The money proved decisive. Pro-Israel groups, led by donors Miriam Adelson and Paul Singer, spent over $35 million to defeat Rep. Thomas Massie in Kentucky’s GOP primary, making it the most expensive House race in history. Tucker Carlson frames the loss as the symbolic death of “America First,” arguing the Republican Party now serves a foreign lobby’s agenda above its own voters.
On Breaking Points, Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti mapped the mechanics. The spending shattered prior records set against Jamal Bowman and Cori Bush, two other incumbents who ran afoul of the Israel lobby. The cash funded a barrage of AI-generated attack ads, including fake CCTV footage suggesting Massie was in a “throuple” with progressive Democrats. Ball noted the median Republican primary voter is 55, and the 65-plus cohort - flooded with these ads - carried the day for Massie’s opponent, former Navy SEAL Ed Golliver.
“The Republican party just executed a humiliation ritual in Kentucky. This marks the definitive end of the ‘America First’ era.”
- Tucker Carlson, The Tucker Carlson Show
Carlson and pollster Rich Baris point to a devastating generational fracture. Pre-money, Massie was winning voters under 45 by a three-to-one margin. His defeat was engineered by older “boomer” voters, a turnout driven by the ad blitz. Baris calls it a Pyrrhic victory that trades the party’s future for donor appeasement, noting the GOP’s generic ballot advantage evaporated after Trump pivoted to covering up Epstein files and cheerleading war in Iran.
The No Agenda Show’s John C. Dvorak argued the national press missed the real story. While pundits focused on Massie’s policy disputes with Trump and the lobby, an “algorithmic execution” on MAGA-adjacent social media feeds - centered on salacious, locally-targeted smears - dropped his win probability from 71% to a 10-point loss in two weeks.
The lobby’s power has limits. In Pennsylvania, progressive Chris Rabb defeated establishment candidates despite over $3 million in opposition spending funneled through an AIPAC-linked group. A new pro-Palestine PAC and the Working Families Party matched the outside money in the final weeks, signaling organized progressive ground games can withstand the financial onslaught that felled an isolated libertarian.
“Massie was the only Republican in Congress who never took money from the Israeli lobby. His principled stance was opposing all foreign aid, especially to Israel, due to the U.S. debt crisis.”
- Tucker Carlson, The Tucker Carlson Show
The outcome is a warning to the GOP. The coalition that elected Trump is splintering over foreign policy. Younger voters, according to Baris, view foreign interventions with contempt, seeing them as a drain on an inheritance already squandered. If the party continues to steamroll these voters to please aging donors, Carlson concludes, it won’t win a general election in a decade.
