US congressman Thomas Massie has revealed that all elected Republican politicians are have designated representatives from a powerful lobby group who pressure them to vote the way Israel wants.
Mr Massie, who represents Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District, told Tucker Carlson on Friday that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) assigns each Republican member of congress a “babysitter” in order to make sure they act in the interests of Israel.
AIPAC just last month spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on ads attacking Mr Massie in the lead-up to the May 21 Kentucky GOP primary, which Mr Massie won regardless. The lobby group has also targeted progressive House Democrats who oppose Israel’s actions in Gaza.
Rep. Thomas Massie doesn’t care what you think of him, which is pretty great.
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“I have Republicans come to me on the floor and say, ‘I wish I could vote with you today. Yours is the right vote, but I would just take too much flak back home’,” Mr Massie said on The Tucker Carlson Show.
“And I have Republicans who come to me and say, ‘That’s wrong, what a PAC is doing to you. Let me talk to my AIPAC person’. By the way, everybody but me has an AIPAC person.”
When Carlson asked him what he meant by an “AIPAC person”, Mr Massie replied: “It’s like your babysitter. Your AIPAC babysitter who is always talking to you for AIPAC. They’re probably a constituent in your district, but they are, you know, firmly embedded in AIPAC.”
He went on to say that while he was unsure how it worked for Democrats, it was true for every Republican, but that the American public was being kept in the dark.
“It doesn’t benefit anybody. Why would they want to tell their constituents that they’ve basically got a buddy system with somebody who’s representing a foreign country? It doesn’t benefit the congressman for people to know that. So they’re not going to tell you that,” Mr Massie said.
He also revealed that AIPAC paid for House Republicans and their spouses to travel to Israel, that he was one of only about a dozen not to go on such a trip, and that he had banned AIPAC from his office after they tried to primary him.
Mr Massie, 53, describes himself as a “true conservative” and sides against neo-conservative Republicans on US military interventionism and military aid for Israel, infuriating pro-Israel groups including AIPAC.
During the primary AIPAC ran ads against him, including one that said “Israel, the Holy Land, under attack by Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and Congressman Tom Massie”.
“AIPAC superPAC just bought $300,000 of ads against me because I am often the lone Republican for freedom of speech, against foreign aid, and opposed to wars in the Middle East,” Mr Massie said in response.
Despite the AIPAC attacks and his failed bid to oust pro-Israel House Speaker Mike Johnson, Mr Massie won three-quarters of the vote.
AIPAC was Mr Johnson’s top donor in 2023.
When Carlson asked Mr Massie why AIPAC had spent so much money trying to remove him from office, the congressman replied: “They don’t want one horse out of the barn. If one person starts speaking the truth, they’re afraid it could be contagious.”
