Donald Trump’s least favorite House Republican, Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, likes to do an exaggerated impression of the president. As he recounted a long-ago phone call from Trump before a crowd of supporters in his district, Massie dropped the register of his voice to an octave resembling Yogi Bear’s. “It started out with: I’m more libertarian than you are,” Massie said. “And it ended with: Well, you’re going to get a primary if you vote for this.”
唐纳德·特朗普（Donald Trump）最不喜欢的众议院共和党人，肯塔基州的代表托马斯·马斯西（Thomas Massie）喜欢给总统的印象夸大。当他讲述特朗普的长期电话之前，在他所在地区的一群支持者之前，他将声音的登记册丢给了一个类似于瑜伽士熊的八度。“它始于：我比你更自由，”马西说。“它的结尾是：好吧，如果您投票赞成这一点，您将获得初选。”
The eruption that followed created a scene that you’re unlikely to see anywhere else in America these days: a roomful of Republicans laughing at Trump’s expense.
随之而来的爆发创造了一个场景，您如今在美国其他任何地方都不太可能看到：一群共和党人嘲笑特朗普的费用。
The 54-year-old has been frustrating Trump since the beginning of the president’s first term. The two are now fighting over the extent of Trump’s war powers—Massie called the air strikes on Iran unconstitutional—and the president’s “big, beautiful bill,” which the seventh-term lawmaker opposed, one of just two House Republicans to do so.
自从总统第一任期开始以来，这位54岁的年轻人就一直对特朗普感到沮丧。现在，两人正在为特朗普的战争大国（Massie）的范围（称伊朗违宪的空中罢工）和总统的“大而美丽的法案”而战，第七任议员反对，这是这两个共和党人之一。
Massie is frequently a lone critic of the president in the 220-member House GOP caucus. But he’s not such a solitary voice in the Kentucky delegation. The Bluegrass State backed Trump by 30.5 percentage points last year—one of his largest margins in the country. Nationwide, Republicans are more united around Trump than they’ve ever been. Yet Kentucky has become a rare hotbed of GOP resistance to the president’s agenda.
马西（Massie）经常是由220名成员组成的共和党核心小组中的总统孤独的批评者。但是他在肯塔基代表团中并不是一个孤独的声音。去年，蓝草州为特朗普提供了30.5个百分点，这是他在该国最大的利润之一。在全国范围内，共和党人比以往任何时候都更加团结特朗普。然而，肯塔基州已成为共和党对总统议程的罕见温床。
Read: Mitch McConnell and the president he calls ‘despicable’
阅读：米奇·麦康奈尔（Mitch McConnell）和他称之为“卑鄙”的总统
Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, an early Trump presidential rival in 2016, is an ideological ally of Massie’s; he’s criticized the president’s tariffs, his expansion of executive authority, and the deficit-busting legislation that contains the bulk of Trump’s economic agenda. Then there’s the state’s senior senator, Mitch McConnell. Liberated from his commitments as Republican leader, the soon-to-retire McConnell has denounced Trump’s Ukraine policy and his tariffs. He voted against more of the president’s Cabinet nominees—Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary; Robert Kennedy Jr., the health secretary; and Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence—than any other GOP senator.
肯塔基州参议员兰德·保罗（Rand Paul）是2016年特朗普早期的总统竞争对手，是马西（Massie's）的意识形态盟友。他批评了总统的关税，对行政当局的扩大以及包含特朗普经济议程大部分的赤字法规的危险。然后是该州的高级参议员米奇·麦康奈尔（Mitch McConnell）。即将退休的麦康奈尔（McConnell）从作为共和党领导人的承诺中解放出来，谴责了特朗普的乌克兰政策及其关税。他投票反对更多总统内阁提名人 - 国防部长佩特·海格斯（Pete Hegseth）；小罗伯特·肯尼迪（Robert Kennedy Jr.），卫生部长；以及国家情报主任塔尔西·加巴德（Tulsi Gabbard），而不是其他共和党参议员。
McConnell, Paul, and Massie occasionally oppose Trump from different sides. But together they form a powerful bloc among the seven Republicans in Kentucky’s eight-man congressional delegation, and their stands against the president are angering many of Trump’s diehard supporters in the state, who feel oddly unrepresented by the lawmakers they’ve sent to Washington. “We voted for Trump to straighten some things out,” Devon Cain, a 77-year-old retiree, told me outside a farm-supply store in Winchester, a small town outside of Lexington. “Why a Republican would want to buck him, I don’t know.” Mark Wallingford, a physician in rural Mason County, is even more livid. “I will not vote for Thomas Massie. And if he is unopposed, I just wouldn’t vote,” he told me after a local GOP meeting.
麦康奈尔（McConnell），保罗（Paul）和马西（Massie）偶尔会反对特朗普（Trump）。但是，他们在肯塔基州八人国会代表团的七名共和党人中共同组成了一个强大的集团，他们反对总统的立场激怒了该州的许多顽固的顽固的支持者，他们感到被派往华盛顿的议员们奇怪地没有代表。现年77岁的退休人员德文·凯恩（Devon Cain）在列克星敦（Lexington）以外的一个小镇的温彻斯特（Winchester）一家农场供应商店外告诉我：“我们投票赞成特朗普拉直了一些事情。”“我不知道为什么共和党人想让他震惊。”梅森县农村医师马克·沃灵福德（Mark Wallingford）更加生气。“我不会投票支持托马斯·马西（Thomas Massie）。如果他没有反对，我只是不会投票。”他在当地的共和党会议结束后告诉我。
The clashes between Trump and the Kentucky trio are a sensitive topic among state GOP officials, many of whom are hesitant to take sides against either the popular president or their influential local leaders. “I’m MAGA all the way, and I’m Massie all the way,” Ken Moellman Sr., a retiree and one of Massie’s constituents in northern Kentucky, told me. He compared the Trump-Massie relationship to a marriage. “Sometimes you disagree, but when you disagree, that doesn’t mean you get divorced.”
特朗普和肯塔基三人组之间的冲突是州共和党官员中的一个敏感话题，其中许多人犹豫不决，反对受欢迎的总统或其有影响力的当地领导人。“我一直是杂志，一直是马斯西，”退休人员和马西北部北部北部的选民之一肯·莫尔曼（Ken Moellman Sr.）告诉我。他将特朗普 - 马西的关系与婚姻进行了比较。“有时候您不同意，但是当您不同意时，这并不意味着您离婚了。”
The twice-divorced president seems to be pining for a breakup, however. He has repeatedly called for Massie’s defeat in a primary—“GET THIS ‘BUM’ OUT OF OFFICE, ASAP!!!” Trump posted on Monday—and two of his top allies have formed a Kentucky political-action committee to recruit a GOP challenger in Massie’s district. The group began running a 30-second ad last week urging voters to “fire Thomas Massie.” Although Massie has aggressively raised money off the president’s attacks, he professes to not care about the threat to his seat. Trump, Massie likes to boast, earned fewer votes in Kentucky’s Fourth Congressional District than he did. “I’m not worried about losing,” he told me last month in the Capitol.
然而，两次之间的总统似乎是为了分手。他曾多次呼吁马西（Massie）在初选中失败 - “尽快让这个'bum''离开办公室！！！”特朗普周一发布了周一 - 他的两个顶级盟友成立了一个肯塔基州政治行动委员会，以在马西区招募共和党挑战者。该组织上周开始举办30秒的广告，敦促选民们“解雇托马斯·马西”。尽管马西（Massie）积极地从总统的袭击中筹集了资金，但他自称不关心对座位的威胁。特朗普，马西喜欢夸耀，在肯塔基州第四个国会区的投票比他少了。他上个月在国会大厦告诉我：“我不担心输掉。”
To outsiders, Kentucky’s politics can be hard to grasp. In some respects, the state is no different than any other Republican stronghold. Outside of the urban centers of Louisville and Lexington, Kentucky is largely rural and conservative. The state has not backed a Democrat for president or for the U.S. Senate since the 1990s. All but one of Kentucky’s six House members are Republican, as are the majorities in both chambers of its legislature.
对于局外人来说，肯塔基州的政治很难掌握。在某些方面，国家与任何其他共和党据点没有什么不同。在路易斯维尔和列克星敦市中心以外，肯塔基州主要是农村和保守的。自1990年代以来，该州一直没有支持总统或美国参议院的民主党人。肯塔基州的六名众议院成员中的所有人都是共和党人，以及其立法机关的两个议会中的大多数人。
But even as the state has gone decisively for Trump the past three elections, it has twice elected a Democratic governor, Andy Beshear. And the pair of Republicans that voters have sent to the Senate, McConnell and Paul, are as different from one another as any two senators from the same party in the country. McConnell is the institutionalist: a Reaganite and a Kentucky power broker who is now one of the last members of the GOP’s old guard still serving in Congress. Paul arrived in Washington as part of the Tea Party wave of 2010, having upset a McConnell-backed front-runner in the primary by campaigning as a spending hawk. Massie won election to the House two years later on the Tea Party banner. “We’ve always been a bit all over the place in the candidates that we support,” Rick VanMeter, a strategist from Kentucky who has worked for several Republicans in the state, told me.
但是，即使国家在过去的三个选举中果断地为特朗普进行了果断，它两次选举了民主党州长安迪·贝什尔（Andy Beshear）。选民发送给参议院的一对共和党人麦康奈尔和保罗与来自同一政党的任何两名参议员彼此不同。麦康奈尔（McConnell）是机构主义者：里根派（Reaganite）和肯塔基州权力经纪人，现在是共和党老后卫的最后成员之一，仍在国会任职。作为2010年茶党浪潮的一部分，保罗到达了华盛顿，他通过作为支出鹰而竞选麦康奈尔支持的领先者。两年后，马西（Massie）在茶党的旗帜上赢得了大选。肯塔基州的策略师里克·范米特（Rick Vanmeter）在该州的几位共和党人工作时告诉我：“我们支持我们支持的候选人，我们一直在候选人中的各个地方有些不利。”
Although McConnell and Paul vote with Trump more often than they cross him, the president lacks a loyalist in the state’s most powerful offices. That will probably change after next year’s election to fill McConnell’s seat, which Republicans will be heavily favored to win. The two leading candidates, Representative Andy Barr and Kentucky’s former attorney general Daniel Cameron, are each stressing their support for Trump’s agenda. Another contender, Nate Morris—who has ties to Vice President J. D. Vance and Donald Trump Jr.—joined the race this week.
尽管麦康奈尔（McConnell）和保罗（Paul）对特朗普（Trump）投票的频率比他们越过他的频率更高，但总统缺乏该州最强大的办公室的忠诚主义者。在明年的选举中，这可能会改变，以填补麦康奈尔的席位，共和党人将非常喜欢赢得胜利。两位主要候选人，代表安迪·巴尔（Andy Barr）和肯塔基州的前检察长丹尼尔·卡梅隆（Daniel Cameron）都强调他们对特朗普议程的支持。另一位竞争者内特·莫里斯（Nate Morris）与本周参加了比赛。
None of them is likely to highlight their connection to McConnell, whose popularity among Kentucky Republicans has plummeted in the years since he steered Trump’s tax cuts and the president’s three Supreme Court nominees through the Senate. (In fact, McConnell has been America’s least popular senator for more than four years, according to one metric.) McConnell blamed Trump for the Capitol riot on January 6 (although he voted to acquit him in the Senate’s impeachment trial), and he endorsed Trump only reluctantly last year. Multiple falls and freezing spells have slowed the 83-year-old, contributing to his decision not to seek an eighth Senate term in 2026. As I traveled around Kentucky last week, a few Republicans hailed McConnell’s past leadership and the billions in funding that he’s secured for the state. But hardly anyone I spoke with was sad to see him go. “I can’t stand him. He’s a traitor,” Don Reilly, a Trump backer and former president of the Boone County Business Association in northern Kentucky, told me.
他们都不可能强调他们与麦康奈尔的联系。麦康奈尔（McConnell）在肯塔基州共和党人中的受欢迎程度在他以来的几年中一直在削减特朗普的减税和总统的三名最高法院提名。（实际上，麦康奈尔（McConnell）是美国最不受欢迎的参议员，已有四年多的时间。）麦康奈尔（McConnell）于1月6日责怪特朗普（Trump）于1月6日责怪特朗普（Trump）参加国会大厦（Capitol Riot）（尽管他投票赞成在参议院的弹each审判中无罪释放他），他于去年只认可了特朗普。多个跌倒和冰冻的咒语使这位83岁的年轻人放慢了速度，这是他决定不在2026年寻求第八个参议院任期的决定。当我上周我在肯塔基州旅行时，一些共和党人欢呼麦康奈尔过去的领导层，并获得了数十亿美元的资金，他获得了该州的保证。但是几乎没有我与之交谈的人很难看到他走了。“我不能忍受他。他是叛徒，”肯塔基州北部布恩县商业协会的前主席唐·赖利（Don Reilly）告诉我。
Read: Congressional Republicans vs. reality
阅读：国会共和党人与现实
The conflict among Republicans has put Kentucky Democrats in the awkward position of rooting for Paul, Massie, and McConnell to hold the line against Trump, with the hope that their opposition could force him to retreat on tariffs or sink the president’s megabill. Last week I found a group of Democrats demonstrating outside of McConnell’s office, urging him to reject the GOP legislation that would slash Medicaid while extending Trump’s first-term tax cuts and boosting spending on immigration enforcement and the Pentagon. They were unimpressed by McConnell’s more recent criticism of Trump. “He gets credit for that, but it’s too little, too late,” Leah Netherland, a 69-year-old retiree, told me. “He is in large part responsible for Trump.”
共和党人之间的冲突使肯塔基民主党人处于为保罗，马西和麦康奈尔扎根的尴尬地位，以对抗特朗普，希望他们的反对派能够迫使他在关税上撤退或沉没总统的大型巨头。上周，我发现一群民主党人在麦康奈尔办公室外面示威，敦促他拒绝共和党立法，该立法将削减医疗补助，同时扩大特朗普的第一任税收减免，并增加对移民执法和五角大楼的支出。麦康奈尔最近对特朗普的批评并不印象深刻。“他为此而受到赞誉，但是太少了，为时已晚，”现年69岁的退休人员利亚·荷兰告诉我。“他在很大程度上负责特朗普。”
Beshear, whose success in a deep-red state has attracted national notice, seems to be watching the GOP infighting with some bemusement. “If Senator Paul, Senator McConnell, and I all say that tariffs are a bad idea, it’s because they’re a really bad idea,” the governor told me after a Juneteenth event in Lexington. Yet Beshear can only cheer them on so much. None of the Republicans battling Trump are centrists; Paul and Massie are opposing the president’s bill because it doesn't cut spending deeply enough. “The bill needs to die, but not for the reasons they’re talking about,” Beshear said.
Beshear在深红色州的成功吸引了全国通知，他似乎正在看着共和党的内斗。“如果参议员保罗，麦康奈尔参议员，我都说关税是个坏主意，那是因为他们是一个非常糟糕的主意，”州长在列克星敦举行的第十六赛事后告诉我。然而，Beshear只能为他们加油。与特朗普作斗争的共和党人都不是中间派。保罗和马西（Paul）和马西（Massie）反对总统的法案，因为它的支出不够深。Beshear说：“该法案需要死亡，但不是出于他们谈论的原因。”
The louder voices of discontent in Kentucky, however, are coming from Trump’s base, which is heeding the president’s call to ramp up pressure on his Republican critics. With McConnell retiring and Paul not up for reelection until 2028, the immediate target is Massie. Trump’s backers in Washington and Kentucky are casting about for a serious challenger in Massie’s district, and a few state legislators are considering the race, Republicans in the state told me. (One conservative, Niki Lee Ethington, a nurse and former parole officer, has launched a campaign, but she is not well known throughout the district.) Massie’s base in northern Kentucky has a large libertarian contingent, and since his first reelection in 2014, he’s never won fewer than 75 percent of votes in a primary.
然而，肯塔基州的不满声音来自特朗普的基地，这是在听取总统呼吁加大对共和党批评家的压力的呼吁。麦康奈尔退休，保罗直到2028年才能连任，直接的目标是马斯西。该州的共和党人告诉我，特朗普在华盛顿和肯塔基州的支持者正在为马斯西地区的一个认真的挑战者贡献。（一位保守派，护士和前假释官Niki Lee Ethington发起了一项竞选活动，但她在整个地区都不是广为人知的。）Massie在肯塔基州北部的基地拥有庞大的自由主义者特遣队，自2014年他的第一次竞选以来，他从未赢得过小学的投票少于75％的票数。
But a well-funded, Trump-backed campaign, should one emerge, would be something else entirely. In addition to motivating the president’s frustrated base, a challenger could activate local Republicans who believe Massie’s refusal to fight for the district’s share of federal spending has hurt its bid for needed infrastructure projects. “They’re kind of over Massie’s schtick,” VanMeter, the GOP strategist, told me.
但是，如果出现一项竞选活动，一场资金充足的王牌将完全是其他事情。除了激励总统沮丧的基础之外，挑战者还可以激活当地的共和党人，他们认为马西拒绝争取该地区的联邦支出份额，这损害了其对所需基础设施项目的竞标。共和党策略师VanMeter告诉我：“他们有点像Massie的Schtick。”
Gallatin County, which sits along the Ohio River about an hour’s drive south of Cincinnati, is the second-smallest of Kentucky’s 120 counties. It’s one of 21 counties in Massie’s congressional district, which stretches nearly 200 miles from the outskirts of Louisville to the state’s eastern border. Last week, the quarterly meeting of Gallatin’s Republican Party drew just eight attendees, who sat around folding tables at the public library in Warsaw, the county seat. The main order of business was a vote on whether to spend some of the roughly $1,800 that the committee had in its campaign account—a number nearly equivalent to Warsaw’s population—on new signage for the party to display at festivals, county fairs, and other events.
加拉廷县（Gallatin County）位于俄亥俄河沿岸约一个小时的辛辛那提（Cincinnati）以南，是肯塔基州120个县的第二痛苦。这是马西国会区的21个县之一，从路易斯维尔郊区到该州的东部边界，该县延伸了近200英里。上周，加拉廷共和党的季度会议吸引了八名与会者，他们坐在县城华沙的公共图书馆的折叠桌上。主要业务是对委员会在其竞选帐户中的大约1,800美元中的大约1,800美元（几乎等同于华沙人口的数字）进行投票，以供该党的新标志在节日，县集市和其他活动中展出。
The bickering between Trump and Kentucky’s GOP rebels did not come up, and perhaps that was for the best. Like many party organizations in the district, Gallatin’s Republicans are divided over the Trump-Massie feud. The committee’s vice chair, Wayne Rassman, told me he had grown frustrated with Massie’s opposition to the president. “He’s not listening to the people in his district,” Rassman told me. “I don’t know what made him go off the deep end.” The party treasurer, Donna Terry, said that she used to be for Massie but no longer is. “I’m a little fed up,” she told me. Both of them said they would probably back a primary challenger next year.
特朗普和肯塔基州的共和党叛军之间的争吵并没有出现，也许这是最好的。像该地区的许多党组织一样，加拉廷的共和党人在特朗普 - 马西的仇恨上分配。委员会的副主席韦恩·拉斯曼（Wayne Rassman）告诉我，他对马西对总统的反对感到沮丧。拉斯曼告诉我：“他不是在听他所在地区的人们。”“我不知道是什么让他离开了深处。”党的财务主管唐娜·特里（Donna Terry）说，她曾经是Massie，但不再是。她告诉我：“我有点厌倦。”他们俩都表示，明年他们可能会返回主要挑战者。
The chair of Gallatin’s GOP is Jim Kinman, a 51-year-old delivery specialist. He accepted the post reluctantly, explaining to me that the state party had told the county committee that it would be disbanded if it didn’t elect a slate of officers. When I caught up with Kinman after the meeting, he lowered his voice before wading into the Trump-Massie fracas. He said that he had never gotten into the “cultish” dynamic surrounding Trump, whom he did not support in 2016. “Generally, he’s done a good job,” Kinman said of the president. But, he added, “when the rubber meets the road, I’m going to be with Thomas.”
Gallatin共和党的主席是51岁的送货专家Jim Kinman。他勉强接受了该职位，向我解释说，该州曾告诉县委员会，如果不选出一名军官，它将解散。会议结束后，当我追上金曼（Kinman）时，他降低了声音，然后才涉水到特朗普 - 马西（Trump-Massie）的狂欢中。他说，他从未进入过特朗普的“邪教”动态，他在2016年不支持特朗普。“通常，他做得很好，”金曼谈到总统时说。但是，他补充说：“当橡胶遇到这条路时，我将与托马斯在一起。”
Kinman told me that his loyalty to Massie has caused consternation among his fellow Republicans in the area, but he wasn’t budging. “Thomas legitimately is the only person I trust more than myself,” Kinman said. Whereas many Kentucky Republicans want their representatives to back Trump unconditionally, Kinman said he admired Massie’s adherence to his longtime principles. He compared him favorably to Paul, who is often aligned with Massie but has been a bit more open to compromise during the Trump era. (Kinman had nothing nice to say about McConnell, referring to him both as “a snake” and “the turtle.”) “We got plenty of people that are for rent,” Kinman said of politicians who too easily trade away their values. “I’m glad that Thomas is not.”
金曼告诉我，他对马西的忠诚使他在该地区的共和党人中引起了震惊，但他并没有兴奋。金曼说：“托马斯合法是我比我唯一信任的人。”尽管许多肯塔基州共和党人希望他们的代表无条件地支持特朗普，但金曼说，他钦佩马斯西坚持自己的长期原则。他比较了他与保罗经常与马西（Massie）保持一致的保罗，但在特朗普时代，他对妥协有些开放。（金曼对麦康奈尔没有什么好说的话，将他称为“蛇”和“乌龟”。）“我们得到了很多租金的人，”金曼谈到政治家时说，他们很容易交易他们的价值观。“我很高兴托马斯不是。”
Massie was about to go bowling last weekend when Trump bombed Iran. With the House on recess, he was back in his district for an event with the Northern Kentucky Young Republicans, a group filled with his acolytes. The gathering was a relaxed affair—Massie nursed a Michelob Ultra and wore an untucked turquoise polo shirt—and represented a small show of force for his standing in the area. The organization has hosted other prominent Kentucky Republicans, including each of the major potential GOP contenders to replace McConnell in the Senate. But its president, T. J. Roberts, told me that Massie’s event was the best attended.
特朗普轰炸伊朗时，马西（Massie）即将上周末打保龄球。随着房屋的休息，他回到了自己的地区，与北肯塔基州年轻共和党人一起参加了一场活动，该组织充满了他的助手。聚会是一件轻松的事情 - 玛西护理了米歇尔布超级，并穿着一件未杀死的绿松石polo衬衫 - 代表了他在该地区的站立效果。该组织接待了其他著名的肯塔基州共和党人，其中包括替代参议院麦康奈尔的每个主要潜在的共和党竞争者。但是它的总裁T. J. Roberts告诉我，Massie的活动是最好的。
At 27, Roberts is the second-youngest state legislator in Kentucky history and one of several conservatives known as “Massie’s Nasties” for their loyalty to the seven-term representative—and for their occasional hardball campaign tactics. Like many at the bowling alley on Saturday night, Roberts said that he admires Massie and Trump with equal fervor. He told me that he didn’t take the president’s demand for a primary challenge seriously. “President Trump is using this as a pressure technique against other members who may sway,” Roberts told me. “It’s a smart move. If I were in his shoes, I’d do the same thing.” As for Massie, Roberts said: “He’s inoculated from primaries.”
罗伯茨（Roberts）在27岁时是肯塔基州历史上第二年的州议员，也是几位被称为“马西西·纳斯蒂（Massie's Nasties）”的保守派之一，因为他们对七届代表的忠诚以及偶尔的硬球运动策略。像许多人在周六晚上的保龄球馆一样，罗伯茨说，他以同等的热情钦佩马西和特朗普。他告诉我，他没有认真对待总统对主要挑战的需求。罗伯茨告诉我：“特朗普总统将其用作对其他可能摇摆的成员的压力技术。”“这是一个明智的举动。如果我穿着他的鞋子，我会做同样的事情。”至于马西，罗伯茨说：“他是从初选中接种的。”
Yet without impugning Trump, Roberts made sure to remind the crowd of around 80 people of Massie’s MAGA credentials. “There is no one who represents MAGA in Congress better than Thomas Massie,” Roberts said. “He was MAGA before MAGA was a thing.”
然而，在没有破坏特朗普的情况下，罗伯茨一定要提醒人群中约80人的Maga的资格。罗伯茨说：“没有人比托马斯·马西（Thomas Massie）更好地代表国会玛格（Maga）。”“他是玛格（Maga）之前是玛格（Maga）。”
Massie began his speech by reminding the crowd of his overall support for Trump, but he tackled their disagreements head on, starting with the impending confrontation with Iran. Touting the resolution that he had introduced to block the president from ordering a unilateral military attack, Massie said, “I have his respect, and he has mine, but he cannot engage us in a war without a vote of Congress.” The crowd applauded his stance. But unbeknownst to Massie, his argument was all but moot: Soon after he left the stage, Trump announced that U.S. warplanes had already struck Iran’s nuclear sites.
马西（Massie）开始讲话，提醒人群对特朗普的总体支持，但他从即将与伊朗的对抗开始，解决了他们的分歧。马西说，他吹捧他介绍的决心阻止总统下令单方面的军事袭击，他说：“我有他的尊重，他有我的尊重，但他不能没有国会投票就参与战争。”人群为他的立场鼓掌。但是对马西（Massie）而言，他的论点几乎没有意义：他离开舞台后不久，特朗普宣布美国战机已经袭击了伊朗的核场所。
Like Trump, Massie is a storyteller who revels in sharing behind-the-scenes anecdotes that many politicians prefer either to keep private or to divulge without their names attached. Sass is a core part of his image, both in person and on social media, where he frequently uses the tagline #sassywithmassie. (Earlier this week when Vance wondered whether other vice presidents experienced “as much excitement” as he has, Massie responded on X: “Ask Mike Pence about his last month,” referring to January 6.)
像特朗普一样，马西（Massie）是一位讲故事的人，他陶醉于分享幕后轶事，许多政客更喜欢私下或没有附上姓名的情况。Sass是他的形象的核心部分，无论是亲自和社交媒体，他经常使用标语#sassywithmassie。（本周早些时
Read: Republicans still can’t say no to Trump
阅读：共和党人仍然不能对特朗普说不
During his speech, Massie argued that Trump respected him “because he knows I’m not a yes man” while also slyly mocking the president in ways that few Republicans dare to do in public. Massie described a House Republican conference meeting last month during which Trump droned on about him for so long that he had assumed the president was talking about someone else. At one point, Trump compared Massie with Paul. “They’re both from Kentucky, you can never get them to vote for anything, and they basically have the same hair,” Trump explained, according to Massie. “Actually,” the president quickly added, “I like Massie’s hair better.” As the crowd at the bowling alley laughed, Massie quipped, “Take the wins where you can get them!”
马西在演讲中辩称，特朗普尊重他“因为他知道我不是一个人”，同时狡猾地嘲笑总统，几乎没有共和党人敢于公开场合做。马西（Massie）描述了上个月的一次共和党会议，在此期间，特朗普（Trump）对他进行了很长时间，以至于他认为总统正在谈论其他人。特朗普有一次将马西与保罗进行了比较。特朗普解释说：“他们俩都是肯塔基州，你永远无法让他们投票赞成任何东西，而且基本上有同样的头发。”总统迅速补充说：“实际上，我更喜欢马西的头发。”当保龄球馆的人群笑着时，马西打趣道：“取得胜利，你可以得到他们！”
Despite Massie’s outward confidence about the prospect of a Trump-backed primary challenge, he has made some small moves that suggest a desire to declare a truce. He agreed to withdraw his war-powers resolution after Trump announced a cease-fire between Israel and Iran, at least temporarily abandoning the Democrats who planned to push it forward anyway. And although Massie voted against Trump’s megabill when it passed the House last month, he insisted that he was open to supporting its final passage if the Senate makes changes to his liking. “I’m a gettable vote!” he told me after his speech. (He explained his thinking this way to his supporters: “I’ll vote for a crap sandwich. I just want a pickle and two slices of bread.”)
尽管马斯西对特朗普支持的主要挑战的前景有信心，但他采取了一些小动作，表明愿意宣布休战。在特朗普宣布以色列和伊朗之间停火后，他同意撤回战争力量的决议，至少暂时放弃了计划将其前进的民主党人。尽管马斯皮上个月通过了众议院，但他坚持认为，如果参议院改变自己的喜好，他坚持认为他愿意支持其最后一段话。“我是一笔可观的投票！”他讲话后告诉我。（他向支持者解释了自己的想法：“我将投票给一个废话三明治。我只想要泡菜和两片面包。”）
I posed to Massie the question that had brought me to Kentucky in the first place: Why does a state that voted so strongly for Trump have such a disproportionate share of the president’s GOP critics in high office? He replied by invoking Kentucky’s divided status in the Civil War. “We were a border state,” Massie said. “We are independent in Kentucky, and I don’t think you can take our vote for granted, whether it’s representatives or constituents.” The coming months will test if that long-ago legacy still applies. Kentucky has clearly picked a side in the modern political wars, and its Republican voters must decide whether to force their remaining elected holdouts to join them.
我向马斯西（Massie）提出了将我带到肯塔基州的问题：为什么一个为特朗普投票如此强烈投票的州在总统的共和党高级批评家中的比例不成比例？他回答说，援引肯塔基州在内战中的分歧。“我们是边境国家，”马西说。“我们在肯塔基州是独立的，无论是代表还是成员，我都无法将我们的投票视为理所当然。”未来几个月将测试长期的遗产是否仍然适用。肯塔基州显然已经在现代政治战争中选择了一方，其共和党选民必须决定是否强迫其剩余的当选保留人加入他们。
