Thomas Massie: Israel Lobby Subverts U.S. Democracy

Find out how powerful pro-Israel lobbying groups and Jewish megadonors came together to spend a record-breaking sum in order to defeat a grass-roots America First campaign and subvert a House primary.

On May 19th 2026 Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District primary became the most expensive House primary in American history, with an estimated total of over $34 million being spent on campaign expenditure. For those outside of the U.S. it is important to note: this was not an election in the conventional sense, but in fact a form of candidate selection in order to determine who would represent the Republican party in the district at the forthcoming midterm elections that take place in November. There were two candidates on the ballot: Thomas Massie, the seven-term incumbent congressman and Ed Gallrein, the challenger. Thomas Massie fought a courageous campaign, yet in the end he was overwhelmed, taking 45.6 per cent of the vote compared to his rival who emerged victorious with 54.4 per cent.

The fact that this election even took place is somewhat of an anomaly, as it is incredibly common for primaries not to be held when a long-term incumbent runs for re-election. Whether a primary occurs depends solely on whether another candidate from the same party steps forward and mounts a challenge – and in many cases, when a long-term incumbent runs for re-election, no one steps forward and the primary is cancelled. But not only was it out of the ordinary for this election to even be held, but the contest also managed to break all spending records for an election of its type. In fact, so much money was spent during this election, that the previous record for the most expensive house primary was smashed by almost $10 million.

And the reason for this series of unprecedented events was simple: Thomas Massie had dared to speak out against the state of Israel, called for the full release of the Epstein files and opposed Trump’s war in Iran. This of course could not go unpunished, and Donald Trump and the powerful Israel lobby that holds an incredible degree of influence over American politics joined forces to pump a record amount of money into this primary. This is an example of not only how Israel effectively controls American politics, but it also illustrates how Israel has carved out an exception which allows its lobbyists to subvert U.S. elections on behalf of a foreign state without having to register as foreign agents.

Thomas Massie directly raised and spent between $5 million and $5.5 million for his re-election campaign, with the overwhelming majority of Massie’s funds coming from individual everyday contributors rather than political action committees. This fact was reflected in campaign finance, with Thomas Massie’s average individual donation coming-in at a remarkably low $94. And whilst Thomas Massie did enjoy some out-of-state support from Libertarians who supported his non-interventionist stance on the current conflict in the Middle East, his campaign was overwhelmingly a local grass-roots effort funded and supported by his voter base. Conversely, whilst Thomas Massie’s personal campaign outspent Ed Gallrein’s personal campaign – which raised around $2 million to $3.1 million – Massie’s grass-roots effort was utterly dwarfed by a $19.5 million smear campaign which was mostly funded by out-of-state super PACs (Political Action Committees) that deployed their resources to defeat him.

Interestingly, Thomas Massie raised more money from his grass-roots campaign than Ed Gallrein by a factor of almost two to one. This suggests that Thomas Massie initially had far more local support in the district than Gallrein, but despite this level of local support, the Massie campaign was easily out spent by a group of super PACs that swung the election in the later days of the campaign in favour of the challenger.

The single largest group spend during the campaign came from a group known as MAGA Kentucky, or MAGA KY as it is often abbreviated. This specialised super PAC was established by two high ranking aides to Donald Trump – Chris LaCivita and Tony Fabrizio – in late June 2025 in order to specifically target and undermine Thomas Massie. MAGA KY went on to spend between $7 million and $7.5 million on aggressive field operations and advertisements during the duration of the campaign. Whilst MAGA KY primarily capitalised on Donald Trump’s endorsement of Ed Gallrein in order to paint Thomas Massie as “disloyal”, there was far more to this campaign than just the issue of ‘loyalty’ to either the Republican Party or to Donald Trump and the MAGA movement. Make no mistake; this election was about one thing and one thing alone: loyalty to Israel.

Whilst the campaign by MAGA KY against Thomas Massie was carefully framed around party loyalty rather than foreign policy, when scratching the surface, it becomes immediately clear that MAGA KY is not an organic or grass roots operation supported and funded by average Republican voters, but it was instead funded by the same Jewish megadonors who surrounded Trump in 2024 and funded his third presidential campaign. When lifting the curtain to discover who was behind the funding of MAGA KY, it can be revealed that the super PAC’s two main donors were none other than Paul Singer and Miriam Adelson.

Paul Singer is a Jewish billionaire hedge fund manager and one of the most powerful and influential megadonors in modern Republican politics. As the founder of the $73 billion asset-management firm Elliott Investment Management, he has used his multi-billion-dollar fortune to shape neoconservative economic, domestic, and foreign policy for the last two decades. Through his supposedly ‘philanthropic’ Paul E. Singer Foundation, Singer has an extensive history of donating to ‘worthy causes’ that revolve heavily around his ethnic heritage. Singer frequently funds security upgrades for Jewish institutions, backs programs like Passages Israel (which sends students to Israel) and funds the Birthright Israel Foundation (which sends young Jews on educational trips to Israel).

When it comes to policy Singer is a war hawk who advocates for aggressive U.S. foreign intervention and absolute military backing for Israel. He is a massive donor to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a neoconservative think tank that aggressively lobbied for the government to dismantle the Iran nuclear deal. He also routinely funds AIPAC’s super PAC, the United Democracy Project – more on that later. Singer was also the Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research for 17 years from 2008 until May 2025, he has since assumed the role of Chairman Emeritus of the organisation. Under his leadership, the think tank heavily focused on free-market urban policy, fighting against corporate wealth taxes, advocating for school choice, and opposing environmental regulations on electric vehicles and green energy subsidies. Singer has also been a vocal supporter of same-sex marriage and gay rights within the Republican Party, motivated in part by having a homosexual son who is married to a man.

Interestingly, during Trump’s 2016 campaign for the White House, Singer openly made his disdain for Trump’s isolationist and anti-war rhetoric very clear. Singer’s dislike for Donald Trump, and specifically for Trump’s calls to bring U.S. troops home from the Middle-East, led Singer to fund a super PAC that attacked Trump and backed his then rival Marco Rubio. Notably, Singer funded the opposition research firm that ultimately created the Steele dossier – the highly controversial and now debunked document that featured 35-pages of unverified intelligence reports alleging a conspiracy between Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Russian government.

Subsequent federal investigations, including the 2019 Mueller Report and an internal Justice Department Inspector General review, thoroughly discredited the dossier. Federal investigators concluded that the document relied on uncorroborated gossip, unverified rumours, and fabricated claims. The Steel dossier’s primary sub-source, a man named Igor Danchenko, was later indicted by the FBI for lying about how he obtained the information published in the document. While the FBI used parts of the dossier to secure surveillance warrants on a Trump campaign aide, the document was ultimately exposed as nothing more than a tissue of lies created by Trump’s political opposition rather than a piece of verified intelligence.

But how times change, as Trump now enjoys record levels of financial support from Singer, the man who once funded a report that falsely accused him of hiring prostitutes in order to have them perform a sex act that involved urinating on a bed at the Ritz-Carlton hotel because Barack and Michelle Obama had previously slept in the room. Whilst the rumours about Trump hiring prostitutes to urinate on a bed was proved to be completely fabricated, Singer’s money has ironically showed Trump up as a political-prostitute who is more than willing to sell-out on policy for the right price.

The other megadonor behind MAGA KY is none other than Miriam Adelson - an Israeli-American physician, casino magnate and billionaire megadonor who is currently one of the most powerful financial forces in modern Republican politics. Miriam Adelson has an estimated net worth of up to $40 billion; she controls the Las Vegas Sands gaming empire and is a principal owner of the Dallas Mavericks – an American basketball team. Along with her late husband Sheldon Adelson, she has spent over a decade acting as a political ‘kingmaker’, using hundreds of millions of dollars to subvert U.S. elections in order to influence American foreign policy.

Born Miriam Farbstein in Tel Aviv in 1945 during the British Mandate, she is ethnically Jewish and a dual citizen of both Israel and the United States. Before marrying Sheldon Adelson in 1991, she was an accomplished medical doctor who specialised in internal and emergency medicine. She dedicated much of her medical career to treating substance abuse and established notable methadone clinics in Tel Aviv and Las Vegas. As part of her vast financial empire, she owns and publishes Israel Hayom, Israel’s most widely circulated daily Hebrew print newspaper, which maintains an openly expansionist and ethno-nationalist tone.

Miriam Adelson is a hardline neoconservative whose primary political position is unconditional U.S. financial, military and diplomatic backing for the State of Israel. As a committed Zionist she operates with an ‘Israel-First’ approach to her political spending. Following the October 7^th attacks her Zionist rhetoric hardened significantly; she wrote columns in her newspaper stating that critics of Israel’s military strategy should be treated as “ideological enablers” of terrorism who are “dead to us”. She is also an open and vocal advocate for the greater Israel project, endorsing Israel’s annexation of the West Bank and cheering on the illegal seizure of Palestinian land. As an extension of this, she fiercely opposes any non-interventionist Republicans who vote against foreign aid to Israel, as such, she seeks to systematically purge any anti-war elements from the Republican Party.

But MAGA KY was not alone in spending millions of dollars in order to influence the outcome of this House primary. Along with MAGA KY, three prominent pro-Israel super PACs collectively spent over $9.5 million in order to fight against Thomas Massie’s re-election. These organisations directly targeted Thomas Massie’s non-interventionist position as well as his refusal to support an Israel-first agenda. These three organisations are the United Democracy Project, the Republican Jewish Coalition Victory Fund and the Christians United for Israel Action Fund.

The United Democracy Project (UDP) is an American super PAC created in December 2021 as the primary electoral arm of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Unlike standard advocacy groups, the UDP – like other super PACs – can raise and spend unlimited sums of money to directly influence the outcome of U.S. congressional primary elections. The UDP’s primary aims are to fund the campaigns of pro-Israel candidates and defeat any politicians who criticize the Israeli government or vote against U.S. military aid to Israel, whilst at the same time working to eliminate anti-interventionist or isolationist viewpoints from both major political parties. In short, they spend vast amounts of money to oppose America First and anti-war candidates whilst funding hawkish supporters of Israel-First policies.

The UDP operates as a bipartisan campaign group that is heavily funded by a mix of Wall Street executives, traditional political donors, and prominent American billionaires from both sides of the illusory political divide. The aforementioned hedge fund manager Paul Singer is one of UDP’s most significant financial supporters, but other megadonors include the Jewish co-founder of Home Depot Bernie Marcus and the Jewish media mogul Haim Saban. The super PAC also receives massive financial injections from its founding body, AIPAC, which initially used $8.5 million from its own capital reserves to kickstart the organisation.

The UDP played a devastating and decisive role in the recent Republican primary. As Thomas Massie was running in a highly conservative district, the UDP departed from its usual strategy of hiding its pro-Israel focus. The organisation took out explicit adverts directly branding Thomas Massie as “the most anti-Israel Republican in the House” and explicitly weaponized his non-interventionist foreign policy record against him. The UDP spent around $4.5 million in total, and out of that sum they held back a staggering $3 million to unleash a massive, concentrated media saturation blitz over the final weekend leading up to the vote.

Another major player in the anti-Massie campaign was the Republican Jewish Coalition Victory Fund, which is the dedicated super PAC arm of the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC), a prominent Washington-based political advocacy group that advocates for Jewish interests through the Republican party. Unlike the bipartisan UDP, the RJC operates strictly within the Republican Party in order to promote its core aims, seeking to affect both domestic and foreign policy.

The RJC’s primary aims are much the same as the UDP’s: with their principal objectives being to fund the campaigns of pro-Israel candidates whilst also working to defeat and silence non-interventionist or anti-Zionist candidates. However, the RJC differs from the UDP not only through it’s focus on partisan politics, but also through its aim to increase Jewish representation within the Republican voter base and the elected ranks of the party. The RJC is more strongly concerned with ensuring that Jews are represented (or over represented) amongst elected officials in the U.S. The RJC also focuses heavily on ensuring that those who speak out against Israel are branded as antisemites – a classic smear and silencing tactic.

The RJC enjoys a very similar level of support to the UDP, with both Miriam Adelson and her late husband Sheldon being the primary financial pillars of the organisation. The Adelsons are joined in their support for the RJC by Wall Street Republicans like the aforementioned Paul Singer – a man who clearly has interests in numerous lobbying groups. However, unlike the UDP the RJC also draws contributions from thousands of conservative donors who explicitly support the ideals of free market economics and unquestioned American support for the state of Israel.

The RJC Victory Fund played an unprecedented, aggressive role in the May 19^th primary, spending roughly $4 million in order to defeat Thomas Massie – making this the largest single House primary expenditure in the organisation’s history. For this election the RJC completely dropped their standard economic talking points, instead launching a coordinated, six-part negative advertisement campaign targeting Massie’s specific foreign policy voting record. The RJC leaned heavily into the conflict with Iran with their adverts directly accusing Thomas Massie of “standing with Iran and radical leftists” due to his voting record on resolutions relating to Iranian drone strikes and his vocal criticism of U.S. military operations with Israel. The RJC strategically structured its adverts to emphasise Donald Trump’s official endorsement of challenger Ed Gallrein, effectively telling conservative primary voters that Massie was out of step with the MAGA movement.

The final of the three groups that were heavily involved in Thomas Massie’s defeat is Christians United for Israel (CUFI) – a prominent American non-profit organisation, and by membership the largest pro-Israel advocacy group in the United States, boasting over 10 million members. Operating through its political lobbying arm, the CUFI Action Fund, CUFI mobilizes millions of evangelical and conservative Christians to lobby the U.S. government for absolute military, financial, and theological backing for Israel.

CUFI operates under the ideology of Christian Zionism, which dictates that Christians have a biblical obligation to defend Israel based on scriptural passages regarding the Jewish people’s covenant with God. CUFI’s core aims include lobbying the U.S. establishment to block foreign governments and international bodies from placing diplomatic pressure on Israel over land seizures and human rights abuses, as well as lobbying the government to oppose a two-state solution or the division of Jerusalem. CUFI is also heavily focused on advocating for maximum U.S. military intervention in the region and to ensure the imposition of sanctions against foreign governments that are perceived as being hostile to Israel. As an extension of this, CUFI seeks to eliminate the anti-interventionist America First faction within the Republican Party, ensuring that conservative candidates view unconditional support for Israel as a mandatory party platform.

Unlike super PACs that rely almost exclusively on a handful of Wall Street billionaires, the CUFI Action Fund’s financial structure relies heavily on an extensive grassroots network of Christian Zionists. CUFI was founded by evangelical pastor John Hagee and David Brog in 2006. David Brog is Jewish and is the third cousin of Ehud Barak, the former Prime Minister of Israel. John Hagee is also the founder and leader of John Hagee Ministries which operates what is known as a ‘megachurch’ situated in San Antonio Texas, along with a vast media and broadcasting network that brings in up to $90 million a year in tax free income. Whilst John Hagee Ministries can’t directly donate its wealth to the CUFI Action Fund, it does use its sizeable influence to promote the fund. Other such ministries and a network of smaller evangelical churches also help to bring millions of smaller donations into CUFI annually from Christians across the Bible Belt who view financial support for Israel as a religious duty. The CUFI Action Fund also accepts substantial contributions from major conservative political donors who align with the group’s hawkish support of Israel.

Whilst the UDP and the RJC focused on multi-million-dollar television and digital ad campaigns, the CUFI Action Fund spent a six-figure sum on a highly targeted, aggressive, geographical saturation campaign in order to break Thomas Massie’s support amongst rural Christian voters. For a full month leading up to election day the CUFI Action Fund bought up every single available outdoor billboard space across Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District. This blanket purchase of advertising space ensured that Thomas Massie’s constituents were exposed to anti-Massie messaging on every major highway corridor, commuter route, and local population centre whilst denying the Massie campaign the ability to promote their message. CUFI’s billboards targeted Thomas Massie on the issue of national security; explicitly attacking him over his opposition to U.S. military action against Iran. The strategy was designed to turn traditional, pro-military Christian conservatives against Thomas Massie by framing his isolationist voting record as a dangerous abandonment of America’s ‘greatest ally’. CUFI’s unrelenting campaign in the run-up to the election successfully eroded Thomas Massie’s grassroots support in rural parts of the district by defining his non-interventionist foreign policy as “anti-Israel” to a heavily Christian voter base.

Along with the massive well-funded campaigns that focused on policy, a sizable dirty tricks campaign was also initiated by the pro-Trump and pro-Israel coalition. The single most notorious dirty trick of the campaign involved an AI-generated, deepfake television advert. The advert featured realistic, fabricated surveillance footage that depicted Thomas Massie checking into a hotel room in order to engage in a threesome with two Democrats – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar. The voiceover accused Massie of “betraying Donald Trump” by voting with Democrats against border funding, framing the fake affair as “worse than adultery”. A tiny written disclaimer appeared at the beginning of the advert which noted that the advert was “satirical”. This was accompanied by multiple slurs being circulated online about Thomas Massie’s penis, his sexual history and allegations of him using Viagra.

Faced with such overwhelming odds and a record-breaking level of spending it is no wonder that Thomas Massie lost – and in some ways it is a miracle that he still managed to poll so strongly. However despite Trump and the Israel lobby celebrating Thomas Massie’s defeat as a massive win for their cause, this election has actually managed to prove two things: firstly, that Jewish money and Israeli influence has an unprecedented grasp over U.S. politics and secondly, that Donald Trump is not the anti-establishment radical he once claimed to be, but instead he is a sell-out who has given up on the very policies he once championed and that made him so popular. What’s more, Trump’s about-face is even more shameless than it initially appears, as it has resulted in him selling-out to the Jewish megadonors who once falsely accused him of taking part in the most lurid acts and who would have happily seen him jailed on the back of the lies that they enthusiastically peddled.

The record-breaking amount of money that was spent on this campaign, and the fact that most of the funds came from either extremely wealthy Jews or extremely well-funded pro-Israel lobby groups, exposes how American politics has been hijacked by a foreign entity. When a well-funded and well-run grass-roots campaign on behalf of a successful long-term incumbent can be out spent by such a large margin thanks to a small clique of megadonors, it is clear that the entire American political system has ceased to be about representation of the people, for the people and by the people. Instead, U.S. politics has become representation for Israel, by those in the pay of Israel all thanks to swamping sums of money that originates from a tiny-clique of pro-Israel Jewish megadonors. America First is dead, if it was indeed ever alive, in fact at this point it would be accurate to state that America First is merely the Israeli Lobby parading around in a patriotic skinsuit as a means of conning the electorate into re-engaging with the Republican Party.

But probably even more illuminating than the issue of Israeli control over American politics is the manner in which Donald Trump has willingly prostituted himself to the very people who were once happy to run his name into the ground and wanted him strung up for a series of fabricated claims about ties to Russia. The fact that Trump can go running into the arms of those who once attempted to have him jailed on the basis of blatantly false claims illustrates what a shameless opportunist he really is. Trump has proved himself to be neither an American hero nor a free and independent president, in fact he has become just as bad, if not worse, than the neo-con Republicans he once decried and promised to replace. And as a final note on Trump, it’s incredibly illuminating that he now seems more concerned about purging the Republican Party of free-thinkers like Thomas Massie than he does about either fighting the democrats or making good on any of his election pledges.

The one silver lining to this disgusting display of foreign influence is that not only did it take such a large amount of money to unseat Thomas Massie, but blatant electoral corruption, unprecedented foreign intervention and the naked subversion of American politics has never been as obvious as it was in this election. The primary in which Thomas Massie was defeated was a true mask-off moment that appears to be somewhat of a pyrrhic victory for the Israel lobby; they may have won the election, but in doing so they exposed the true level of Jewish influence and Israeli power in American politics and let every astute observer know exactly who the U.S. president really answers to.