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EXCLUSIVE: Rep. Thomas Massie is accusing President Donald Trump of falling short of his campaign pledges with his Saturday-night strikes on Iran.
“I feel a bit misled,” Massie told Fox News Digital in a Sunday afternoon interview. “I didn’t think he would let neocons determine his foreign policy and drag us into another war.”
“Other people feel the same way, who supported Trump — I think the political danger to him is he induces a degree of apathy in the Republican base, and they fail to show up to keep us in the majority in the midterms.”
Massie, a conservative libertarian who has long been wary of foreign intervention by the U.S., has been one of the most vocal critics of the Trump administration’s recent operation.
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U.S. stealth bombers struck three major nuclear enrichment facilities in Iran Saturday night.
Trump and other GOP leaders hailed the operation as a victory, while even pro-Israel Democrats also offered rare praise.
“Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated,” Trump said Saturday night. “And Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace. If they do not, future attacks would be far greater and a lot easier.”
But progressives and the growing isolationist wing of the GOP blasted it as a needless escalation of tensions in the Middle East, at a time when Israel has been engaged in a weeklong conflict with Iran as well.
Top officials up to Trump himself have said the U.S. is not seeking war with Iran.
Vice President JD Vance told NBC News’ “Meet The Press” Sunday, “We’re not at war with Iran. We’re at war with Iran’s nuclear program.”
Massie told Fox News Digital those assurances were “ludicrous.”
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“He’s engaged in war. We are now a co-belligerent in a hot war between two countries,” the Kentucky Republican said, arguing that conflict separates this action from Trump’s strikes that killed deceased Iranian General Qassem Soleimani.
“You can’t say this isn’t an act of war, that it’s a strike outside of a war,” he said. “This is inside, geographically and temporally, of a war.”
The Kentucky Republican notably has broken from Trump on several other occasions and has been one of the few GOP officials to openly clash with the president — particularly on government spending and foreign intervention.
He’s co-leading a resolution to prevent the “United States Armed Forces from unauthorized hostilities in the Islamic Republic of Iran” alongside Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., which they introduced days before the strikes. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., is leading a Senate counterpart.
Massie noted that his team was looking at ways to get the resolution on the House floor — while conceding likely opposition from pro-Israel groups and congressional leaders.
“We’re going to try to use the privileges of the House to get this to the floor,” he said.
“People were saying, ‘Why did you introduce this resolution? The president’s not going to strike Iran.’ He has struck Iran. And now the naysayers said, ‘Oh, well, you don’t need this resolution.”
ISRAEL-IRAN WAR DIVIDES DEMOCRATS, BUT TRUMP’S DIPLOMACY ALSO SPLITTING REPUBLICANS
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said during a Sunday morning press conference that the administration had properly notified Congress about the strikes within existing statute — even as progressives and some conservatives accuse him of bypassing a co-equal branch of government.
“They were notified after the planes were safely out,” Hegseth said. “We complied with the notification requirements of the War Powers Act.”
But Massie noted that that law also requires Congress to vote on U.S. military intervention in foreign countries within 60 days, if the conflict continues.
“Even if they’re able to circumvent a vote on the resolution that Ro Khanna and I have introduced, we’re going to have to vote at some point if this becomes a protracted engagement,” he said.
War powers resolutions can be called up for a House vote after 15 days of inaction by the relevant committee, after the legislation is referred to that committee.
When reached for comment, the White House pointed Fox News Digital to Trump’s most recent Truth Social post calling Massie a “grandstander” and threatening to recruit a primary challenger against him.
“Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky is not MAGA, even though he likes to say he is,” Trump wrote. “Actually, MAGA doesn’t want him, doesn’t know him, and doesn’t respect him. He is a negative force who almost always Votes ‘NO,’ no matter how good something may be.”
“MAGA should drop this pathetic LOSER, Tom Massie, like the plague! The good news is that we will have a wonderful American Patriot running against him in the Republican Primary, and I’ll be out in Kentucky campaigning really hard. MAGA is not about lazy, grandstanding, nonproductive politicians, of which Thomas Massie is definitely one. Thank you to our incredible military for the AMAZING job they did last night. It was really SPECIAL!!!”
Fox News Digital also reached out to Speaker Mike Johnson’s office for comment.
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