Tucker Carlson w/ Rep. Thomas Massie: Israel Lobbyists, the Cowards in Congress,

and Living off the Grid

Show more

U.S. Representative Thomas Massie entered Congress in November 2012 after serving as Lewis County Judge Executive. He represents Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District which stretches across Northern Kentucky and 280 miles of the Ohio River. www.thomasmassie.com

CHAPTERS
00:03:19
Where Does US Debt End?
00:10:32
Why Massie Voted 15 Times Against Funding Israel
00:14:53
AIPAC
00:42:25
Area 51
00:50:32
Massie's Relationship with Trump
01:05:58
Mike Johnson and the Deep State
01:18:29
Living off the Grid
READ THE TRANSCRIPT
Tucker [00:00:00] Do you know James Carville? Yes. So he got stuck at a roast one time when we worked together in New Orleans and had to take a leak. And it was on C-Span and on the tape, which I have seen, he's sitting there and he's kind of shuffling in a seat. All of a sudden he takes this water pitcher off the table and sort of takes a leak in the water pitcher. Oh, gosh.

Tucker [00:00:22] So what? What is that thing moving on your lapel? On your pocket? It's the debt.

Thomas Massie [00:00:28] It's my anxiety generator.

Tucker [00:00:31] So it's actually making me really anxious. Is that real time?

Thomas Massie [00:00:35] Yes. So it's sync to Treasury. It gets the debt to the penny once a day, and then it looks at what the debt was a year ago. And it comes up with rolling average debt per second. And it interpolates on weekends and holidays when the when the Treasury is not paying attention. I am.

Tucker [00:00:50] So I think you're the only one who wants to know.

Thomas Massie [00:00:52] Yes. And I want my colleagues to know. And it's great to wear this thing in an elevator with, like, Adam Schiff. And it's got nowhere to look. I once caught a female congresswoman staring at it, and I had to tell her my eyes were up here. She asked me why I didn't make a belt buckle out of it. I like no, I cannot.

Tucker [00:01:14] That's funny, that's very impressive. So what's the message of it?

Thomas Massie [00:01:19] The message is this is urgent. You know, it's hard to comprehend 14 digits of debt. But when you see the last five digits are moving so fast, you can't, you know, perceive them with your eyes, then you kind of understand. Whoa, we are problem here. I mean, it's a $100,000 a second, roughly. So imagine we had this catapult and we were launching, cyber trucks once a second into the ocean. That's how much debt we're taking on, continuously. Now, there is some good news. I noticed last month it went down, and I'm like, is my debt clock broken? Why is it going down? And then I realized, oh, it's April 15th. Everybody's paying their taxes. So the good news is we balanced it for a month. The bad news is April 15th is the only reason that happened. And now the debt's going back up again.

Tucker [00:02:09] So maybe it when it gets so big, it becomes something that you have to ignore. It's almost like if you fall off the wagon from drinking, you binge. If you fall off your New Year's diet, you just eat the pizza and. Right. Ben and Jerry's like, why do you care? You know, you sort of go crazy and it feels like we're there.

Thomas Massie [00:02:28] I am trying to make people feel very uncomfortable. I wear this on the floor of the house. Yeah. And, people, literally they'll press the button that says yay or nay. I've. I've argued we should relabel the voting button. Spend and don't spend. Yeah. The red and green. If you got that far and can't read the I say it's like stop and go. But I've seen people press the spend button, then turn around and look at my debt badge and ask, did it just go up? But I want them to realize there are consequences to what they're doing because they have been, I think, as you said, just ignoring it, putting it off to the side.

Tucker [00:03:00] It almost feels like, you know, it's so big that why even deal with it?

Thomas Massie [00:03:07] That's where we are. We kind of I think a lot of lawmakers are apathetic. They're like, well, we can't fix it. We're not going to fix it. We might as well indulge in it and I'll see what I can get.

Tucker [00:03:17] Well, exactly. Yeah. So where does it end?

Thomas Massie [00:03:21] Right now we're able to finance it because we're the world's reserve currency. Right. And when we print more money, which we're doing all the time, the fed is doing that. We're actually taxing the world. Everybody in the world who holds dollars gets like a 3% transaction fee. I say we're kind of like the credit card at the gas station. That gets 3% because you're using that credit card, right? Well, we get 3% from inflation we cause because the world is using our currency. And we can do that as long as they use our currency. But I think it's going to end at some point. They're going to quit using our dollars as reserve currency. I mean, I watched your interview with Putin, and one of the things, you know, whether you hate him or not, one of the things he said that is true is when we sanctioned him before we sanctioned Russia, 70% of their transactions were in U.S. dollars. And after the sanctions, it's less than 20% of their transactions are in US dollars. So what we're doing with all these sanctions, ironically, we're shooting ourselves in the foot every time we sanction a country and say, you can't use our currency to have a transaction, we're taking away our ability to charge that 3% for that transaction, because when we print 3% more dollars, we're just taking that money.

Tucker [00:04:36] And we're also sending a really clear signal, which is the dollar is not safe for you.

Thomas Massie [00:04:40] Right.

Tucker [00:04:41] That's the reserve currency, because it's a safe haven, because it's a stable country. It's the most stable country in the world. And we're not going to weaponize the dollar because that would be shooting ourselves. But suddenly we are.

Thomas Massie [00:04:51] And they'll tolerate like 3%, because if we're not backed by dollars, we're backed by aircraft carriers right now. So they'll sort of tolerate that 3%. But one of the things we recently did in Congress, we passed something called the Repo act, where we said we're just going to seize all of Russia's sovereign assets in the United States. Well, it turns out a lot of that is Treasury debt that they've agreed to buy so that they can hold dollars. And, here's the problem with that. When people see that we've seized their money that they gave us in exchange for these Treasury notes. Then other countries won't want to buy our debt. It's already happening, and the price of a long term bond that the Treasury puts out will go. It's already gone above 4%. It's like over 4.5%. They don't want to buy them anymore because, you know, we probably wouldn't seize Great Britain's assets. But I could see us seizing China's assets.

Tucker [00:05:44] Why would. I mean, that seems like theft. Just like take a country's assets when that belongs to the people of the country. Right? It's not just Putin.

Thomas Massie [00:05:51] It is theft. Like it's immoral. But even if you're okay with the immorality or immorality of it, it's shortsighted because eventually it'll catch up with us.

Tucker [00:06:02] So the any of the dumbos you work with understand that? Did you say, wait a second, if we do this, first of all, it's wrong. And if we're going to be a beacon of light and order and justice in the world, we should abide by those principles. But even if you don't care about the even if, as you said, you're immoral, like it's self-defeating to do this, do they understand that.

Thomas Massie [00:06:21] Some of them understand it, but it doesn't matter. They'll still vote for something like the repo act anyway, because it's popular. And with whom? With voters. They think, yeah, take Russia's money. Like, you know, let's take. Yeah, yeah, that'd be great. Let's take their money and use it in a war against them. It kind of feels good. But the problem is it's it's not moral in the long run, and it won't work in the long run, even if you were okay with it.

Tucker [00:06:46] Why are we in a war with Russia? I've never figured that out. Why Russia? It almost seems like they picked it off a like. Why would it be at war with Russia?

Thomas Massie [00:06:53] You know, what's interesting is we were in Afghanistan and I was tracking this. I talked to the special inspector general, John Sopko, about twice a year about the money that was being wasted in Afghanistan. It was about $50 billion a year. And I was glad to see us get out of Afghanistan. But kind of like feathering the clutch and shifting gears. We just went from second gear to third gear, because as soon as we quit spending $50 billion a year in Afghanistan, we started spending more than $50 billion a year in Ukraine. There's a military industrial complex. They call it the defense industrial base now in the United States, they say we have to. They're hungry and we got to keep them fed. And since we don't have any of our own wars and we don't have a reason to deplete our stocks and our, bombs and weapons that we have, we engage in these other things to keep them healthy and thriving. In fact, the Biden administration even made that argument in a letter to Congress for why we should do this supplemental foreign aid to Israel, to Ukraine, to Taiwan. They made the argument that the defense industrial base needs to be strong. And so we need to spend this money. And they gave a list of all the states in the United States that would benefit from this spending. And that's why they said we should do it.

Tucker [00:08:04] But if you're if I mean, look, everyone who lives here wants to be proud of the country. I always have been. And I'm proud of its people still. But if your main export is death. You know that. I mean, what?

Thomas Massie [00:08:18] It doesn't work in the long run. I mean, there is blowback. Wrong. We're engendering a lot of ill will. Look, ten years ago, even more recently than that, the only way we could get to the space station was on a Russian rocket. Right. And we, you know, we had a collaboration with them. We were able to get to space that way. And, now we don't I mean, it's and the bad thing that's, you know, like in the Middle East, Israel is creating tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of of people who are going to hate the United States. And, and, you know, they're going to hate Israel also, but because we're giving Israel the weapons to do what they're doing, we're creating a lot of people who hate us in this country.

Tucker [00:09:02] But we're told that it's essential to our national security to do that. Do you believe that?

Thomas Massie [00:09:07] No, I don't see that. I mean, one of the reasons, like I said, the Biden letter said, well, we need to keep our industrial base strong, so let's find all these weapons and send them over. But I don't see how it's strengthening our country. In fact, we're getting weaker by doing it.

Tucker [00:09:23] So you've been, I think, the lone Republican to dissent from a lot of these votes. Can you like how many votes have there been on this question? And where have you voted on them?

Thomas Massie [00:09:33] Oh, I've tried to keep track. There were something like 18 votes on Ukraine, and I voted against every one of them since like 2014 when we started, you know, saber rattling. We do these non-binding resolutions, whereas, you know, Russia's evolved, you know, whereas we support Democracy Now! Even then, we knew that Ukraine was just corrupt as hell. But, you.

Tucker [00:09:59] Know, like the most corrupt country in Europe by far.

Thomas Massie [00:10:02] Yeah. So I started, you know, there's been 16 or 20 votes on Ukraine. I've been against all of those just in the last seven months. There have been probably 30 votes on Israel in the Middle East, 3030. There were some very.

Tucker [00:10:17] Many votes on the US border during that time.

Thomas Massie [00:10:20] Maybe, maybe for show votes that, you know, where we know they're going nowhere in the Senate. Look, we haven't named three post offices like in the last month. We voted like 15 or 16 times on issues related to Israel. And, you know, I've been hit because I voted no on all of them.

Tucker [00:10:42] Why do you? Because you hate Israel? Or is there another reason?

Thomas Massie [00:10:44] No, because I'm against, sending our money overseas. I'm against starting another proxy war. I'm against sanctions because it's going to weaken the dollar. I'm for free speech. Like, all of these resolutions run afoul of those things, and that's why I can't.

Tucker [00:11:01] Vote for them. Tell us what the free speech part of it.

Thomas Massie [00:11:04] So recently, they brought a bill to Congress, and this was actually a binding bill, not a non-binding resolution like this was going to have the effect of law and people would get, you know, prosecuted if they, engaged in anti-Semitism on campuses. And the problem with this bill is they use some international definition of anti-Semitism on a website somewhere. My first question is, why don't you just put the definition in the bill? Why are you pointing to somebody's URL in a piece of legislation?

Tucker [00:11:34] You are the Congress, right? Right. We are right. The laws we.

Thomas Massie [00:11:36] Should be.

Thomas Massie [00:11:38] We're referencing a website some this not even, you know, hosted in the United States and so but so I went to this website and it's got a, you know, fairly short definition, but it's also got examples of things that would be considered anti-Semitism. And some of these are actually passages in the New Testament, if you will, would be banned by this international definition of anti-Semitism. For instance, saying that, Jews kill Jesus, which is, you know, in the Bible, he was he was not welcome among his own people. Okay. And so that would be anti-Semitism. And if you engaged in that on campus or just offered that as a thought, let's say in a classroom, you would be anti-Semitic and you would run afoul of the Department of Education and some federal laws. And, you know, there were other examples in there that were hard to believe. For instance, comparing the policies of Israel to to the Nazi regime would be anti-Semitic. But the question is, what if their what if their policies ever became the same? Is this a static definition?

Tucker [00:12:47] Or what if we just have different opinions and your opinion is now a crime.

Thomas Massie [00:12:51] Right? I mean, even if it's abhorrent, even.

Tucker [00:12:54] If it's wrong and stupid, yeah.

Thomas Massie [00:12:56] It's still legal. It should be.

Tucker [00:12:59] You may have come to the obvious conclusion that the real debate is not between Republican and Democrat or socialist and capitalist. Right left. The real battles between people who are lying on purpose and people who are trying to tell you the truth, it's. In good and evil. It's between honesty and falsehood, and we hope we are on the former side. That's why we created this network, the Tucker Carlson Network, and we invite you to subscribe to it. You go to TuckerCarlson.com/podcast. Our entire archive. Is there a lot of behind the scenes footage of what actually happens in this barn? When only an iPhone is running? Tucker carlson.com/podcast. You will not regret it. So your colleagues, I think it passed, right?

Thomas Massie [00:13:45] Oh, yeah. He passed with flying colors. But at least a few people woke up to this. I mean.

Tucker [00:13:51] They show, but the members of Congress who, you know, go to church on Sunday who've just voted to ban the New Testament on campus, make it illegal to quote from the New Testament, the Christian Bible, like, how did they square that?

Thomas Massie [00:14:06] I think their voters let them get away with it. I mean, they don't have to square it unless they are.

Tucker [00:14:11] Well, why would they want to do something like that?

Thomas Massie [00:14:14] Because there's a lot of pressure in Congress to vote for these things. And our Republican leadership thinks they're so smart. You know, we're in an election year, and they want to bring up issues. They want to put them, in front of Congress and make us vote on them, whether they're going anywhere in the Senate or not. And they want to split the Democrats. They want to show that Republicans are united and then split the Democrats. That's one of the reasons they do it. Another reason they do it is there's a foreign interest group called a pack that's, you know, got the ear of this current speaker and demanded 16 votes in April on on Israel or the Middle East. We haven't had 16 votes in April on the United States in Congress.

Tucker [00:14:54] So what's a pack?

Thomas Massie [00:14:55] A pack is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. And, they didn't start out as a pack in the sense of a political action committee, but now they have a political action committee. Ostensibly, it's a group of Americans who lobby on behalf of Israel. They're for anything Israel. And they're very effective lobbying group. They get in there, they, they try to get me to write a white paper as a candidate, for instance, for Congress. They almost get.

Tucker [00:15:28] On.

Thomas Massie [00:15:29] On what? On Israel like. And I wouldn't do it. And they said, well, and I'm like, I don't do homework for lobbyists, right? I'm like, I didn't like I didn't like writing term papers at college. I'm not writing one for you. And they said, oh, we'll here just copy Rand Paul's term paper and put your name on it. We'll accept that. And I'm like, no, I'm still not cribbing somebody else's homework to do homework. I'm not turning in my homework for you and. I you're laughing. But you know what? I bet, I may be the only Republican in Congress who hasn't done homework for a pack, and it's just what it is. It's conditioning. They want you to do something very simple and benign. And, you know, for them, they don't really they don't really grade your term paper. They just want to know that you'll do something for them. And if you'll do something for them as a candidate, you're more likely to do something for them as as a congressman when you get in there. So this my rift started out in 2012 when I refused to turn in. And, Israel, how.

Tucker [00:16:33] Did respond to that?

Thomas Massie [00:16:35] Well, they kind of got in my race a little too late there in the beginning. And because it was hard to tell that I was actually going to win. And when they saw I was going to win, that's when they tried to get me to do the term paper. They didn't have a political action committee at the time. They couldn't spend hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars against me at that time. It was just sort of like a whisper campaign to try to, hey, don't vote for him, blah, blah, blah.

Tucker [00:17:01] Why?

Thomas Massie [00:17:03] Because at that point, they sensed I wouldn't do what they wanted when I.

Tucker [00:17:06] What did they whisper against you? What were they saying about you?

Thomas Massie [00:17:09] Well, they would do it through, for instance, churches, evangelical churches. They've got an organization called Christians United for Israel, which sort of co-opted evangelicals. People think it's a grassroots movement in Kentucky. It's actually a top down movement from a PAC, so that people who aren't even Jewish will feel like they've got to support Israel. You know, no matter what. And even if it's a secular state that funds abortions, they they are just sort of forget that part. And we've got to fund Israel. So they have network. So it's more than just about the money.

Tucker [00:17:45] So you get elected, despite their efforts. And then what happens? Do you talk to them after that?

Thomas Massie [00:17:52] And by the way, let me just put a little footnote here. I'm not against Israel. I've never voted to sanction Israel. I've never said anything particularly, you know, critical of Israel. You know, other than, for instance, right now they're bombing. They've killed 1% of the civilian population in Gaza. That's concerning to me. But, to what do they do now?

Tucker [00:18:16] You get elected 2012. Do you hear from them again?

Thomas Massie [00:18:20] I vote my conscience, which they won't tolerate. So they ran with their 501 C4 before they had a superPAC. They they were running educational advocacy ads against me saying that, you know, I'm bad on Israel. They didn't say don't vote for. And they just said he's he's a bad guy. And so I said, all right, well, you're not welcome in my office anymore because for years I, I invited them into my office. Let's talk this through. Let me explain to you. I'm a libertarian leaning Republican. I don't vote for foreign aid for anybody. So don't be offended when I don't vote for your foreign aid. I don't vote for wars anywhere. So don't be offended if I tell you that I'm for free speech, even if it's abhorrent. And, you know, we used to talk, but now they're banned from my office. The situation went from bad to worse. This election cycle, they spent $400,000 against me. $90,000 last fall, running TV ads in my district and Facebook ads and whatnot. Trying to equate me with the squad. And then, this most recently, in fact, as I'm speaking to you today, even though my election is over, there's still running hundreds of thousand dollars of negative ads.

Tucker [00:19:32] It's a little weird, though, because, as you said, you're probably the only Republican in the House who hasn't done homework for them, who isn't on their side. And but and that's okay. I mean, you can have, you know, you're a libertarian oriented Republican from northern Kentucky. You're probably not going to single handedly determine our foreign policy. So you I think you should, but you don't. You and you're not going to. So why do they care? Why don't just let Thomas Massie beat Thomas Massie in Northern Kentucky? Like, why? Why the need to crush you?

Thomas Massie [00:20:02] I don't know, I think it's they don't want one horse out of the barn. If one person starts speaking the truth, they're afraid it could be contagious. Perhaps. Or it's like a new car. They go to Mike Johnson, and they say, we want a Cadillac Escalade, with pearl white paint. And here's, you know, here's the rims we want. And my Johnson puts that bill on the floor. It passes with a unanimous vote, except for one guy votes no. And I think they feel like it's a scratch on their car. They wanted a brand new car, and it got scratched by this guy named Massie. They were going to drive it over to the Senate and ask for unanimous consent. But now the senators are saying, wait, what? This wasn't unanimous in the House. Why should we do it unanimously in the Senate? And it starts raising questions. And I think that's why they get mad.

Tucker [00:20:49] What I find interesting is it's not just, did they disagree with your views, which they do. And I think they have an absolute right to disagree with anybody's views. We all do. But they've called you a bigot and they call you an anti-Semite and say you're a hater and try to destroy your character. That seems like a very different level of response to.

Thomas Massie [00:21:10] Me, right? They there's no need to do that. I'm not anti-Semitic. I don't have an anti-Semitic hair in my head. Okay. It's. I mean, I don't like a pack anymore. Like, I used to be neutral toward a pack. Right? But I have no antagonistic feelings toward Jewish people. I am the last thing. I think I'm probably the least xenophobic person in Congress. I mean, these are the guys that my colleagues want to sanction. Everybody, you know, declare them terrorist states, you know, come up with these strongly worded resolutions. I don't vote for any of that crap. Right.

Thomas Massie [00:21:47] Unless somebody does harm to me, I'm not going to call them anything. So I get called names just for staying out of all of this political posturing.

Tucker [00:21:54] That's disgusting, though, isn't it?

Thomas Massie [00:21:57] You know, I guess Trump's character.

Tucker [00:21:59] They can disagree with your views, but but to call you, like, the worst thing you can be in America. Like that's disgusting.

Thomas Massie [00:22:06] You know. Yeah. I have a thick skin. And and here's the good news, Tucker. My my constituents aren't falling for it. Two weeks ago, I just had a primary and got 76% of the vote with a pack running hundreds of thousand dollars of ads. So it's it's not working against me. I, I think it's shortsighted, on their, you know, on their side to do this. They're just burning money, but they're trying to make an example of me.

Tucker [00:22:33] But they're also exposing their weakness.

Thomas Massie [00:22:36] I think they are. I think they've exposed a real weakness here. And, you know, it used to be just me voting against some of these resolutions, but recently where they tried to ban passages in the New Testament, I think we got like almost two dozen Republicans who said, wait, hold on.

Tucker [00:22:51] There is a question. No, there's a fundamental question. So the Biden administration has put a bunch of people in jail for violating something called Fera, the Foreign Agent Registration Act, 1936-ish. It's been on the books for, you know, 90 years. And it's never been enforced ever until recently until really the Trump era and Biden era. So but the law requires people who lobby on behalf of foreign governments to register. Was that simple? And this is the largest lobby in the United most effective lobby in United States on behalf of a foreign government. Are they registered with Fara?

Thomas Massie [00:23:23] They are not, but they should be.

Tucker [00:23:25] Well, how can that how can that be? How can they put Paul Manafort in jail, which they did on a Fara violation and a bunch of other people in jail on fair violations. But the largest and most effective and most feared foreign lobby working for a foreign government doesn't have to register under the law. That's insane.

Thomas Massie [00:23:42] Oh, man, don't make me take their side. But I'll explain as best as I can what they're arguing me.

Tucker [00:23:48] I mean, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you should take their side, I don't know.

Thomas Massie [00:23:50] Well, I'm going to agree with you at a second, but let me at least offer what I think is their argument. They would say we are Americans. You know, the members of a pack are Americans, and they have the right to free speech.

Tucker [00:24:05] Paul Manafort is an American, right?

Thomas Massie [00:24:07] Right. Yeah. So there's the good rebuttal is Fara applies not to foreigners, to foreign agents of foreign principles, agents of foreign.

Tucker [00:24:16] Americans lobbying on behalf of foreign government.

Thomas Massie [00:24:19] So this is AIPAC is exactly what Fara is meant for now, they would say, and we have a First Amendment right. Okay. Well, I, I agree with you there. But we also have election laws and to the it's disclosure. Right. They're not Fara doesn't say you can't say Thomas Massey's, you know, an ignorant hillbilly. You're allowed to say that if you want to, but we just want to check where your money's coming from. Tell us where it's coming from, what you're spending it on, and if you are lobbying on behalf of a foreign country. So they should be. Now to your point, they should be registered with Fara. This is what Fara is, is where there's gray area where it's an American representing a foreign country. Let's let's look and see if you're getting any money from that foreign country. Are you a dual citizen with that foreign country? Are you being directed by, for instance, is Netanyahu speaking to your group, advising you on your next move? Those are you getting money from the military industrial complex, like because to understand AIPAC, I think it's easiest to model them as a, military industrial lobby. Like their biggest thing is they want more equipment, more military equipment from the United States going to Israel. In fact, when they used to be allowed in my office, the thing the argument they would make is, oh, we're just stimulating the US military industrial complex because every single penny of the 3.8 billion that they nominally get now they're getting way more than that. But that Israel normally gets goes to US military contractors. Now, that didn't make me warm and fuzzy, okay. But that is their argument. And if you notice what they advocate for, I think sometimes they advocate for things that even Israelis wouldn't advocate for. I believe that like they would, I think, be okay with a war with Iran, like an all out, you know, apocalyptic war with Iran, whereas there are people in Israel say, whoa, hold on a second. We we'd rather not have a war with Iran. But AIPAC does things that lead us in that direction. And so they're kind of like what the NRA is to gun owners a pack is to Israel or what the Farm Bureau is to farmers. A pack is to Israel and.

Tucker [00:26:38] Represents a faction.

Thomas Massie [00:26:40] Right? They represent a faction, but usually a corporate faction that, and they're using the imprimatur of grass roots that they've diluted or confused into bullying congressmen. And the NRA does that and Farm Bureau does that. I'm picking on some, you know, other right wing groups here.

Tucker [00:26:59] But for for sure. And by the way, I think there probably a lot of things that AIPCAC is for that I'm for and Farm Bureau NRA same thing. It's I just the idea of a foreign government playing in our political campaigns openly.

Thomas Massie [00:27:14] Openly in that, they are showing you they're doing it. But opaquely in that you can't track it because they're not registered.

Tucker [00:27:24] Is there any other Republican who has your views on this?

Thomas Massie [00:27:28] Why have Republicans, who come to me on the floor and say, I wish I could vote with you today. Yours is the right vote, but I would just take too much flak back home. And I have Republicans who come to me and say, that's wrong. What AIPAC is doing to you let me talk to my AIPAC person, by the way. Everybody by me has an AIPAC person.

Tucker [00:27:52] What's that mean? An AIPAC person? It's like.

Thomas Massie [00:27:53] You're babysitter. You're AIPAC babysitter who, is always talking to you for a pack. They're probably a constituent in your district, but they are, you know, firmly embedded in a pack.

Tucker [00:28:07] And every member has something like this.

Thomas Massie [00:28:10] Every. I don't know how it works on the Democrat side. But that's how it works on the Republican side. And when they and when they come to DC, you go have lunch with them and they've got your cell number and you have conversations with them. So I've had like.

Tucker [00:28:26] That's absolutely crazy.

Thomas Massie [00:28:27] I've had four members of Congress say, I'll talk to my a pack person. And like that's clearly what we call them, my bad guy. I'll talk to my eight pack guide, see if I can get them to, you know, dial those ads back.

Tucker [00:28:40] Why, if I never heard this before?

Thomas Massie [00:28:43] It doesn't benefit anybody. Why would they want to tell their constituents that they've basically got a buddy system with somebody who's representing a foreign country? It doesn't benefit the congressman for people to know that. So they're not going to tell you that it's it's.

Tucker [00:29:00] Have you seen any other country do anything like this like Russia? Russia obviously determines the outcome of our elections. We keep hearing that. Does anyone have a Putin guy that they talk to?

Thomas Massie [00:29:11] Not only do they not have a Putin guy. They don't they they don't have a Britain guy. They don't have an Australian guy. They, you know, they don't have a Germany dude. Like it's the only country that does this that has somebody like uniform. I guarantee there's some spreadsheet at iPAC where, where, you know, the, the pack dude is who's matched up with the congressman is there and then all the congressman's votes on the issue. Oh. Has the congressman been to Israel. They they pay for trips for congressmen and their spouses to go to Israel. I may be I mean, I don't I'm not the only Republican who hasn't taken the pack trip to Israel, but I'm probably one of a dozen that hasn't taken that trip, and the other ones just haven't got around to it.

Tucker [00:30:01] What's the trip like? You know.

Thomas Massie [00:30:03] It's kind of like, I think vacationing. You go see the wall, you go see the, you know, the sights, things like that.

Tucker [00:30:12] It's such a great. I must say, it's such a great country. Jerusalem, especially, is just such a wonderful place that that's got to have a big effect.

Thomas Massie [00:30:20] You go, like, swim in the Dead Sea. Yeah. Yeah, I've done that.

Tucker [00:30:23] Not on any pack trip, but I would recommend it. Danny, are you sure.

Tucker [00:30:27] That's never paid for myself? No, I mean, it's just funny. I mean, I am, like, a legit lover of Israel. Of the place is real. I like the people, and I love the food and, like, the whole thing is so great. Look.

Thomas Massie [00:30:39] They.

Tucker [00:30:39] But that's distinct from the government of Israel, which is the foreign government.

Thomas Massie [00:30:42] My sense is the people are very entrepreneurial.

Thomas Massie [00:30:47] That only they're, publicly minded. You know, they care about their country, that that they're generally good people. Right.

Tucker [00:30:56] That's certainly been my experience in trips there, for sure. It's great. It's just that's I mean, I think it's probably one of my favorite, maybe my all time favorite place to go, with my family. But that's just a completely different thing from taking orders from its government. Right? I mean, right.

Thomas Massie [00:31:13] Now, though, again, they'll say it's these are American citizens who are, you know, coordinating.

Tucker [00:31:18] All this just again, this is almost a rhetorical question, but in your whatever, 12, 14 years in Congress, 12 years, have you ever seen any indication that Russia is influencing election outcomes or candidates or members.

Thomas Massie [00:31:32] Not in not in a, quiet way like, you know, they'll put out statements Russia obviously has. It's Russia today.

Tucker [00:31:43] Yeah, I think it's been banned.

Thomas Massie [00:31:44] But yeah. Yeah, I like, you know, Kentucky Fried Chicken, of which I'm a big fan being from Kentucky. Right. They realized that fried was became sort of a pejorative. And yeah, they want to eat fried food. So they changed the name to KFC. So you don't have to say fried. Okay. Russia Today changed your name to R.T. so you don't have to say Russia. But there's a strong analogy there. But I mean, there are efforts. You'd be, a fool to think that they're not trying to influence things here, just like we are there. We you know, we have, what is it? Radio Free Europe and Voice of America. We have. I mean, we spend $1 billion. Oh, well, over $1 billion on the foreign propaganda that's out in the open that we know about. Right. So there are foreigners spending money on propaganda over here as well. I don't want to say they're not involved, but people don't say, oh, I need to go talk to my Russia guy.

Tucker [00:32:37] But you've never, like, in the cloak room or on the floor or at dinner. You've never heard another Republican member say, I'd love to vote for this, but Putin doesn't want me to.

Tucker [00:32:48] What about China?

Thomas Massie [00:32:50] No, there's. I mean, unless it's a spy sleeping with a Democrat.

Thomas Massie [00:32:55] There's some of that going.

Tucker [00:32:56] On. Yeah, but that's not that's not in public. So how do you think? It's it's just interesting because you're you're clearly not a bigot. I think it's very obvious. And they've called you one and they've spent, you know, millions of dollars against you over the years and it has had no effect. You get reelected in the primary in the 70s. So, like, why are they still spending against you in, in your state statewide? And can you just continue to serve in Congress while disobeying?

Thomas Massie [00:33:25] Well, they say that they don't want me to run statewide. They're worried that I'll run for McConnell's seat. And so they're trying to send me a message. That's what they would tell you.

Tucker [00:33:37] But what? Why?

Thomas Massie [00:33:39] I don't know what the message is.

Tucker [00:33:40] Maybe it's a little presumptuous to decide.

Thomas Massie [00:33:42] I guess I've never said that I'm running for the Senate. Right? Yeah, I I'm pretty much disinterested in it, personally and publicly. But just in case they're running ads. Statewide. Now, mind you, there are six congressional districts in Kentucky, and I only represent one of them. They're running the ads in all six congressional districts. Just in case.

Tucker [00:34:04] Amazing. What do you think of Mitch McConnell after all these years of being in the delegation with him?

Thomas Massie [00:34:10] He's a shrewd guy. Yeah. He's quick. He is. Let me let me give you an example of how quick he is. So we had a congressman, Jamie Comer, who's now chair of the oversight committee. He got elected in a special election, which means you come in in the middle of a term and you have to boot up with no staff. And so it's kind of, you know, disorienting. So Mitch McConnell had a, had an event for Jamie Comer on his first day in Congress. It was in a townhouse with, like, 200 lobbyists. By the way, I'm never going to get invited to one of these now that I tell you the story. It's. So Jamie's there, and McConnell goes, I believe Jamie took his first vote tonight. And I wasn't supposed to speak, but I interrupted Senator McConnell, who was at the time the majority leader, and I said, yes. Senator McConnell, he did take his first vote, and I know he has no staff. So I advised, Jamie, when you walk into the chamber, look at how I vote, and then vote the other way and you'll be just fine. And every, you know, 200 lobbyists thought it was a pretty good joke. And they were laughing. And as the laughter died down, McConnell goes wild. Thomas, I'm glad you and I are giving Jamie the same advice. And then the place, just the walls are. Oh.

Tucker [00:35:30] He's good. He's not that funny.

Thomas Massie [00:35:32] So. But I think it's time for new leadership in the Senate. I mean, he's obviously it's way past time, and this is just a fact. I'll say it. I'll get in trouble for saying it. You know, I'm in races in Kentucky, so we poll things in case, you know, we poll Trump's popularity. We hold the senator's popularity in case they get involved in your race. Yeah. In Senator McConnell's favorability are lower among Republican primary voters than our Democrat governors. Favourability.

Tucker [00:36:02] Seriously? Yes, lower than Governor Beshear.

Thomas Massie [00:36:04] Yeah. This year, around 40% among Republican primary voters. And McConnell's around 30%.

Tucker [00:36:10] Well-deserved, well-deserved. So, I'm glad to hear that, because I like Kentucky, and I think it's it's voters are sensible. What do you think accounts for in the final months and years of his public career, his public statements that all that matters is Ukraine.

Thomas Massie [00:36:29] Now, what is that? I have no idea. By the way, I have so many fights in the house that I try to avoid every fight in the Senate that I can, and you're trying to draw me in, and I love you. And I'll indulge these questions. But, for 12 years, my strategy has been pick my fights in the house. Smart. Let let Rand Paul and Mike Lee and Ted Cruz and, you know, JD Vance. Rick Scott, let those guys figure out the Senate because I haven't been able to fix a house, so I'm damn sure not going to be able to fix the Senate.

Tucker [00:37:00] But it's just interesting. Okay. Taking McConnell out of it. Yeah. And even the Senate out of it. But some of the committee chairmen in the House, for example, seem like Ukraine is all that matters to them. And there's of course, the question, as you noted, of donations from Lockheed, etc., the military industrial complex. But it it almost seems messianic to me. It seems heartfelt to me. It seems sincere that they think that this is all that matters, winning this war against Russia. What do you have any sense of why they feel that way?

Thomas Massie [00:37:30] I don't, and, the hardest ones to understand are people like Mike Johnson, who used to be against the, you know, sending more money to Ukraine. But now that he's the speaker, he's like you said, he seems strongly convicted that, we should be sending money there.

Tucker [00:37:48] Almost like it's a religious calling or something. I mean, it seems totally real to me. It doesn't seem fake.

Thomas Massie [00:37:53] I've heard the argument. I think it's immoral, but I've heard the argument that, oh, this is a great deal. We just spend money and we're grinding up Russia's, capacity to wage war. Particularly. Lots of Russians are dying. And so we're told that's that's a good thing. You know, for since the Cold War began, we've been taught that it would be good for Russia to be diminished. But they've go so so far as to, say, Russians dying, you know, to the tune of 300,000 casualties, they say, is just such a great thing that we need to keep this, this thing going. And my answer to that is, why don't you tell us the Ukrainian casualties, they you know, I have been in classified settings with the CIA, the secretary of state, Secretary of defense, not not their assistance, but those people in the room, and they're bragging about how many Russians have died and been injured. And I ask them how. I mean, Ukrainians have died and been injured and they claimed they didn't know. I mean, that's just a flat out lie. And they said they would get back to me and they've never gotten back to me. Like, not only is Americans being fed propaganda about this war, Congress is being fed propaganda by our State Department and our Secretary of Defense and our intelligence agencies. And you can just ask a few questions in these classified hearings. If nothing else, my colleagues should be convicted of a lack of curiosity. Like they sit there and they believe everything they're told, because these are supposed to be the authorities and they know things we don't. But you can expose them with 2 or 3 questions like how many Ukrainians have died? And they refuse to answer.

Tucker [00:39:35] I've asked that very same question, to Mike Johnson, actually, directly. But I've also asked him and a number of committee chairmen just in personal conversations. Do you like, do you believe your Intel briefings? Because only a child would believe an Intel briefing. Take it at face value. There may be truth in there, right? May be largely true, but you're being spun, you're being manipulated. And if you don't know that, then you're a moron. But they seem to believe them.

Thomas Massie [00:40:02] They, because they have no other reference. And then here's what else happens. Tucker. When you go into a classified setting, like a skiff, you lock up your phone, you take off your Fitbit, you take every electronic device. They even make me take off my dad badge. What? Yeah, I know.

Tucker [00:40:19] Do you feel naked?

Thomas Massie [00:40:23] I do feel naked if I'm not wearing this. I've been wearing it for a year. Every day of my life. Okay. But they make you. They strip you of every outside reference. Okay. And now your staff is not allowed in that meeting either. Remember, Congressman, our primary roles are like raising money now, being friendly to constituents, you know, putting on a good face, campaigning. And then then, you know, once a day or maybe twice a day, we roll in there and press the vote buttons based on what staff advises you. Well, when you go into a skiff, you don't have your smart phone, so you're not very smart. They start using acronyms that you don't know. Remember what the acronym stands for. You can't just like okay, what are what's the Idgaf BS? I don't know man. I must be stupid like, but you know, if you were in a regular setting, you just pull your phone out and like, oh, okay, that's what that is. I know what that is. And then you also can't ask your staff a question while you're in that setting. You know, we have legislative staffers who handle certain specific area, of course, you can't bring them in. And then when you go back to the office, you can't tell them what you heard. So it's really quite an experience. It's sort of it's, you know, it's a deprivation experience of any outside reference.

Tucker [00:41:42] So it's designed to pretty Stockholm syndrome, it sounds like.

Thomas Massie [00:41:45] Yes. And when you get in there, they really don't give you classified information. I say there's three levels of classification in the skiff. There's a Facebook level, there's a Twitter level and there's New York Times level like and the New York Times level is the highest level of classification. I mean, it's you're getting to the good stuff when they're telling you what's in the New York Times that week.

Tucker [00:42:07] Have you ever heard anything you thought was genuinely secret?

Thomas Massie [00:42:11] Occasionally. Just a few times. And obviously I can't say what that is, but they slip up and commit candor occasionally in there and you're like, whoa, I didn't know that. You know, nothing like what's at area 51, right? But occasionally years.

Tucker [00:42:25] Like, what do people think is that area 51, by the way?

Thomas Massie [00:42:28] I don't know, I'm not a.

Tucker [00:42:29] You but you guys passed this law, the UAP Disclosure Act of 2023, and then they never disclosed anything. What is that?

Thomas Massie [00:42:37] Not my area of expertise. Yes. Don't know.

Tucker [00:42:40] But do members of Congress ever say, wait a second, were a co-equal branch of the legislative branch? We have as much power as the president collectively. And you can't keep this stuff secret from us. You know how to do that.

Thomas Massie [00:42:50] But, see, like, I have this in hearings all the time. They'll say like ATF director, this just this happened just last week. Darrell Bock or I'll ask Merrick Garland something, or Christopher Wray, like, I've asked all them this and they give you the same answer. It's longstanding DOJ policy not to comment on on ongoing investigations. And you know what? That's fine to tell a reporter, but you can't tell the branch of government that created you that that funded you. You can't tell them that. That's why the omnibus was so disappointing to me, is the only way these three letter agencies are going to come to heel is if we cut their funding in some specific area. I've joked we could just withhold one toner cartridge for one printer at the FBI, and they would come over with a whole binder full of information. But we can't even bring ourselves to deprive them of a toner cartridge. So we put $200 million for new FBI building in the omnibus bill. And, you know, to their credit, Jim Jordan and Jamie Comber didn't vote for that in their chairmen of committees, but they are completely frustrated with the fact that the FBI just thumps their nose.

Tucker [00:44:01] So is that the speaker who allowed that to happen?

Thomas Massie [00:44:03] Oh, he absolutely allowed it to happen.

Tucker [00:44:05] So to what extent are members of Congress Committee chairman, leadership controlled by blackmail?

Thomas Massie [00:44:13] I really don't think there's much blackmail. Like if there is, I'm not aware of it. I have people coming up to me. You know, I travel around the country to Texas and, you know, other states and speak to groups, food freedom groups, you know, First Amendment, Second Amendment groups. And they come to me and they say, why did my congressman sell out? Like, I'll just you Bob was such a great guy, and I campaigned for him. I made phone calls, I put up signs, and then we sent Bob to Congress, and he he votes the wrong way every time. Why is it? What do they have his kids in a basement somewhere? Does he have kitty porn on him? Like, what is it? Why did Bob go bad? Him in the eye and say. But I'm just wanted to be liked. Yeah. Like there is a gene inside of us. Congressman, I think they if you look for a common denominator, they they like people and they want to be liked for the most part. And if and they're likable, if they're not likable, it's hard to get elected. Okay. So this self selects for likable people. But likable people want to be liked. And they're not surrounded by their wives and children who usually give them plenty of like right when they're in DC, it's like, who am I going to go to dinner with tonight? Well, I want to eat food with somebody that likes me, right? So if you're not going to eat alone and you have to be liked, and you generally have to be like to get elected to Congress, you you, better be liked. And, and so it's literally it's almost like kindergarten when somebody says, I won't be your friend anymore if you don't, you know, give me your lunch. Congressmen fall for that. You know, they're in their 30s, 4050s, and they fall for that.

Tucker [00:45:59] How do you have it's interesting. You like people I've asked around. You don't seem to have any real enemies in the Congress. I don't even think iPAC hates you. They just want you to obey. But it's not. It doesn't seem personal, right? You don't seem to be at personal war with anybody. That's my take on.

Thomas Massie [00:46:15] I have a mutation.

Tucker [00:46:17] So you like people? Okay, well, obviously you're not some weird artist who doesn't care about other people. You like other people? I love people, I can tell and your colleagues say that, but you also don't feel like you need to fit in, right? Same time. Like, what is that?

Thomas Massie [00:46:33] It's a mutation that chromosome the like the liking people and likability. The chromosome usually has another gene on it right next to it, which is the need to be liked. And I'm missing the need to be like Gene.

Tucker [00:46:47] Like, I don't know, Harvard.

Thomas Massie [00:46:49] Like I can go like on the CARES act. Okay, this was under President Trump the 11th day to slow the spread of 15. Right. They said we're going to pass a $2.2 trillion package, and you all just stay home. It's dangerous. Like, we'll just do it by unanimous consent. And it was 11 p.m.. I'm sitting in my living room and they send us this message and I'm like, WTF? Like this is this. This is twice the size of the omnibus bill, right? This is going to cause massive inflation. The policies in it are going to cause shortages. And if we don't show up to vote, we're sending a message to all 50 states that you don't have to show up to vote in this election. So it was like, we I got to do it. I got my car and I drove eight hours. I slept one hour and a rest stop because I knew I had to be there by 9 a.m.. And this was March 27th, 2020. Actually, the 25th is the day I got to Congress to stop it. And, I got there and I said, it's not going by unanimous consent. And I was literally sleeping in my wife's SUV eating those, peanut butter filled pretzels. Like, I had a big jug of. Those are good. Yeah. For my three days of nourishment in an SUV, eating that big tub of pretzels with peanut butter in the middle. Like waiting. Just waiting for them to try to call it in session and sneak. This bill passed and they're like, shit, man, he's going to do it. So they they loaded up congressmen. You know, the airports are shut down for the most part. There were some planes coming from California. They only had two passengers and they were both congressmen. So they they roll them all back to Congress. It takes them two days to assemble a quorum because I was like, they went to the parliamentarian and they're like, is there any way around this? And he's like, nope, Marcy's right. The Constitution requires a quorum if one, you know, he didn't call me an asshole. But if one asshole just shows up the objects and says, there's no quorum here. So they brought every back, I go to the floor. Actually got a everybody was hating me, I mean, everybody did. You know what it's like to be in a room of 434 people and they're all staring at you like they're. I had maybe ten friends who were, like, looking at me like, that guy is dead. Like we've never seen Harry carry like this. They were worried for me, but the rest of them hated me. There. They would come up to me and say, I live with my mother. And when I go back. Home. You're going to cause me to take Covid two or she's going to die. And I'm blaming you for this. And I said.

Tucker [00:49:20] That to your face. Yeah.

Thomas Massie [00:49:21] Oh, yeah. Well, like. No, it wasn't just one. It was like when he was done, there was a line of people. And they're all coming to hate on me. And, I was like, but what about the guy that's going to the grocery store and bagging your groceries and carrying him out to the car? Does he live with his mother, too? Like, what about the trucker who's out there driving and interacting with people in order to get the goods to where you need to be? What about the nurse who's going to work every single day taking care of people? Is she going to kill her parents? Like, why are you special? I think you're supposed to. You know, they they carved a hole in the side of a mountain in West Virginia for us in the case of emergency. Yes. Yep. Well, the sad but but realistic thing is, now they don't have a place for us. We're so useless. Right? It's like, well, here's where we were going to keep them if shit hit the fan. But now we we've realized they're like useless. We can declare war without them in the event of a nuclear strike. So, you know, they're just a rounding error. The three branches we can operate with two. Yes, I've noticed. So anyways, these are the kind of people who are supposed to respond in emergency, and they all wanted to stay home. They all hated me for for recognize our constitutional duty. And and Trump called me three times on the floor of the House while I was getting ready to make the motion to object, and I let it go to voicemail three times in a row, which is probably not good. But I couldn't leave the microphone because I was asking people, would you make this motion if I go to the restroom and they're like, oh no, oh no.

Tucker [00:50:51] I mean.

Thomas Massie [00:50:52] So I, I sat there, I finally they yielded time for debate. I go off the floor and called the white House switchboard back and, and, you know, I didn't have his number. I just like, if you want a tour of the white House, you call the number I called, right? And the intern is like, oh, is this Congressman Massie? I'm putting you through Trump right now. And so he comes, I guess, and community like you've never seen never in your life before. Have you seen the way in which I can meet you? I'm more popular than you in Kentucky and you know it and back in your primary period and.

Tucker [00:51:27] You're gonna lose.

Thomas Massie [00:51:31] And I'm like, oh, crap, I probably will lose. I mean, he had 95% popularity among my Republican electorate who I had to face in about eight weeks in my primary. And I had a well-funded opponent. And here now is Trump was mad at me, so he screamed at me for 2 or 3 minutes. I kept trying to talk and he just screamed louder. Then he repeated at all he gets no. This is the second time you've done something like this, and he took me out of it before, but not this time. And like, the thing is, like I he said he thought it was the second time I'd done that like eight times since.

Thomas Massie [00:52:16] The time before that was on war with Iran. The Democrats were in the majority. And, you know, he had just vaporized Soleimani. Yeah. And we were worried that he would attack mainland Iran without a vote of Congress. So the Democrats actually in sincerely, there aren't too many anti-war Democrats left. I've noticed. But they realized this was a chance to make a statement. So they put a bill on the floor saying, Trump, you can't go to war with Iran without a vote of Congress, which is constitutionally obvious. So I had to vote for it. But I was only one of three Republicans to do it. So he remembered that time. But he didn't remember the fake Obamacare repeal and some of the other things that, I was kind of a, you know, the turd in the punch bowl on.

Tucker [00:52:57] Did did it change your views at all?

Thomas Massie [00:53:01] No. The president tweeted that I was a third rate grand stander and that this is before I got back to my seat.

Thomas Massie [00:53:10] I got back from the Speaker's Lobby to go to my seat to get ready to make the motion. And, one of the Congress was like, you better look at your phone, Massie. Look at your Twitter, and I turn it on. He's like tweeting hard and heavy against me. He said I should be thrown out of the party. And then he the best one. He. I'm chairman of the Second Amendment caucus. So his third tweet was he's terrible on guns.

Thomas Massie [00:53:34] Have you seen my Christmas card picture?

Tucker [00:53:37] What's your Christmas card picture?

Thomas Massie [00:53:39] Well, it's a little infamous.

Tucker [00:53:41] Yeah. No, I I've actually seen it, but I just it's a benefit of those who have not.

Thomas Massie [00:53:46] So, you know, I got my family together for Christmas and we got bluegrass instruments out. We play, music together, and we took a Christmas card picture with bluegrass instruments. And I said, hey, when it be kind of neat if we just, like, change these all out for machine guns and took a picture and that was supposed to stay on my phone for eternity. But I had had a couple medical margaritas one night. I don't do medical marijuana, but I had a few medical margaritas. And I looked at that picture and I thought, well, that's pretty good picture. It'd be a shame if nobody ever saw it. And I tweeted it. And so I caught all kinds of hate for that. The arts a great picture. The Archbishop of Canterbury condemned it. This is the head of the Church of England. Condemned my tweet. I'm like, oh my God, are.

Tucker [00:54:30] You an.

Thomas Massie [00:54:30] Episcopalian? I'm Methodist.

Tucker [00:54:33] Good. So you can ignore him? Yes. Yeah. He's the he's a disgrace. So.

Thomas Massie [00:54:37] So anyways, I, you know, the press asked me as I'm, we're talking about the need to be like Jane. Right? If I had that, I would have been devastated that day. If I had needed to be liked, I couldn't have carried that through. And, I walked out of that chamber. Everybody's hate me in the chamber. Nancy Pelosi called me in Dangerous News, and CNN called me the most hated person in DC. John Kerry called me an asshole or something. And, and, President Trump called me a third rate grand stander. This is all in the course of a few minutes, right? I walk out of the chamber of the house and the reporters, like, swarm me, you know, like they do. And I'm just trying to run back to the SUV with the pretzels, with peanut butter and, and, you know, get out of there. And, the, the, the, press said, what do you have to say for yourself? Your own president just called you a third rate grabs center. And I pause for a second. And I said I was offended on at least second rate.

Tucker [00:55:36] So what happened to your relationship with Trump?

Thomas Massie [00:55:39] It, you know, I think he respects people that stand up. Yeah.

Tucker [00:55:44] Even if he I think you're absolutely right.

Thomas Massie [00:55:45] Disagrees with you. That's correct. And, two years later, he did endorse me. No way. Yep.

Tucker [00:55:52] Do you get along with him? Okay. Now? Yeah.

Thomas Massie [00:55:55] I mean, I did endorse Ron DeSantis. Not out of spite, or animosity, because we had already patch things up. Just because I served with Ron DeSantis for six years, and he and I were really good friends. We talked about bills when he was in Congress. He he, he and I fought over who was going to introduce the bill to eliminate congressional pensions. And, you know, and he won, and I co-sponsored it. Now I'm the sponsor now that he's a governor. But I knew he was a good person and he thinks things through, and he was smart. So I endorsed him. But, you know, because I have I call it natural immunity. I have Trump antibodies at this point. They may wear.

Tucker [00:56:33] Do you think if you did run for se just pulling us out of a hat, but governor of Kentucky, do you think Trump would endorse you?

Thomas Massie [00:56:41] I don't know. You'd probably do some polling and.

Tucker [00:56:46] Fair and fair. Totally fair.

Thomas Massie [00:56:47] I wouldn't turn down an endorsement.

Tucker [00:56:50] Yeah, yeah. So it's it's not. Are you at war with anybody in the Congress?

Thomas Massie [00:56:54] No. I get along with everybody. I mean, and people try to use this against me, you know, in AIPAC was running those ads that say I always vote with AOC, and Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, you know, so I introduced an amendment and forced a vote on eliminating the kill switch in automobiles. It's mandated.

Tucker [00:57:16] Thank You.

Thomas Massie [00:57:17] Yeah. Well, I was losing Republicans on that. I lost, like, 20 Republicans, so I knew I needed some.

Tucker [00:57:23] Just to be clear, for the people that don't know what you're talking about. In new vehicles that had been in the case for years. They can be turned off remotely by the authorities, which is like the most North Korean thing ever to happen. That's what you're talking about.

Thomas Massie [00:57:36] Yeah. By 2026, every new automobile sold has to be able to turn itself off if it doesn't like you're driving. So I'm like, how do you appeal this conviction at the roadside? Right? Maybe you swerved to miss a deer and pulled over for an ambulance, and you got your kids in t

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