Body
President Donald Trump on Wednesday pushed a twin message of economic reassurance and political consolidation during a trip that included Ohio stops on drug pricing and a Kentucky rally aimed at strengthening his position within the Republican Party. While campaigning in Rep. Thomas Massie’s district, Trump attacked the incumbent by name and used the event to rally support for Gallrein, Massie’s primary challenger. The day unfolded against the backdrop of war in Iran, which has shaken financial markets and complicated Trump’s pitch on costs for voters.
At a rally in Kentucky, Trump urged Republicans to win upcoming midterms and told the crowd that “The midterms are going to be very, very important to keep it going.” He directed the strongest criticism at Massie, calling him “the worst” and describing the lawmaker as a “nutjob” whom Trump said should lose the party’s upcoming primary. Trump added that “We’ve got to get rid of this loser,” according to the report.
Trump’s intervention in the primary marked an unusually direct move against a fellow Republican who has broken with him in Congress, the report said. The AP description said Massie is among the remaining Republicans who has defied Trump on legislation and other matters, and Trump held a rally inside Massie’s northern Kentucky district rather than keeping the focus on broader campaigning.
The rally’s politics also included an explicit endorsement of Gallrein. Trump said he was endorsing Massie’s challenger, Ed Gallrein, in Kentucky’s primary on May 19. The account said Trump even called Gallrein—described as a farmer, business owner and retired Navy SEAL—to the stage briefly, where Gallrein told the crowd, “Tom Massie stands with the ladies of ‘The View.’ Mr. President, we stand with you!”
Before turning to the Kentucky contest, Trump began his swing with a tour and remarks at Thermo Fisher Scientific in the Cincinnati suburbs. There, he discussed the administration’s efforts to persuade major manufacturers to lower prescription medication prices and said his administration used negotiating efforts with other countries. “I used some very strong negotiating talent to get every single country to almost immediately approve,” he told reporters, according to the report.
As Trump tried to tie healthcare costs to a larger economic story, the day also carried a sharp foreign-policy thread centered on Iran. During the remarks to reporters, Trump said the U.S. campaign against Iran—described in the report as now in its 12th day—had been “a tremendous military success.” He said that what was happening in Iran would not escalate into a wider U.S. conflict, characterizing it as “an excursion that will keep us out of a war,” and added that “for them, it’s a war. For us, it’s turned out to be easier than we thought.”
Later in Kentucky, Trump returned to the question of how long the fighting would continue. He suggested the conflict was not about to end and said, “We don’t want to leave early, do we? We’ve got to finish the job.” He also said Iran was on the verge of rebuilding nuclear capabilities, and argued the fight needed to continue so, he said, “We don’t want to go back every two years.” The report said that those comments contradicted other Trump claims and justifications used for U.S. and Israel strikes on Iran, including earlier assertions about Iran’s nuclear capabilities.
The trip also included discussion of energy and prices at a time when the Trump economic message has faced new pressure. In an interview with Cincinnati’s WKRC-TV CBS, the report said Trump said he planned to tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to help bring down gasoline prices, adding, “Right now, we’ll reduce it a little bit, and that brings the prices down,” while not providing further details.
Trump’s remarks at the drug factory also reflected the market volatility the administration has been confronting. During the tour, the report said Trump acknowledged that stock markets had been volatile as gas prices rose, saying, “I figured we’d be hit a little bit. But, we were hit probably less than I thought.” The account said Trump then projected the economy would recover, saying, “We’ll be back on track in a pretty short while,” and adding, “Prices are coming down very substantially. Oil will be coming down.”
The report described the Kentucky rally as part of a broader travel effort the White House said would see Trump travel the country and focus on kitchen-table issues. It said the swing was designed to reassure voters concerned about still-rising prices and economic growth while also projecting political strength amid the Iran war. The report said Democrats have also pushed that everyday costs have remained too high, including after winning Virginia and New Jersey governor’s races in November.
In Kentucky, the report said Massie has opposed Trump-backed positions including a tax and spending measure, and he has pushed for records tied to Jeffrey Epstein-related sex trafficking investigations to be released. The account also said Massie criticized a U.S. strike on Venezuela that toppled Nicolás Maduro and has most recently criticized the war in Iran. Massie told The Cincinnati Enquirer that Trump’s endorsement is “all my opponent has going for him,” and said Gallrein “has promised to be a rubber stamp when he gets to Washington D.C. and I don’t think people here want a rubber stamp.”
The AP report said the trip followed other stops around the country, and it described how Trump’s recent speeches have sometimes leaned more heavily on political grievances than detailed plans to lower costs. It also said that even in Kentucky Trump spent extended stretches mocking former President Joe Biden and slamming California Gov. Gavin Newsom for publicly discussing his dyslexia, and that Trump later posted again online criticizing Newsom over the condition. The report noted that it was updated to correct the name of the local Ohio newspaper to The Cincinnati Enquirer.