US congressman says pro-Israel groups behind 95 percent of funding against him

Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie told The Tucker Carlson Show that “at least” 95 percent of the funding backing his main opponent in the Republican primary taking place later this month comes from pro-Israel lobbying groups.

Massie, who has been in office since 2012, has emerged as a vocal anti-war and anti-foreign aid voice on the right, as well as an Israel sceptic and an aggressive proponent of the release of all of the Epstein files. 

He has also frequently been a target of President Donald Trump and his Make America Great Again movement.

The opponent in question is the Trump-endorsed former Navy Seal, Ed Gallrein. He doesn’t have much name recognition, even in his own state. 

But the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), among other pro-Israel lobbying groups, has led the charge to try to ensure Massie loses his race, he told Carlson in an episode that aired on Wednesday.

“[The money] didn’t come from regular people. It’s come from billionaires, and 95 percent of it – at least 95 percent – has come from the Israeli lobby,” Massie said, specifically naming Aipac; the Republican Jewish Coalition; Christians United for Israel; and a trio of billionaires that have dominated the US election landscape: Miriam Adelson, Paul Singer, and John Paulson – none of whom are from Kentucky.

“Their position is more war, it’s more strife, it’s more bombs, it’s more foreign aid, and those are the things that I’ve been voting against. So the real reason that this race is a serious race, and I may lose, is because a foreign lobby has fully funded to the extent that they’ve never done in any Republican race ever before,” Massie said. 

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Massie has raised some $5m for his campaign, but $10m alone has been spent running attack ads against him in Kentucky, including an AI-generated video of him going into a hotel with members of “The Squad” – the progressive female congresswomen in the Democratic Party. 

“Why would they care what happens in a Republican primary in Kentucky?” Carlson asked of the pro-Israel lobbying groups and billionaires.

“If I lose on May 19, I’ll be out of Congress on January 3 next year, and nobody’s gonna follow my Twitter, nobody’s gonna go to my Facebook page to see what’s going on. I won’t be invited down into the secret SCIFs to read the secret interpretations of the laws that the executive branch is using to spy on you. The one whistleblower, if you will, in Congress, will be gone,” Massie responded.

A SCIF is a sensitive compartmented information facility, also known as a secure room, where classified information is shared with lawmakers. 

Aipac blowback

As regular Americans have caught onto Aipac’s funding efforts in particular, and also grown more and more weary of unconditional US support for Israel, the lobbying group has found ways to ensure its name is not necessarily tied to certain candidates.

“What we’ve realised and deduced is that they’re funnelling money, hard dollars…from their donors to [Gallrein’s] campaign through a vendor,” Massie explained. 

That vendor is Democracy Engine, which allows any donor to support any candidate from any party through its platform. 

“You didn’t even attack Israel. You’re not even hostile to Israel. You’re not muttering about the Jews. That’s nothing to do with that at all,” Carlson said. “You just don’t think the US government should be sending money for other countries, right?”

“Right. And by the way, that’s the position of my constituents,” Massie responded.

Aipac has successfully ousted several progressive Democrats from Congress before, including Cory Bush of Missouri and Jamaal Bowman of New York.

Late last year, the advocacy group Democracy for the Arab World Now, founded by the late Middle East Eye and Washington Post columnist, Jamal Khashoggi, published what it says are the names and faces of the individuals who run Aipac, in its “Faces of Aipac” project.