By Joe Saunders May 20, 2026 at 3:10pm
Election returns had barely been completed Tuesday, documenting incumbent Republican Rep. Thomas Massie’s defeat in his primary race before leftists began blaming Jews for Massie’s loss.
Up-and-coming radical Hasan Piker, former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan, and leftist podcaster Cenk Uygur were blatant about ascribing the results to nefarious acts of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, a “pro-Israel cult,” or Israel itself.
CNN’s Scott Jennings had a different take.
The network’s most prominent conservative voice boiled Massie’s defeat down to the fact that the unconventional congressman had become a liability to both President Donald Trump and the Republican Party.
And for a man representing a conservative constituency, that was the kiss of death.
Massie “had, frankly, become an opponent of the president inside of the party. He just can’t do that,” Jennings said.
.@ScottJenningsKY doesn’t hold back on Thomas Massie’s way out the door: “Despicable, anti-Semitic, nasty, gutter politics… it needs to be condemned.”
President Trump didn’t just beat Thomas Massie.
He made an example out of him.
Then Massie ends his career with this line… pic.twitter.com/lNmUo4tZAN
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) May 20, 2026
The victory of retired Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein in Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District Republican primary was just another example of the old dictum that “all politics is local,” Jenning intimated.
“This is one of the most conservative districts in the country. It’s certainly a conservative area of Kentucky. They gave Donald Trump a massive victory in 2024, and they expect the Republican congressman who represents them to be part of the team,” Jennings said.
“The two big issues in the race that were in most of the advertising had to do with tax cuts and immigration. And Massie was against Trump on both of his big border security and tax cut bills. So they said, ‘Look, we can get a Republican congressman that’ll be part of the team and support the president.’ That campaign worked.”
Jennings then moved on to a blistering critique of Massie’s concession speech, which included a snide shot suggesting Gallrein is a tool of the state of Israel.
“I would have come out sooner, but I had to call my opponent and concede, and it took a while to find Ed Gallrein in Tel Aviv,” Massie said as supporters laughed and cheered.
Massie doubles down on antisemitic tropes in his concession speech.
“I would have come out sooner but I had to call my opponent and concede but it took a while to find [him] in Tel Aviv”pic.twitter.com/ZsE7RpTIZy
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) May 20, 2026
Jennings’ distaste was evident in his tone and in his words.
“I just want to also add one other thing,” he said.
“Thomas Massie, tonight, in his concession speech, said something despicable, anti-Semitic, nasty, gutter politics right at the end. What a way to go out. He said, ‘I would have called Ed Gallrein, but, you know, I had to find him in Tel Aviv.’
“There was an undercurrent of anti-Semitism in this race on the Massie side. There’s been an undercurrent of it in his career, unfortunately, and it really came out in an ugly way tonight.
“And I think it needs to be stated, acknowledged, and condemned, because it was pretty despicable.”
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Joe has spent more than 30 years as a reporter, copy editor and metro desk editor in newsrooms in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Florida. He’s been with Liftable Media since 2015.
Joe has spent more than 30 years as a reporter, copy editor and metro editor in newsrooms in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Florida. He’s been with Liftable Media since 2015. Largely a product of Catholic schools, who discovered Ayn Rand in college, Joe is a lifelong newspaperman who learned enough about the trade to be skeptical of every word ever written. He was also lucky enough to have a job that didn’t need a printing press to do it.
Birthplace
Philadelphia
Nationality
American
