Ep 262: Thomas Massie vs. Ed Gallrein: America First or the Swamp?

In this episode I discuss why Thomas Massie is the right choice for Kentucky. Thomas Massie is a real Constitutional, America First conservative and has been great on every issue that really matters to conservatives and libertarians including COVID, foreign policy, deficits and government spending, Epstein, guns, abortion, and more. In fact, Trump’s 2024 campaign was extremely similar to Massie’s policy platform and voting record. Trump, however, is trying to primary Massie, supporting Israel lobby funded Ed Gallrein, a man who believes that loyalty to Trump is more important than conservative principles. In fact, Trump has completely sold out his base, ignoring every significant campaign promise he made in 2024. Like Trump, Gallrein is more concerned about the Israel lobby than American citizens and endorses a socialist policy platform. Trump has always been a New York Democrat, and conservatives who place principle over party must support Massie over Trump. The future of freedom and American values depends on it. 

Media Referenced:

My Case Against Trump: https://libertarianchristians.com/episode/ep-156-the-libertarian-case-against-donald-trump/

Neither Trump nor Harris: https://libertarianchristians.com/episode/ep-160-i-cant-support-trump-or-harris/

The Protestant Libertarian Podcast is a project of the Libertarian Christian Institute and a part of the Christians For Liberty Network. The Libertarian Christian Institute can be found at www.libertarianchristians.com.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is the Protestant Libertarian Podcast, a project of the Libertarian Christian Institute and part of the Christians for Liberty Network. I really hope that you guys enjoy today's show. All right. Welcome to another episode of the Protestant Libertarian Podcast. This is a special bonus episode where I'm going to talk about politics and just straight up politics for about 20 minutes. And I really need to get this off of my chest. I've been thinking about it a lot. We have a very important primary in Kentucky on May 19th between Thomas Massey and Ed Galrain. I am fortunate enough to live in Thomas Massey's district, and I have been voting for Thomas Massey for years and years and years. And I think that he is absolutely the best person that we have in Congress and by far the best Republican. Now, I got to say at the outset of this episode that I am working for the Libertarian Christian Institute. And so the Libertarian Christian Institute does not endorse political candidates. So this, what I'm about to say, is not reflective of the views of the Libertarian Christian Institute. This is just my own personal take on this issue. So take that as you will. I also did cut my finger open while I was working outside today. So I'm wearing one of my daughter's band-aids. So I'm sorry for that as well. But I really want to talk about this primary because I think it's so important. Now, Thomas Massey has always been an extremely consistent, limited government conservative. He's great on all of the issues that matter to both conservatives and libertarians, whether it's guns or lowering taxes or tackling the budget or having a responsible foreign policy. Thomas Massey is consistently great on all these issues. And over the last five or six years, he's only gotten better. If you remember in 2020, he was the one person in Congress that forced a vote for the CARES Act, which was the largest spending bill, not just in American history, but in human history. And he even said, after he called a vote for the bill, that it was going to be a giant waste of money. It was essentially welfare checks to giant corporations. And it was $2 trillion that was a complete wash and did nothing to undo the COVID catastrophe. And in fact, not only was Thomas Massey right about the CARES Act, he was right about the whole COVID regime. He was pro-liberty, pro-freedom the entire time. He was the best person in Congress on that issue. And for his trouble, Trump tried to primary him in 2020, which I think is just terrible. And Trump eventually backtracked and got on Thomas Massey's right side, and Massey wound up endorsing him. But over the last several years, Massey has been great on the war in Ukraine. He's been great on Israel. He was the one that very historically, much to Trump's chagrin and many of the people in the conservative activism class, but he was the one that forced the DOJ to release more of the Epstein files than they were willing to release. Now, have we gotten all of those files? No. And will the Department of Justice continue to lie to the American people about Epstein? Absolutely, they will because they don't care about justice. And most of them are implicated. And this isn't a Democrat or a Republican problem. This is just a person problem, right? Like this is a government problem. He's also been excellent on spending. He consistently opposes omnibus spending bills, which do nothing but increase the American debt, lead to greater deficits, and put American citizens in the hole. So he's he's totally against that. He's excellent on guns. He's great on abortion too. I know not all libertarians are pro-life like me, but he's been consistent and a consistent advocate for the pro-life platform his entire time in office. So Thomas Massey has been nothing short of excellent on all of the issues that really matter. And in fact, if we rewound the clock to 2024 during Trump's election cycle, Thomas Massey's voting record is exactly what Donald Trump campaigned on in 2024. That is the reason why Donald Trump was able to win the vote of so many libertarians and constitutional conservatives that had been wary about his 2016 and 2020 campaign. Now, full disclosure, I never voted for Donald Trump. And I'm going to explain why I never voted for Donald Trump in just a minute. But Donald Trump ran a Thomas Massey campaign. He promised to reduce government deficits and find waste through the doge programs. He promised not to get us involved in any more wars. He promised transparency for Epstein, transparency for JFK, transparency for Martin Luther King. He promised to dramatically reduce the size and scope of government in every possible way and to drain the swamp. And that was a powerful message. The exact same message that Massey has been preaching ever since he was in Congress 15 or so years ago, whenever he was first elected to Congress. So Trump ran on a Thomas Massey platform in 2024 and won. And people were very excited about the possibility of a Donald Trump presidency that was built along Thomas Massey's conservative instincts. Because again, I think that there is a for true paleo-conservatives and constitutional conservatives, there is a large natural affinity between that group and libertarians such as myself. And Thomas Massey is a great bridge between those two groups. And I would be more than happy to see, even though we might disagree on some issues, I would be more than happy to see a real constitutional conservative take office in Washington because we know that they would actually be serious about limiting the size and scope of government. So how is it that we get to 2024, or we get from 2024, where Trump was essentially running a campaign based on all of Thomas Massey's principles, to 2026, where Trump is adamantly backing Thomas Massey's primary opponent, Ed Gowrain? Well, it's because Trump was lying about his promises the entire time. Now, we're going to circle back and talk about that in a couple of minutes, but I just want to shine a spotlight on Thomas Massey's primary opponent, Ed Gowrain. Now, I'm not one of those people that believe that this is the most important election of our lifetime, because I've been hearing every single election cycle from the time I was born in 1989, that this is the most important election of our lifetime. But I do think that Kentucky District 4's primary, which is going to be on May 19th, 2026, may be the most important election that I've seen so far. Because this election will determine whether or not the Republican Party is, at least at the grassroots level, willing to stick with its constitutional conservative principles and support Massey, or whether they're willing to endorse another Israel-first socialist and Ed Gowrain. Now, the Republican Party of Boone County, which is right next door to my hometown or my home county of Kenton County, they have voted not to endorse Thomas Massey, which is just an absolute embarrassment for that party. And it shows, again, my thesis that I've said on this show the entire time is that the Republican Party is full of socialists, and the Republican Party of Boone County absolutely showed that they are going to like support more government and not support the guy who's trying to limit the size and scope of government. So again, the Republican Party has a socialist problem. That's because the Republican Party is, by and large, a socialist political party. You got some great guys like Massey, and that's pretty much it. The rest of the party is completely ideologically captured by socialism, including their great leader, Donald Trump, which is why Donald Trump is going to support Ed Gallrain, who is a socialist and not Thomas Massey, much to his embarrassment. He should be absolutely embarrassed by that. Now, what is Ed Galrain campaigning on? Well, Ed Galrain is really mad that Thomas Massey forced the vote for the Epstein files. All right. He doesn't like that because Donald Trump didn't like that. Donald Trump thought that the Epstein files were Donald Trump, when he was campaigning, said that the Epstein files were extremely important and that we would get to the bottom of it. And then you have people like Cash Patel and Dan Bongino that said, oh, we know for sure there's something there. There's a smoking gun there, and we're going to make sure that the American public knows. And then as soon as they get in office, oh, all that Epstein stuff just kind of disappears. And so Donald Trump is really mad at Thomas Massey for forcing the DOJ to release the Epstein files. And Ed Galrain is opposed to Thomas Massey on that exact issue, right? Ed Galrain is also receiving, and this one is, I think, the one that's the most important. And we'll put this in perspective. Thomas Massey is not a Zionist. He's not an Israel firster. He's a real America first constitutional conservative, an honest America-first constitutional conservative. And America first, as Trump campaigned on in 2024, means that we don't getting, we don't go around getting ourselves involved in unnecessary foreign wars. That our American first politicians' loyalty should be to the United States of America and not to a foreign country like Israel. But Donald Trump received millions of dollars from the Israel lobby in his campaign. And now he's doing everything in his foreign policy platform at the behest of the Israel lobby. Oh, and guess what? Thomas Massey opposes all of that. He refused to wear the he refuses to wear the Israel pin. He refuses to go and kiss the wall. He refuses to entertain lobbyists in his office. He refuses to take money from APAC because he actually believes in America first constitutional conservative. The values upon which our country were built are embodied by Thomas Massey. Guess who's funding Ed Galrain? It's the Adelsons. It's the Israel lobby. That is who is pouring money into his campaign. Ed Galrain, Thomas Massey's opponent, is literally being funded by a foreign lobby. And so why are all of the quote-unquote conservatives in Boone County refusing to support Thomas Massey? Well, it's because they're prioritizing loyalty to Donald Trump before loyalty to their principles, absolutely selling out their principles. And Ed Galrain is a man who has no principles. He is bought and sold by the Israel lobby. And the entire centerpiece of his campaign is that he is loyal to Trump and Thomas Massey is not. And I'm sorry, but loyalty to a guy that made a bunch of great campaign promises in 2024 and then failed to follow through on any of them, including Doge, right? Again, what is eliminating a couple of billion dollars from the United States debt? And that might be big for us, like it's a it's a win, a win's a win. But what was eliminating a couple of billion dollars? He couldn't even do that. He said he was going to abolish the Department of Education. Didn't do any of that. We're spending the same amount of money, we have the same amount of foreign aid. All none of that was cut. Thomas Massey wants to see all that go away. The Republican Party said they wanted to in 2024. Trump didn't do it. And most publicans would rather side with Trump and rather show loyalty and fealty to Donald Trump than stand by their principles, which means that they never had any to begin with. And here's the truth about Donald Trump. Donald Trump always has been and always will be nothing more than a New York Democrat. He's a socialist to his very core. He does not care about the priorities of our country, does not care about limited government in any sort of philosophical sense. He does not care about draining the swamp. And Ed Galrain is just going to be another mouthpiece for the socialist Donald Trump regime. And I want everyone who is listening to this, that is living in Kentucky 4, that is considering voting for Ed Gowrain to understand that if you vote for Ed Gowrain, you are literally voting for a foreign lobby and for socialism. If you vote for Thomas Massey, you are voting for America and freedom. And it's really that simple. And so I'm going to ask all of my conservative listeners right now: do you really believe in limited government? Do you really believe in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights? Do you really believe that, like my grandfather went and fought in World War II, fought against the Japanese, fought against one of the most evil empires in human history in order to make sure that our country remained free? And now the Republican Party wants our country to be under the complete control of Israel. Are we really going to go out and support the Israel lobby just because we think that Donald Trump needs our loyalty and obedience and because we're worried that the Democrats are going to win? What happens if the Democrats win? What changes? Nothing. We replace one Israel-loving socialist with another Israel-loving socialist, and the size and scope of the government continues to increase while our individual liberties continue to decrease and our tax burden only gets higher. There is no winning scenario going with Donald Trump on this one because Donald Trump is a New York socialist and he always has been. And I know that for a lot of Fox News watching conservatives, that's probably really tough to hear. But let me ask you this. Do you have principles? Do you believe in limited government? Do you believe in the values of the United States of America? Now, again, I'm like an anti-imperial, uh philosophical libertarian, anarchist Christian, right? Like none of this stuff really matters to me. But I do expect that if I'm paying taxes to my government, that my government should use them wisely and not give them to a foreign government. I want American politicians not to be controlled by foreigners. I want American politicians to work in the interest of American citizens. And I don't believe in the system at all. But at the very least, can we have some politicians like Thomas Massey that are willing to put the interest of the American people before the lobbyists and the corporations and the foreign countries? Like Donald Trump can't do that. And Ed Gowrain is not going to do that. And this is where Kentucky Republicans, because I can't vote in the primary because I'm a libertarian and I'm not changing my party affiliation to the Republican Party to vote in the primary, although I want Thomas Massey to win and we'll vote for him in a heartbeat in the fall. But this is where I really want all of my listeners, all of my conservative, my Republican listeners to hear this. Ed Galran is not your friend. And if you vote for Ed Galran, you're betraying all of the principles that you say that you stand on. Donald Trump will be gone in two years. The Trump phenomenon, or maybe even sooner than that, because he's really, really old, right? And it's kind of like the whole Joe Biden thing. Every day could be his last. Who knows? All right. He's really, really old and really, really senile. We know that at most we get two more years with Donald Trump. What happens after that? Are we going to sell out our principles? What are you going to do? This is the reason why this election is so important. If you really believed in everything that Donald Trump campaigned on in 2024, if you really believe in the America First agenda, if you really believe in making America a great country and you really believe in American values and you really believe in draining the swamp, you have to be in opposition to Donald Trump and you have to be in opposition to Ed Galrain. You absolutely have to because Ed Gallrain represents not the American people, not the residents of Kentucky 4. He represents the socialist interest of Donald Trump and is being completely and utterly funded by the Israel lobby. And I know that it's painful for conservatives to hear that, but that is the truth. These people do not care about you, and they do not care about your future. So do not give your loyalty over to Trump by voting against Thomas Massey, who's the only America First candidate. Now, I said I didn't vote for Donald Trump in 2024. I will put links to these episodes in the show notes so you can go back and fact-check me, but I released two episodes in 2024. One where I said I, well, I think the title of one was I Can't Vote for Trump or Harris. And the other one was The Libertarian Case Against Donald Trump. And in both of those episodes, I said Donald Trump is running an excellent campaign and he's saying a lot of great things, but he wasn't as good as he could have been in his first term. And I think he's gonna back down from all of his promises in his second term. And man, was I right about that. I don't think that had Kamala Harris won the election in 2024, that anything would be different now. I think we'd still be at war in Iran because she was bought and paid for by the Israel lobby as well. Again, the the the the hardcore leftists, the good old school anti-war leftists, were all calling her boss Genocide Joe because they funded, they're they funded, they began the funding for this iteration of the war in Israel. We'd still be in a war in Iran right now. We continue to have ballooning deficits, there never would have been doge. The only thing that would have been better, or the only, I think the only thing that would have been better with Kamala Harris winning, or the only thing that would have been different with Kamala Harris winning, is that the Republican Party would still be arguing for their principles. They would still be yelling about the Epstein files, they would still be talking about draining the swamp, they would still be talking about Doge and livening the government, they'd still be talking about America first and never-ending foreign wars. But now that the Republicans have power, they've sold out all their principles, and the socialist president is trying to primary one of the only good America-first capitalist American values congressmen that we have. It's imperative, if we believe in the future of this country, that Thomas Massey wins this primary, because this sends a powerful signal to the Republican establishment that the average Republican actually believes in conservative principles. They're not progressive Democrats, that they are real, honest to God, constitutional conservatives. And that message needs to be sent. And unfortunately, and I'm not trying to be hyperbolic here, but the entire scope of American history really does kind of hinge on this election, this primary election in Kentucky. A win for Thomas Massey is a repudiation of socialism, it's a repudiation of the Israel lobby, it's a repudiation of giant government, and it's a repudiation of all of the lies and broken promises of the Trump administration. If Ed Gowrain wins, it means that the conservative base was never actually serious about limiting government and that the United States is being run by two completely socialist progressive parties, the Republicans and the Democrats. And I think that that's intolerable and it would be incredibly unfortunate. Now I know that most of the people that are going to go out and vote in this primary, based on demographics and statistics, are going to be older people, baby boomers, that generation. Your parents fought in World War II, and they did not fight in World War II, so that one day we will be ruled over by a Democratic socialist from New York who is working at the behest of the Israel lobby. This is a betrayal of everything that the greatest generation fought for, all of the freedoms, the values of American liberty, the principles upon which our country was built. And the only way that we can send a message to Republican leadership and tell them that conservatives actually believe in the American project is by defeating Ed Galrain in his primary and voting for Thomas Massey, the only America first congressman. And we are fortunate to live in the only congressional district in the country where we have a Thomas Massey. So I'm I'm begging you, my conservative listeners, those of you that might be on the fence, those of you that are considering voting for Ed Galrain, I beg you, take what I'm saying here seriously. Thomas Massey is your guy. You believe in him. Had Thomas Massey won the election in 2024 and not Donald Trump and implemented Doge, released the Epstein files, not gotten us involved in another war, you would be cheerleading that. Please, please, please put your principles before your party. Donald Trump is here today and gone tomorrow. He's a New York socialist, and I know that you're better than that. Do not support Donald Trump. Do not support Ed Gowrain. Vote Thomas Massey 2026. All right, that's all I got to say today. If you guys like the episode and you want to hear more of my content, if you're listening because you saw Thomas Massey in the link, follow me on YouTube at Pro Liberty Pod, go to Twitter at Pro Liberty Pod. Um, follow me, like my show. Most of what I talk about on here is biblical study stuff, but I really wanted to sound off on this election because it is so significant and it does make a big difference. And I do think that it will in large part determine the future of politics in our society. So if you live in Kentucky for, do the right thing if you're a Republican and you can vote in the primaries. So with that, I love you guys. Episodes come out every Tuesday. So I will see you guys next Tuesday. Have a great day. Thank you for listening to another episode of the Protestant Libertarian Podcast. If you have any questions or comments, please reach out to me at the Protestant Libertarian at gmail.com. You can also find me on Twitter. You can follow me at the handle at Pro Liberty Pod. Again, that is at Pro Liberty Pod. And you can also visit me at the Protestant Libertarian Podcast.com. At the Protestant Libertarian Podcast.com, you can also support the Christians for Liberty Network and the Libertarian Christian Institute. Thank you guys so much for listening to this episode, and we will see you next Tuesday.