Republican Congressman Thomas Massie plans to reintroduce the impeachment articles next week, warning that Hegseth faces hearings and trials once Democrats take control of Congress next year. 

Trump defended Hegseth in the Oval Office, crediting him with the US operation to abduct Venezuela’s president and boasting that seven months into the war on Iran, Washington controls “everything that we’ve wanted to control” in the country.

Despite Trump’s backing, sources say the president could still replace his war chief, and one advisor has warned that the Iran war has put Hegseth’s job at risk. 

The war secretary’s message comes after Vice President JD Vance admitted on 4 November that the war on Iran was the driving force behind the Republicans’ crushing midterm defeat, conceding that Trump himself had reached the same verdict and that many of the party’s 2024 voters had deserted it for the Democrats.

Vance said those voters demanded an end to the war, relief from the soaring cost of living, a return to “America First,” and an overhaul of Washington’s relationship with Israel as the price of their return. 

In his message, the US vice president challenged the war’s backers to make the case that “losing the Senate for the next six years was worth it.” 

Till Death Do Us Part: The Unholy Matrimony Between the US and Israel

by M. Reza Behnam | Nov 6, 2026 

https://original.antiwar.com/reza_behnam/2026/11/05/till-death-do-us-part-the-unholy-matrimony-between-the-us-and-israel/

The standard narrative of American foreign policy has long rested on the pillar of moral exceptionalism: the assertion that the United States acts as a global guardian of human rights, international law and democratic governance.

However, Washington’s support for the ongoing holocaust in the occupied Gaza Strip, West Bank and unlawful war on Iran have exposed glaring contradictions at the heart of this narrative.  They reveal the true character of a political system defined not by its lofty noble declarations, but by its iniquitous decisions and actions.

These inequalities accentuate the true nature of U.S. geopolitics; essentially that human rights ideals are of little account to predatory imperial powers.

For over a century, the subjugation of Palestine and West Asia has been orchestrated through a legacy of colonial bigotry and pro-Zionist geopolitical engineering.  The region has been treated not as home to sovereign peoples but as an imperial chessboard ripe for exploitation.

The wars throughout the region, particularly on Palestine and Iran, are the culmination of imperial agendas set in motion a century ago.  The current geopolitical course began with the stroke of a pen set to the Balfour Declaration in 1917, in which a distant European empire casually bartered away a homeland that was not theirs to give.  This colonizing scheme reached its peak in the 1996 “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm” document – a stratagem advanced by American neoconservatives and Zionist hardliners to reshape West Asia in Israel’s image.

Together these imperial blueprints established frameworks for domination that have led the region and global community to the precipice of disaster.

Underpinning these policies is a deeply-rooted colonial chauvinism that views the indigenous people of the region as obstacles to be displaced, managed or crushed, rather than human beings with inalienable rights to freedom, self-determination and dignity.

When examined across a century, the trajectory from Balfour to “Clean Break”  demonstrates a consistent structural logic. Whether foreign powers use imperial decrees, global mandates, diplomatic accords or military force, the goal is always the same: to secure and maintain control, fundamentally disregarding the rights of the native populations to govern themselves.

The bilateral partnership with Israel, originally formed to secure its existence, has now become a strategic liability.  The Israel that once proved useful to Washington as its regional enforcer, now seems to be in the catbird seat.

The eventual subordination of American foreign policy to Israeli strategic ambitions is not a historic accident, but the predictable outcome of a powerful deeply-entrenched military-industrial-security nexus that long ago equated regional dominance with U.S. national interests.

What began as a Cold War strategy to project American power across West Asia without a large-scale troop presence, has evolved into an institutionalized, self-perpetuating deadly alliance, in which the balance of control has become blurred.

Decades of deeply-entrenched military, intelligence and industrial ties with Tel Aviv have created an institutional inertia so powerful that Washington now reflexively accepts global criticism, regional anger and multi-trillion-dollar detours into foreign interventions as a matter of course – as a worthy price to pay for their “special relationship.”

Instead of exerting its strategic agency over a client state, the United States has become captive to Israeli dogmatism, which asserts that anything less than unconditional support signals U.S. weakness and vulnerability.  Consequently, this has fallen on American taxpayers to subsidize and service members to fight  military campaigns that compromise the nation’s interests and long-term stability.

Adding to this geopolitical trap is a domestic political echo chamber engineered to penalize flexibility and alternative strategies, while rewarding absolute conformity and compliance with Israeli objectives.

The alliance with Israel is so thoroughly embedded in the American body politic that it functions as a “third rail” of U.S. foreign policy and public discourse.  It remains above criticism through a combination of highly organized influential lobbying groups, massive political campaign financing schemes, a powerful evangelical voting bloc, and weaponization of the anti-Semitic label.

When paired with a deeply-ingrained pro-Israel media and cultural narrative that frames regional escalation as inevitable, rather than preventable, Washington’s political class most often chooses the safety of domestic capitulation over the discipline of sovereign statecraft, guaranteeing political submission to Israeli goading.

The result is a chronically unsettled America perpetually drawn into Israel’s expansionist wars.  This involvement is driven not by clear strategic necessity, but by a systemic inability in Washington to break free from domestic pressures and external mandates.

From the colonial promises of the Balfour Declaration to the “Clean Break” document, Israel has consistently prioritized expansionism over international law, formal agreements and even the strategic interests of its closest ally and main benefactor, the United States.

A core folly in Washington’s Israel/West Asian policy has been in treating a strategic burden as an indispensable ally.

Prioritizing the regional ambitions of a hegemonic foreign “ally” over core U.S. interests have entangled America in Israel’s reckless wars and conflicts.  Decades of blank-check diplomacy have inflamed anti-American sentiment, compromised its global credibility, strained vital alliances, and drained finite military and economic resources that would be better directed toward urgent domestic needs.

Paradoxically, the imperial strategies meant to safeguard Israel at the expense of West Asia are now taking a toll on America as well.  The United States will not, and cannot, recover its strategic autonomy and moral leadership unless it makes a clean break from its damaging relationship with Israel.

'A severe blow': Israeli media outlets sound alarm over Democratic sweep

Netanyahu-aligned Channel 14 calls the vote a ‘major blow to Trump and Israel’ as critics of military aid to Tel Aviv head to Washington in growing numbers 

News Desk

NOV 4, 2026

https://thecradle.co/articles/a-severe-blow-israeli-media-outlets-sound-alarm-over-democratic-sweep

Israel’s leading outlets reacted with alarm on 4 November after the Democratic Party captured both the US House of Representatives and the Senate in the midterm elections, warning that lawmakers opposed to US military aid to Israel are heading to Congress in growing numbers. 

At least 11 Democrats who have backed Palestinian rights and opposed US military support for Israel won seats across both chambers, swelling the ranks of Tel Aviv’s critics in the US legislature. 

Channel 14, a network aligned with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, called the outcome a “major blow to Trump and Israel,” expecting Democrats in charge of the foreign affairs, defense, and appropriations committees to put US weapons sales and deliveries to Israel under a far harsher spotlight. 

Yedioth Ahronoth branded the vote a “historic blue tsunami” and a humiliating defeat for US President Donald Trump, noting that Democrats broke through in districts once considered safely Republican, and are now positioned to obstruct legislation favorable to Israel. 

The Jerusalem Post blamed the sweeping Republican loss chiefly on the US-Israeli war on Iran, launched on 28 February, warning that the rise of Israel’s critics in Washington “represents a shift that Israel cannot afford to ignore.”

Maariv singled out the state of Maine, where Democrat Troy Jackson ousted Senator Susan Collins, an Israel ally in office since 1997, on a platform of ending US military aid to Tel Aviv, calling the wider Democratic victory a sign of the party’s shifting balance on Israel.

Haaretz pointed to the Michigan Senate win of progressive Democrat Abdul el-Sayed, the chamber’s first Muslim member, over AIPAC-backed Republican Mike Rogers as proof that fierce opposition to Israel no longer hinders candidates but in fact strengthens their standing with the US public.

AIPAC failed to stop El-Sayed despite pouring more than $30 million into Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, the most it has ever spent on a single race, and later directing up to $9 million to a super PAC backing Rogers, part of a midterm spending push that topped $100 million across its PAC and super PAC, according to Sludge.

Major losses could spur Trump to escalate war before year's end

If you think the president is going to behave like a normal lame duck, think again

Trita Parsi

Nov 04, 2026

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/trump-war-midterms-iran/?mc_cid=c770498b78&mc_eid=944feb3e1c

As much as the Iran war is the key reason Trump and the GOP were crushed tonight, it is important to recognize that the pressure for war is now likely to increase.

This does not mean that Trump will restart the war. But the balance of pressure for and against war will likely favor escalation.

Trump was under a degree of pressure to strike a deal before the midterms, hoping to soften the blow in the polls. But now that the midterms are over, that pressure will dissipate somewhat. Gas prices are still high, but the political cost has already been paid. There won’t be another point on the political calendar for some time when that cost can be exacted again.

But two other factors will intensify.

First, pro-war elements in Israel and in Washington will see the next two months as the last period in which Trump has wide maneuverability to restart the war. By January, the Democrats will control both chambers, will control the purse, and can begin impeaching Trump’s secretaries, including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. While Trump’s freedom of maneuver will not be completely constrained, it will be significantly reduced.

In fact, it could happen sooner, given that current government funding expires on December 11. Democrats can push to ensure that any subsequent funding or authorization legislation prohibits war funding. As Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) has pointed out, the Vietnam War only ended after Congress refused to continue funding it.

This will compel war supporters to dramatically increase their pressure on Trump to restart the war in the coming weeks, before Congress imposes itself on Trump.

Secondly, while Trump’s decision to start the war in February was driven by hubris and criminally erroneous Israeli advice, another emotion may dominate his thinking going forward: vengeance.

There has been a vindictive element to his calculations in the past weeks because of his anger over how Iran — in Trump’s mind — has ruined his presidency. That anger must be going through the roof tonight.

If talks in Doha do not produce a breakthrough in the next few days, then the risk of escalation in the coming weeks will increase due to the urgency borne out of a closing window for escalation, Trump’s own desire for vengeance, and reduced political pressure to push down gas prices by securing a deal.

Tucker Carlson Says Trump Is Considering a Nuclear Strike on Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain

Trump has publicly ruled out using nuclear weapons against Iran but continues to threaten bombing Pickaxe Mountain

by Dave DeCamp | November 2, 2026

https://news.antiwar.com/2026/11/02/tucker-carlson-says-trump-is-considering-a-nuclear-strike-on-irans-pickaxe-mountain/

Tucker Carlson claimed in a post on X on Sunday night that the Trump administration is considering launching a nuclear strike targeting Pickaxe Mountain in central Iran and that the president is expected to make a decision by November 7.

“Under pressure from Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Trump administration may be within days of launching a nuclear strike on Iran,” Carlson wrote.

Carlson said that Israeli intelligence has claimed that the “Iranian government has restarted its nuclear enrichment program” underneath Pickaxe Mountain, allegations that Tehran has denied.

“No conventional weapon in the American arsenal can penetrate 300 feet of solid granite to destroy the tunnels where enrichment is supposedly taking place,” Carlson said. 

For his part, Trump has publicly ruled out using a nuclear bomb against Iran, but he has been threatening to strike Pickaxe Mountain. “We’ve knocked out their nuclear. We still have to take care of, I would say one or two sites, but we can do that in 10 minutes,” Trump told reporters over the weekend. “You probably could look at Pickaxe Mountain, and you have to take care of that. We can do that all very quickly.”

In his post, Carlson said that Netanyahu was pushing for the US nuclear strike due to his precarious political position following Israel’s October 27 Knesset election. Netanyahu’s coalition led his opposition but failed to gain the majority needed to form a government.

“To that end, [Netanyahu has] applied maximum pressure to his closest allies in the administration, including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and CENTCOM commander Brad Cooper. Both oppose a negotiated settlement to the war they’ve so grievously mismanaged; both are pushing to restart major combat operations,” Carlson wrote.

The former Fox News host, who spoke with President Trump before he launched the war on February 28, went on to discuss the potential consequences of the US using a nuclear bomb, which would mark a first since World War II.

“An American nuclear attack on Iran would set a new precedent. The Russians have already told at least two other governments that an American nuclear strike on Iran would free them to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine. Pakistan and India would be tempted to do the same against each other, as would North Korea against Seoul. After the first nuclear strike, World War Three is inevitable. That war would be short and final,” Carlson said.

He pointed out that the Pentagon has been rewriting the US nuclear strategy to “make first use of so-called ‘battlefield nukes’ easier and therefore more likely.” The Pentagon’s policy chief, Elbridge Colby, has for more than a decade called for the US to develop additional capabilities to fight a “limited nuclear war.”

Carlson cited “close observers” who said Trump would likely decide by the weekend, or November 7, whether or not to carry out a nuclear strike. He also said that the president is “hesitating” for the time being and is “listening to his vice president, JD Vance, and to his envoy and friend Steve Witkoff, both of whom argue a deal with Iran can be made.”

Trump was also supposedly favoring diplomacy before joining Israel’s 12-Day War against Iran in June 2025 and before launching the current war alongside Israel on February 28.