Trump news at a glance: president forces out another Republican who crossed him | Trump administration
Donald Trump displayed his supremacy over the Republican Party on Tuesday when voters in northern Kentucky rejected maverick Congressman Thomas Massie in favor of the US president’s hand-picked challenger.
Ed Gallrein, a retired Navy Seal and farmer who was recruited into the race by Trump, defeated the seven-term incumbent in a primary election in Kentucky’s Fourth Congressional District, in what the president’s allies billed as a test of whether dissent could still exist within today’s Republican Party.
“This is not a retaliatory campaign, this is a messaging campaign,” a senior White House aide told CNN. “It’s basic party political management. You have to keep everyone in reserve. Sometimes you have to shoot a hostage. Next up is Thomas Massie.”
Massie, a libertarian-minded conservative, has repeatedly broken with the president over military action against Iran, government spending and the release of Jeffrey Epstein files. He spent months insisting that Kentucky Republicans valued independence over obedience. Instead, voters in the deeply conservative 4th Congressional District seemed to conclude that loyalty to Trump mattered more.
The election came as voters in five other states – Pennsylvania, Georgia, Alabama, Oregon and Idaho – went to the polls to decide their candidates for the November general election, on what was the biggest primary night of the year so far.
Trump critic Thomas Massie defeated in Kentucky Republican primary
Massie now joins the ranks of Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Jeff Flake, Mitt Romney and other Republican lawmakers who were ousted or decided to retire due to their party’s capitulation to Trump.
Over the weekend, Sen. Bill Cassidy, who voted to convict Trump after the Jan. 6 insurrection, lost a primary in Louisiana after the president endorsed his challenger Julia Letlow.
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Trump supports Attorney General Ken Paxton in Texas Senate primary
Donald Trump endorsed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the state’s Republican primary, bolstering his bid to unseat incumbent U.S. Sen. John Cornyn.
The US president on Tuesday hailed Paxton, a hard-liner who has billed himself as a political warrior in Trump’s Make America Great Again movement, as an “America First Patriot” in a social media post.
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Georgia Republican gubernatorial and U.S. Senate elections heading to June runoffs
The Republican primary campaign for Georgia governor will take place in June, with Lt. Gov. Burt Jones facing healthcare billionaire Rick Jackson — and excluding Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state and longtime political foe of Donald Trump, who was on track to finish a distant third.
The Republican race to challenge U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff also remains unresolved, while former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms won the Democratic primary for governor.
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Pennsylvania primaries highlight key races for Democrats to take back the House
Pennsylvania’s primaries on Tuesday clarified the key battlegrounds for November’s midterm elections.
Sixteen of the state’s 17 U.S. Representatives are seeking re-election, and Democrats are focusing on four districts they view as key takeover opportunities in their bid to win back the House.
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US Senate votes in favor of resolution to limit Trump’s war powers in Iran
The Senate voted Tuesday in favor of a war powers resolution aimed at forcing Donald Trump to end the war in Iran unless he receives congressional authorization to continue it.
Tuesday’s 50-47 vote marks the first time the House has advanced the bill, the eighth attempt to do so since the dispute began in February.
This time, Sen. Bill Cassidy, fresh off a primary defeat in Louisiana in a race in which Trump supported his opponent, voted to pass the measure.
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What else happened today:
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The US Department of Justice On Tuesday, he quietly added a provision barring the IRS from auditing Donald Trump’s tax returnsamending a widely criticized deal that creates a secret, loosely controlled $1.776 billion fund to compensate the president’s allies.
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Two teenage attackers responsible for mass shooting at Islamic Center in San Diego, Calif. Rushed to mosque “fully armored” with handguns and rifles, authorities said. The shooters had met and radicalized online, according to the FBI.
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The NAACP launched a campaign Tuesday urging black athletes, their families, alumni and fans to boycott public university athletic programs in states that “have taken steps to limit, weaken, or erase black electoral representation”.
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A New York federal judge banned U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents from arresting immigrants in or near three federal courthouses in Lower Manhattanwhere vigorous clashes have been taking place since the start of Donald Trump’s second presidency.
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US Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson issued a rare public rebuke of the nation’s highest courtdeclaring that it “can and should be better” following a series of controversial measures taken by its large conservative majority.
A catch-up? Here’s what happened Monday May 18.
