{"id":73772,"date":"2026-05-20T06:55:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T11:55:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/20\/first-thing-trump-critic-thomas-massie-defeated-in-kentucky-republican-house-primary\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T06:55:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T11:55:18","slug":"first-thing-trump-critic-thomas-massie-defeated-in-kentucky-republican-house-primary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/20\/first-thing-trump-critic-thomas-massie-defeated-in-kentucky-republican-house-primary\/","title":{"rendered":"First Thing: Trump critic Thomas Massie defeated in Kentucky Republican House primary"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Seven-term incumbent had spoken out against Iran war, government spending and Jeffrey Epstein files. Plus, Trump\u2019s \u2018board of peace\u2019 receives just $23m to rebuild Gaza<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/info\/2018\/sep\/17\/guardian-us-morning-briefing-sign-up-to-stay-informed\"><strong>Don\u2019t already get First Thing in your inbox? Sign up here<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Good morning.<\/p>\n<p>Voters in northern Kentucky on Tuesday <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2026\/may\/19\/kentucky-republican-primary-trump-massie\">rejected the incumbent congressman<\/a> Thomas Massie, who has been critical of Donald Trump, in favor of the president\u2019s hand-picked candidate.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Where else held primaries on Tuesday? <\/strong>Pennsylvania, Georgia, Alabama, Oregon and Idaho. Georgia also delivered a defeat to a prominent Trump critic, while a Trump ally won in Alabama, too.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How significant was Kentucky?<\/strong> Massie, a seven-term incumbent, has been an outspoken GOP opponent to Trump \u2013 repeatedly clashing with the president over Iran, government spending and the Jeffrey Epstein files. In response, Trump treated the primary as a personal vendetta.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What is at the top of the agenda?<\/strong> For Putin, it is likely to be reciprocal trade and investment, as Russia\u2019s economy continues to suffer over the cost of its war in Ukraine and related sanctions. China, Russia\u2019s largest trading partner, buys almost half of Moscow\u2019s oil exports.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What about foreign policy?<\/strong> Xi said the world was in danger of returning to the \u201claw of the jungle\u201d, adding that further hostilities in the Middle East were \u201cinadvisable\u201d, and calling for a ceasefire, state media reported.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2026\/may\/20\/first-thing-trump-critic-thomas-massie-defeated-in-kentucky-republican-house-primary\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Seven-term incumbent had spoken out against Iran war, government spending and Jeffrey Epstein files. Plus, Trump\u2019s \u2018board of peace\u2019 receives just $23m to rebuild Gaza Don\u2019t already get First Thing in your inbox? Sign up here Good morning. Voters in northern Kentucky on Tuesday rejected the incumbent congressman Thomas Massie, who has been critical of &#8230; <a title=\"First Thing: Trump critic Thomas Massie defeated in Kentucky Republican House primary\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/20\/first-thing-trump-critic-thomas-massie-defeated-in-kentucky-republican-house-primary\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about First Thing: Trump critic Thomas Massie defeated in Kentucky Republican House primary\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73772\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}