Update May 20, 2026, 3:20 p.m. ET: This article was updated with info about Rep. Massie’s loss ; Originally published May 18, 2025 at 3:56 p.m.
President Donald Trump notched two more revenge wins this week.
In Louisiana on Saturday, incumbent GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy, who voted to impeach Trump in 2021 and has more recently been a thorn in the side of the “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) movement, lost his primary to a Trump-endorsed challenger. Tuesday night, Congressman Thomas Massie (R-KY) failed in a similar fashion, losing big to the president’s handpicked alternative.
Cassidy Loses
As reported on Monday’s AM Update, U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) placed third in the GOP primary Saturday night, some 20 points behind his Trump-endorsed challenger.
The president publicly supported Congresswoman Julia Letlow (R-LA), who won about 45 percent of the vote. Louisiana State Treasurer John Fleming came in second with about 28 percent, and Cassidy finished third at 25 percent. The loss made the two-term Louisiana Republican the first incumbent GOP senator to lose renomination since 2012.
With no candidate surpassing the 50 percent threshold, Letlow and Flaming will now advance to a June 27 runoff to determine who will be the GOP nominee on the November general election ballot.
What Went Wrong
Cassidy was one of just seven Senate Republicans to vote to convict President Trump after the January 6, 2021, riot, long putting him in the president’s crosshairs. Since Trump returned to office, Sen. Cassidy has largely backed his agenda, voting to confirm several of his nominees, including Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., despite significant reservations.
But more recently, the senator drew the ire of the MAHA-wing of the party. Cassidy, a medical doctor and chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, came under fire from Kennedy allies who blamed him for blocking a committee vote on Dr. Casey Means’ nomination for Surgeon General. The senator also remained publicly skeptical of Secretary Kennedy’s push to revamp the federal vaccine recommendations.
His defeat marked another win in President Trump’s effort to punish Republicans who have crossed him. Earlier this month, AM Update reported on the president’s successful effort to oust Indiana state lawmakers who defied his demands to redraw state congressional districts.
Trump’s Influence
On Monday’s edition of The Megyn Kelly Show, Megyn recalled that Cassidy is the only sitting member of Congress she has ever encouraged her audience to reach out to back when it wasn’t clear whether he would allow RFKJ’s nomination to move through committee. More recently, the president blamed Cassidy for derailing his Surgeon General pick, but Megyn wasn’t convinced the MAHA issues alone had Trump out for him. Instead, she believes his role in the second impeachment trial was his undoing.
Her guest, MK Media’s Mark Halperin, agreed. “The president… forgives people all the time, but there are some things he can’t forgive,” he explained. “And he does… understand the importance – in politics and hardball professions – of setting examples and sending signals to folks.”
Halperin noted senior advisors like political strategist Chris LaCivita share that “tough,” “take no prisoners” attitude. “When they see someone cross them, they write it down in a little book. And when the time comes, they go after them,” he said. “Cassidy lost his job for one reason only: Donald Trump.”
In Halperin’s view, President Trump is quite strategic in the Republicans he targets. “The voters get to decide, but Donald Trump gets to tell the voters what he would like them to do. Within the confines of Republican primaries, they generally do what Donald Trump says. He has almost never lost,” he explained. “[Trump] knows how to pick his spots and, in this case, he found a candidate who he thought could beat Sen. Cassidy and he was right.”
Massie Gets the Boot
Similarly, Halperin predicted Trump would get his way in the Bluegrass State, and that is exactly what happened Tuesday night. Kentucky Republicans proved Trump still holds enormous sway, choosing former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein as their nominee by a nearly 10-point margin over Massie. He will now face off against Democrat Melissa Strange in the November general election.
As reported on Wednesday’s AM Update, the race for Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District shattered spending records and became the most expensive House primary in history. According to AdImpact Politics, more than $32 million was spent on advertising. Of that, $10.9 million went towards ads supporting Gallrein, compared to $6.2 million attacking him. On the other side, $7.6 million was spent on ads to support Massie versus $7.9 million attacking him.
But President Trump, who endorsed Massie as recently as 2022, was not the only one aiming to take him out. The race drew millions in spending from pro-Israel groups outraged over Massie’s foreign policy record. According to Politico, the Republican Jewish Coalition Victory Fund spent more than $4 million on ads attacking the congressman, while the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) reportedly dropped nearly $5 million on the race.
AIPAC celebrated Gallrein’s victory on X. “Congratulations to US Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein for defeating anti-Israel incumbent Thomas Massie,” the group wrote. “Pro-Israel Americans are proud to back candidates who support a strong 🇺🇸🇮🇱 alliance and help defeat those who work to undermine it. Being pro-Israel is good policy and good politics!”
His Undoing
Rep. Massie landed on President Trump’s bad side after repeatedly breaking with the White House on some of the biggest issues within the Republican Party. He was among the leaders in the effort to release the Epstein Files, opposed foreign aid spending to all countries, including Israel, and criticized U.S. military action against Iran. Massie was also one of just two Republicans who voted against President Trump’s signature legislation, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, last summer.
On Wednesday’s edition of The Megyn Kelly Show, RealClearPolitics‘ Tom Bevan said those positions, coupled with Massie’s political evolution, is what led to his downfall. “[He] went from being sort of… this iconoclastic guy to being sort of almost with the opposition, and he made a lot of enemies, including the president United States,” he noted. “And when you do that, you can expect that the party’s not going to be there for you and that the party will challenge you.”
In this case, he was challenged by someone Megyn said was “handpicked” by the president. “President Trump had said, ‘Give me a warm body’… he got a warm body, and, in Kentucky, Donald Trump had no problem getting that warm body elected,” she explained.
“We don’t know that much about Gallrein, [but] we do know he is going to vote with the president in lockstep… He has pretty much said that,” Megyn continued. “That is what Trump wanted, and that is clearly what the voters of Kentucky wanted, and they are entitled to it.”
The Demographic Shift
As it relates to the Kentuckians who voted in the primary, the demographic breakdown of the voters who supported Gallrein and Massie is revealing. BigDataPoll results from Friday showed Massie was up over his opponent 81.5 percent to 18.5 percent among voters 18-to-29 years old, while Gallrein led Massie 61 percent to 39 percent in the 65-and-older set.
“This is within the Republican Party,” Megyn said of the split. “So, the older Republicans are extremely pro-Trump and remain pro-Israel… It’s very interesting.”
Bevan acknowledged the divide is something that cannot be ignored. “There is a schism within the Republican Party. There’s no question about it,” he said. “The age difference of the voters is something that, I think, Republicans need to pay attention to and not just ignore.”
With that said, he believes this result reaffirms the strength of the president’s grip on the GOP despite where his current job approval numbers stand. “You look at our RealClearPolitics job approval rating, he is under 40 percent for the first time in his second term. He is approaching his all-time low, and his disapproval rating is at an all-time high in his second term,” Bevan explained.
“[Yet Gallrein] won this race pretty handily… It’s pretty clear the voters in Kentucky wanted someone who was going to be with the president and with the president’s agenda on a whole host of issues, including, it seems, the war in Iran, even though… that is not necessarily a popular position writ large among the public.”
You can check out Megyn’s full analysis by tuning in on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s The Megyn Kelly Channel (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.