Washington Edition: Testing Trump’s grip

I’m Nancy Cook, Bloomberg’s senior national political correspondent, and each weekday I’ll be coming to you with inside-the-room reporting and insights that reveal what’s really happening in Washington — and how it impacts you. Email me with feedback and comments here. If this newsletter was forwarded to you, sign up here.

Primary Argument

President Donald Trump’s grip on the Republican Party gets a major test in northern Kentucky in a few weeks.

That’s when Trump nemesis Representative Thomas Massie will face off in the Republican primary with a candidate who has the president’s full-throated backing.

My colleague Josh Green has a Bloomberg Businessweek profile out today on Massie and his fight to protect his House seat. Like all of Josh’s big swings, it’s well worth your time. Among the things you’ll learn is that beyond his reputation as a hardline Tea Party/libertarian and contrarian, Massie is also an engineer with degrees from MIT who started his own company and lives off the grid in a rural area.

It’s his independent streak that has earned the president’s ire. Trump’s Truth Social posts attacking Massie are their own genre. (Among his offenses are defying Trump and forcing a vote for release of the government’s full Jeffrey Epstein files, criticizing the war in Iran and routinely questioning the administration’s spending).

But Massie is popular back home — he hasn’t faced a serious challenge since winning his House seat in 2012.

This year he’s facing a Trump-endorsed former Navy Seal, Ed Gallrein, who’s run a relatively low-key campaign. Polling shows Massie leading by 17 percentage points, but there’s still a big chunk of undecided voters. And Massie is facing an onslaught of negative advertising from an AIPAC-backed group as well as from Kentucky MAGA, a super PAC run by former Trump aides that was specifically founded to unseat him. 

Photographer: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images via Getty Images North America

Massie told Josh that while he supports the president on most issues, the MAGA movement is split over issues like the war and the Epstein files. “I have half of MAGA, and I think the president has the other half—not that I’m running against him,” he said.

Massie isn’t the only test case for Trump’s sway in the party coming up. On May 16, a few days before the Kentucky vote, Senator Bill Cassidy is facing a powerful challenge from a Trump-backed opponent and another Republican in the Louisiana primary.

Cassidy hasn’t drawn quite as much fire from Trump as Massie, but he is one of three Republicans still in the Senate who voted to convict the president at his second impeachment trial. 

Cassidy, a physician, also raised questions early on about Trump’s pick of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for Health secretary because of his skeptical statements about vaccines. Cassidy ultimately voted to confirm Kennedy, but his hesitation made him a target of Trump and of the “Make America Healthy Again” movement that’s angling to be a power in the GOP base.

Both primaries are taking place as the conflict with Iran drags on, Trump’s approval rating continues to crater and some of his once reliable allies, like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tucker Carlson, have become fierce critics. With questions being raised about the future direction of the Republican Party, the coming votes may give an indication whether Trump can keep his party united through a tough midterm campaign.

Today’s Top News

The prospect of Iran agreeing to more in-person peace talks with the US is being hindered by Trump’s threats and brash social media posts, according to several officials with knowledge of the diplomatic efforts to end their war.

Trump has repeatedly said his war against Iran is intended to prevent Tehran from ever getting a nuclear weapon, but he risks ending up with a worse nuclear deal than the one he abandoned in his first term.

The president and administration officials tell Americans almost daily that the spike in fuel costs is a temporary blip that will reverse just as soon as he reaches a deal to end the war in Iran. The oil industry begs to differ.

The Trump administration plans to extend a shipping waiver that allows foreign tankers to move oil and gasoline around the US, a bid to counter supply disruptions and higher prices triggered by the war in Iran. 

US forces boarded a supertanker carrying Iranian oil in the Indian Ocean as the Navy steps up its blockade of the Islamic Republic’s shipping amid a standoff that’s left the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed.

Trump’s order for the US to attack Iranian gunboats is the latest sign that an asymmetrical war-fighting strategy is stymieing the world’s mightiest navy, with US aircraft and destroyers forced to track swarming speedboats.

Only one person has been approved so far for Trump’s “Gold Card” Visa program granting foreigners US residency for a $1 million fee, according to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

House Republicans unveiled their latest plan to extend a US spy powers tool after a week of rebellion from privacy hawks forced leadership to settle for a 10-day extension as they worked through negotiations.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers were told verbally weeks ago to stop entering homes without judicial warrants, marking a shift away from some of the agency’s most aggressive enforcement tactics.

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals reached a deal with the Trump administration to lower drug costs for some Americans and won US approval for its gene therapy to treat a rare form of deafness.

Applications for unemployment benefits in the US increased by 6,000 to 214,000 last week, though they remain at a level consistent with low layoffs.

About $300 billion worth of goods subject to Trump administration tariffs are avoiding the levies annually and reaching the US from Southeast Asia and Mexico, exposing vulnerabilities in enforcement.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche signed a directive that reclassified state-regulated marijuana as a less dangerous drug, a major shift that could increase legal cannabis sales and help a struggling industry.

Must Reads From Bloomberg Government

House conservatives signaled opposition to the budget blueprint just hours after the Senate advanced it early this morning, threatening the GOP’s immigration funding plans.

Obamacare sign-ups have dropped by over a million this year, with Trump administration officials claiming those who lost coverage were never entitled to it. But researchers say the data doesn’t back up that assertion.

Watch & Listen

Today on Bloomberg Television’s Balance of Power early edition at 1 p.m., hosts Joe Mathieu and Kailey Leinz interviewed Senator Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois Democrat and a member of the Armed Services Committee, about the war with Iran and leadership at the Pentagon.

On the program at 5 p.m., they talk with Republican Senator Bill Hagerty of Tennessee about the state of the conflict with Iran and voting on the president’s nominee for Federal Reserve chair.

On the Big Take podcast, host David Gura and Bloomberg’s Michael McKee go inside Kevin Warsh’s confirmation hearing, where the Fed chair nominee vowed he wouldn’t be a “sock puppet” for the president and laid out some of his vision for the Fed’s future if confirmed. Listen on iHeart, Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Big Take Kevin Warsh Makes His Case for Fed Chair

Chart of the Day

It’s no surprise that Americans hold Congress in low esteem: With the exception of a brief spike after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, its approval has been mostly underwater for the last half-century. What’s remarkable is how bipartisan that sentiment has become. Gallup’s latest measure of congressional approval finds that Republican voters are driving the near-record low ratings, plunging to 20% approval of a Congress led by their own party. Gallup pollster Megan Brenan says government shutdowns, ethics scandals, the Iran war and inability to pass a voter identification law may all be contributing to the decline. While midterm elections tend to be referenda on the president, the congressional approval numbers suggest that the anti-incumbency mood goes far deeper than Trump. — Gregory Korte

What’s Next

The University of Michigan’s final read of consumer sentiment in April will be published tomorrow.

King Charles is scheduled to make his first state visit to the US next week.

The Conference Board’s gauge of consumer confidence will be published Tuesday.

The Florida legislature convenes a special session on redistricting Tuesday.

Durable goods orders for March will be reported Wednesday.

The Fed Open Markets Committee makes a decision on its benchmark interest rate on Wednesday.

The March personal consumption expenditures index, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, will be published next Thursday.

More From Bloomberg

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