To Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein has become the nuisance who won’t accept that the friendship is over. Six years after the disgraced financier died by apparent suicide in a Manhattan prison cell, he continues to stalk Trump’s second term as president. One of the few upsides of being dead is that nobody can tell you what to do or say.
But occasionally, the living can be stubborn too. Whenever the Trump era is over and the time comes to properly examine the hypnotic spell he cast on several generations of Republican politicians, the role of Thomas Massie is likely to feature prominently. The Kentuckian engineer turned politician maintains a typically rigid and eclectic set of conservative ideologies – rabidly anti-green energy, America First, limited federal government powers – and soon acquired the nickname Mr No for the number of Bills he voted against.
That included Trump’s coveted “One Big Beautiful Bill”, because it would not cut the federal deficit at a time when the national debt was $36 trillion and counting. But his co-sponsorship of the discharge petition with California Democrat Ro Khanna to force a House vote to release the Epstein files might yet become the most consequential moment of Massie’s political life.
The reopening of government
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