Kentucky.

Tonight I'm Renee Shaw, and we thank you so much for joining us this evening.

Kentucky's primary is just two weeks from tomorrow, May the 19th, with early voting from May 14th to the 16th, the Republican primary for the U.S.

House in the fourth district is getting a lot of national attention as Ed Gallrein challenges incumbent Thomas Massie.

Congressman Massie has disagreed with President Donald Trump on some matters, including foreign policy, the budget, and the Jeffrey Epstein files.

President Trump has endorsed Ed Gallrein.

Both Mr.

Gallrein and Congressman Massie met our criteria to appear this evening, and Congressman Massie accepted.

We do want to hear from you tonight.

You can send us your questions and comments by X, formerly Twitter at Pub Affairs KET.

Send an email to KY tonight@ket.org, or use the web form at ket.org/ky tonight.

Or you can simply give us a call at one 800 4947605.

We'll welcome.

Congressman Massie.

Thank you for being here this evening.

>> Thanks for having me on, Renee.

>> First question, why are you seeking an eighth term to represent the people of the fourth Congressional District?

>> Well, it's been an honor to serve the people here.

I've figured out how to be effective.

You know, I just got part of my legislation in the farm bill last week, a bill called the Prime Act that would make it easier for farmers here in Kentucky to sell their meat locally to consumers here in Kentucky.

I got the Epstein files released, and we're working on a lot of other stuff, and I'd like to keep that momentum going.

>> So let me take you back to March 6th, 2012.

You signed a U.S.

Term Limits Amendment pledge on that date, pledging that as a member of Congress, you would co-sponsor and vote for limiting members to three House terms and two Senate terms.

After 14 years, are you not waiting into career politician territory?

And for those curious about you re-upping your Washington service, how is that better than honoring the spirit of that pledge you signed back in 2012?

>> Well, I've honored both the spirit and the letter of that pledge.

I have co-sponsored the bill that I said I would co-sponsor, and I voted for it.

In fact, now I serve on the Judiciary Committee, where that bill starts, all constitutional amendments begin in the Judiciary Committee.

So I've had the opportunity and and taken it to vote for that amendment to the Constitution several times.

>> And why are you still wanting to go back to Washington?

What more do you think you can accomplish that you haven't since 2012?

>> Well, I see a need in Washington, D.C.

there are a lot of people there who are scared to voice their opinion, scared to advocate for their constituents.

A lot of times you'll see that I might be the only no vote.

They don't dislike me for being an obstructionist.

That's not why I've drawn the ire of the swamp and have an opponent here.

They dislike me because I'm transparent, and if I'm not in Congress, there won't be somebody reading every bill and explaining what's in the bills.

And so I think if our republic is going to work, somebody needs to be up there shining a light on things so that the voters.

This would be more important than getting term limits if we could separate the votes into single issues, instead of having giant bills with things in it that nobody knows about because they didn't read in it, that would be the biggest reform we could have.

But in the meantime, I'm up there.

Sometimes I'm the only vote, sometimes I'm the only voice, and I get out there and tell people what's in these bills.

>> I want to get to that point about these big omnibus bills, and we'll talk about that a little later.

But I want to get to the point you just made about being an obstructionist, because many have labeled that to you.

Do you take that as a badge of honor and courage for being the lone voice on many of these matters and bucking the Republican Party or the president himself?

>> Well, I've actually not obstructed anything.

You can't point to a single piece of legislation that hasn't passed, because I was there and stopping it from getting passed.

The votes they're mad about are the ones that are 420 to 1, where I'm the only person who reads the bill and gets in there and says, hey, this is what's in the bill.

And the reality is the mister no nomenclature is way overstated.

Look, I vote with the Republican Party and this president 90% of the time, and the 10% of the time that I'm not voting with the party or the president, I'm keeping the promises that the president and I campaigned on, and I'm voting consistently for the same things that I voted for, regardless of who the president is.

That's lower spending, no foreign entanglements.

That's warrants.

If you're going to spy on Americans, keeping the Constitution sacrosanct, those are the and not bankrupting this country.

Those are the things where 10% of the time I have to deviate from the party because I'm keeping promises to people in Kentucky.

>> One of those instances in that 10%, you say you vote with the president 90% of the time, as you were one of two House Republicans to vote against the one big, beautiful bill last year.

Is it disingenuous to claim that you are in alignment with the president on one hand, but then vote against his and try to block his top legislative priority?

>> Well, listen, I voted for the wall.

I voted for the Save act, which is the bill that would require photo I.D.

and that you be a U.S.

citizen to register to vote in federal races.

I voted for a slew of priorities that the president supports.

But on the big bill, that was a big spending bill, and I was the one who called it out.

Look, since we've been in office and by we, I mean we've controlled the House of Representatives, the U.S.

Senate and the white House.

16 months we've been doing this, we've added $2.7 trillion to the debt.

And people said, well, how did that happen?

It's because we didn't cut Joe Biden's spending.

We took all of the spending that Joe Biden had in the budget and added hundreds of billions of dollars to it.

They don't like me for pointing that out.

If the big bill were just tax cuts or good policy, I would vote for it.

But again, this gets to what needs to change in Washington.

Instead of having giant bills that are 1000 or 2000, sometimes 3000 pages long, that cover 100 topics, we should have single issue bills.

And that way people can't hide behind one issue to get something else done.

>> We may revisit that point a little later.

I want to go to this.

President Trump got 67% of the vote in the fourth Congressional District back in 2024.

Trump has called you, and these are his words, not mine, sir.

Disloyal and quote, a disaster to the Republican Party.

You claim the Maga mantle.

Do you define Maga differently than the president?

And who is the owner and chief of the Maga movement?

Is it the president or is it Thomas Massie?

>> Let's talk about some of those insults.

The president called me a moron at the prayer breakfast.

I said, I'm glad I'm in his prayers.

I mean, what are you going to do?

He called me a third rate grandstander in 2020.

I said, I'm at least second rate.

Look, this president is known to to hurl a few insults.

I don't take it personally.

I know why I'm getting attacked.

It's to keep the other congressmen in line.

They're under.

He's under no illusion that I'll abandon my principles if he calls me a a bad sounding name.

Look, he.

When I talked to him on the phone.

You want to know what he calls me?

He calls me a tough cookie and a sharp cookie because he knows I went to MIT and he knows he went against me in 2020 and I won in my election.

>> And privately he says those things.

>> Yeah.

And he knows that I stand on principles.

When I endorsed him in the fall of 2024, he was very proud of that.

He told his adviser who was standing there, this this is Thomas Massie.

He's going to endorse me.

This is a very tough endorsement to get.

And so I don't worry about the names.

He calls me in public.

I know what he thinks about me in private.

And frankly, he respects people who tell him what's true and accurate.

Instead of all the yes men that, you know, surround him too often.

>> So final question along this point, if you are reelected, how effective can you continue to be, perhaps for the constituents of the Fourth Congressional District and delivering for them what they want you to deliver for them, given your fraught relationship with the white House and the fact that the president is backing your primary opponent?

>> Well, last fall, I undertook to get the Epstein Files Transparency Act passed, and everybody thought it couldn't be done, but it eventually passed the House 427 to 1.

It passed the Senate 100 to nothing, and President Donald J. Trump signed that bill.

So I had a veto proof majority.

So I got that done.

And then, as I said here in the beginning of the program, my signature legislation, the Prime Act, is in the farm bill.

Why did that happen?

How did that happen?

Because I've been working for over 11 years on that bill.

And four years ago, I started working with the chairman of the AG Committee and the majority whip to get that in the bill.

And eventually the president will sign that bill and that will become law, something that will help Kentucky.

>> So let's move to gun rights, because you testified in mid-April to the Senate Homeland Security, chaired by Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, about a package of gun rights proposals, one of which would create a federal standard for permitless carry that would Trump no pun intended.

They're state level restrictions.

It's called the National Constitutional Carry Act.

First, in regards to states rights, do you believe in states rights?

And how do you justify a federal mandate to override state gun laws in this particular instance?

>> Well, first of all, it doesn't establish a standard.

The standard already exists.

It's in the Constitution.

It says shall not be infringed.

The right to keep and bear arms.

Now, a lot of states acknowledge your right to keep arms, but don't acknowledge your own infringed right to bear arms.

So there's the standard is already there.

It's the Constitution.

29 states, including Kentucky, have already recognized that fundamental right.

What my bill does is extend that to all states.

Now, I am a big proponent of the 10th amendment.

But since 2010, the McDonald versus Chicago decision, where the Supreme Court said that the Second Amendment is a constraint on the states.

It's always been appropriate now to have the Second Amendment just restated and applied to the States.

So the Second Amendment comes before the 10th amendment, and it doesn't infringe on the 10th amendment to merely enforce the Second Amendment.

>> So some have made this Wild West argument.

Critics argue that removing permitless requirements leads to more gun violence.

What's your proof or evidence or argument that this won't lead to more gun violence in public or on a mass scale?

>> Renee, you live in a state where it didn't turn into the Wild West.

I heard this argument in Frankfort a few years ago when I helped whip the vote for that.

That state legislature initiative.

It's not turned into the Wild West.

That's what they say.

Before the bill passes and after constitutional carry passes, you find out, well, you know what the criminals have been carrying all along without a permit.

Now we just put the law abiding citizens on an equal footing, and it's never turned into the Wild West in any of the states.

>> Another piece of gun legislation you proposed would repeal the Gun Free School Zone Act, which you have said, quote, advertises to would be shooters, that schools are, quote, sitting ducks if the federal ban is repealed, what specific hardening measures do you believe local school districts should prioritize for school safety?

And would you be willing to sponsor and support dollars coming from Washington to help schools harden their security?

>> Well, first of all, there's never been a mass shooting in a school that allows the staff to carry firearms.

So what would I do to make the children safer?

I would pass this bill.

What we do right now is with a federal standard, the states have to override the federal standard.

But unless and until they do, we're advertising these kids as sitting ducks and in some states have overridden it.

But what you end up with is a patchwork of laws.

And you could end up with a perimeter around a school where somebody unknowingly violates a federal law.

It makes sense.

Instead of having the default as advertising kids, sitting ducks have the default, be that when a criminal would be shooter shows up to one of those schools, and the back of his mind, he's always got to wonder, is that staff member carrying is that teacher carrying and the state?

It doesn't mean that the states can't make their own laws and the school boards, in fact, to prohibit the carry of firearms.

>> Right.

Do you hear from educators that they want to be able to carry guns as staff members in public schools?

>> I hear from a lot of educators.

Some of them say, you know, I wouldn't carry a gun, but this teacher over here, I'd feel safer if he carried a gun.

You know, if they're comfortable with doing it, it's very appropriate.

And I do hear from educators that wish that they could, and staff members who wish that they could have a gun to protect the students.

And I've heard from victims, I've heard from teachers who've been through shootings, who have guns in their car, who have guns at home, and they feel so powerless to help the students when they're attacked.

>> You also advocate for 18 to 21 year olds to buy handguns from licensed, federally licensed dealers.

>> Why 818 to 20 year olds can serve in the military.

In fact, they just started automatic Selective Service registration for 18 year olds.

If you can be conscripted or if you can voluntarily go serve your country and carry a gun, why wouldn't you let that person carry a gun at home?

If they're willing to defend your right to carry a gun, why shouldn't they?

And the federal law is stupid right now.

It says you can't buy one if you're 18, 19, or 20 from a licensed dealer.

You can buy one from an individual.

So what does this mean?

It means if you're 18, 19, or 20, you have to effectively find an individual who sell it to you and you don't go through the background check that you would go through if it were legal to buy it from a store.

>> What does federal law, what a law enforcement community say to you about these, this package of gun proposals that you have put forth, are they fought against it, or does it depend on whether it's the sheriff or the Fraternal Order of Police or Police chief, urban versus rural.

Is there any breakdown in that matter?

>> Well, police who show up to events, they know that by the time they get there, it's often too late to stop a mass shooting.

If it occurs.

94% of mass public shootings happen in a place where individuals, just law abiding citizens, weren't allowed to carry.

And there are surveys on this that show that the majority of law enforcement do support this.

>> Red flag laws.

Your position on whether the court should be able to temporarily remove firearms from those who are considered a danger to themselves or to others.

And there's proof, in fact, that they are perhaps a danger to themselves or the public.

>> There are already laws in every state that allow confiscation of firearms, but they involve a judge and an adjudication of whether somebody is mentally competent or not, and they don't infringe on the Second Amendment that exists here in Kentucky.

But to have a new law that says that a neighbor could call the police and then have your gun seized just on hearsay, that's wrong.

That's bad.

By the way, I love this, I love this.

You've given me 20 things to talk about.

What I've noticed is my opponent, Ed Gallrein is not here.

He won't answer these questions.

He's not filled out one of those forms from the guns rights advocates.

He's not filled out a form from the pro-life advocates.

He's afraid to take a position because he knows that he doesn't have positions.

And the reason the other reason he's not here tonight, he doesn't want to have to answer for why are 85% of his Max donors also donors to Democrats?

He doesn't want to have to answer for questions like that.

Why did he leave the party?

Why did he leave the Republican Party?

Not once, but twice.

And the second time he left the Republican Party was in 2016, two weeks after President Trump cinched the nomination for our party.

And he stayed out of the party for five years.

He waited for President Trump to lose his reelection before he came back to the party.

Those questions and the questions that you're asking, he should be answering here tonight, but he's afraid to do it.

>> Well, there was a viewer question about why the opponent did not appear, and I think you've answered that quite eloquently.

We'll move on to energy policy.

You live in a solar powered off the grid home, which some say isn't the stereotypical profile of a hard line conservative.

What and how did these lifestyle choices that you make inform your idea about energy policy, and what should energy policy look like?

>> Well, first of all, I've been an early adopter of this technology, and I know where it falls short.

It's hard to produce electricity at night.

You have to have batteries.

You know, my first set of batteries failed.

My house now runs on a wrecked model S car Tesla battery that I repurposed to run my house.

Not everybody can do that, but I do think it's in our future.

The problem is the government can't push it too soon.

Look, we had mandates under Joe Biden for electric vehicles and other things that caused Ford, you know, and another company to go together and start building a battery factory here in Kentucky.

But as soon as those mandates went away, the battery factory, you know, they quit working on it.

That's the problem with government mandates.

I think that the the power companies and the car manufacturers, they need to make a product first and foremost that customers will buy.

I was also an early adopter of of Tesla cars, for instance, but it's just it's not for everybody.

And I don't think that you can push it too soon on the public.

And what I tell, what I tell Republicans, by the way, is you can hate subsidies but don't hate solar panels.

They are rocks that make electricity.

And the other thing I would say is the first thing I would do if I could control this policy of subsidizing solar panels, is I would quit subsidizing every solar panel farm in every piece of farmland, and I would take away the special preferences for these data centers that are being put in farmland.

I, I stopped a bill in judiciary.

Now, maybe this is one example where I was an obstructionist, where they were trying to let data centers bypass eight different environmental laws to build their data centers.

And I blew the whistle on that.

I never even went to a vote.

I put it out on social media that they were trying to pass special provisions for data centers.

I even drafted amendment to keep them from getting these special provisions if they're going to put it in farmland.

And you know what they did that day?

They pulled the bill off the docket, and I haven't seen it since.

That's the reason I'm running for reelection.

Nobody else is willing to do that in these hearings.

>> Let's pivot and talk about the economy.

We have a viewer question.

Since the congressman doesn't want to raise taxes, what sections does he think we need to cut to lower the debt and get a balanced budget?

How would you help reduce the, what, $39 trillion national debt?

>> Well, when Senator Paul and I were both elected, he in 2010 and I in 2012, you could do something called the Penny plan, where you could cut everything 1%.

And within a few years it would balance.

Things have gotten so bad now, and both parties spend so much money that the penny plan has become a six cent plan, that you would have to cut 6% every year in order to balance the budget.

So I would start with an across the board cut.

Every one of these departments has a little bit of fat that they can do without.

And then I would cut every penny, every penny of foreign aid.

By the way, this is why I'm in trouble.

This is another reason I'm in trouble with the swamp, why they want me gone.

95% of my opponent's donations come from the Israeli lobby.

This comes from Miriam Adelson, Paul Singer, John Paulson, AIPAC, RJC and Cufi.

They've put millions of dollars into this race for one simple reason.

I've never voted for foreign aid.

Not to Ukraine, not to Egypt, and not to Israel.

>> So the president's Trump proposed $1.5 trillion defense budget.

What do you say to that?

>> They wouldn't know how to spend $1.5 trillion.

It would be so sloppy and such an egregious use of money.

If you wanted to increase spending, you would have to do it a little bit over time.

But I can guarantee you there's places where we could cut spending, cut waste, even in the military budget.

The Pentagon has never undergone a successful audit.

They need to be audited.

You don't give somebody the one department that can't pass an audit.

Why would you give them carte blanche?

>> So the 6% would even apply to military spending.

This would be across the board.

Does not matter.

Doesn't discriminate.

Do did you approve of how the Trump administration went about the DOJ's cuts back in the Elon Musk days?

Was that the right approach?

How did you feel about that of cutting of cutting agencies?

>> It should actually happen in Congress, like when Congress appropriates the money, then the president is obligated to spend it.

And in a lot of cases, the president found this out, for instance, with the welfare fraud that's been exposed by social media influencer in Minnesota, the president said, we're going to cut funding to Minnesota and other states where fraud fraud is apparently happening to immigrants.

And what what happened?

The court said, you know what?

You can't do that because Congress already appropriated the money.

So what did I do?

I said, okay, we have the power of the purse.

I offered an amendment on the bill that funds those programs that says, give the president the power to cut that money.

Congress will grant him the power to use his discretion.

If a state's fraudulently using the money, he can withhold the money.

Mike Johnson wouldn't even allow a vote on that amendment.

They said it would be a poison pill.

I can tell you this.

When I was at the state of the Union and the president was announcing all the wasteful spending, my colleagues stood up and clapped as if they were happy that it was found.

And I realized that my colleagues are the ones who put that wasteful spending in.

The reality is this I agree that government should be cut, and I would give the president the authority to cut, but it rests with Congress.

And so when you see when you see these deficits and the debt.

I'm wearing my debt badge here tonight, when you see that debt racking up, that's due to Congress and we should cut it.

>> Let's talk about the Iraq war.

You've called this a preemptive war that will radicalize new generations of terrorists and send swarms of refugees into Europe and the U.S.

now that the U.S.

is entering the third month of this conflict, what should be done now we're there.

What would be your be your idea of an exit strategy?

>> Well, first of all, the exit strategy can't come soon enough.

Gasoline is approaching even here in Kentucky, where it's historically cheaper than the rest of the country.

It's over $4 a gallon in some places, $5 a gallon.

Diesel's up to $6 a gallon.

That's just part of it.

We're going to see grocery prices increase because fertilizer is being with up.

You know, it's it can't get through the Strait of Hormuz.

And farmers right now today are making decisions about how much to put on their hay fields, how much, whether to grow corn or soybeans, depending on the price of fertilizer.

So we need to come to a solution quickly.

You cannot bomb a country of 90 million people back to the Stone ages.

It's it's not feasible.

It's not humane.

It's not affordable.

And what would you end up with at the end of that?

A failed state.

So there needs to be a diplomatic solution even to open up the Straits of Hormuz.

And the other thing that needs to happen is Israel needs to come to the table.

There's there's three combatants in this war Israel, the United States and Iran.

You need to bring Israel to the table.

They've used this as an excuse to attack southern Lebanon now.

And that does need to be part of the discussion.

They need to be at the table.

You can't send the vice president to some other country talking to somebody from Iran.

You've got to have Israel at the table to end this war.

>> One last item, if we can get to this quickly.

When you appeared with Kentucky Senator Rand Paul recently, you said that proving you're a citizen with a photo ID when you vote in national elections is just common sense.

Expound on the save act, safeguard American voter eligibility, and why you favor it.

>> Well, it's not just me that favors it.

Almost every Republican and even a majority of Democrats and independents favor it.

It does seem like common sense here in the state of Kentucky.

You have to show an ID to vote.

And if you're going to vote in a federal election, we can still acknowledge states rights.

If you want to vote for school board.

And San Francisco wants to make their own rules for school board, fine.

Fair enough.

But if you're going to register to be able to vote in a federal election, it's just common sense that you need to prove you're American citizen.

And then to have a photo ID.

>> And 30s make your case for why the voters of the Fourth Congressional District and the Republican primary should get your vote.

>> Well, I don't think you're well served by a rubber stamp.

The problem with Congressman, 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.

And 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.

>> Well, thank you, Congressman Thomas Massie, for being here this evening.

We appreciate it.

>> Thanks, Renee.

>> And thank you for watching.

You can hear more from candidates for Congress next Monday on Kentucky tonight.

And look for complete coverage of the primary campaign each weeknight on Kentucky edition at 630 eastern, 530 central, right here on KET.

I'm Renee Shaw.

Thank you for being with us tonight and have a good rest of the week to come.

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