In recent weeks, President Trump has set out on a multistate tour designed to show midterm election voters that he is focused on the economy and their pocketbooks.
But there is another, not-so-subtle political message sent during the trips: Even as a second-term president, Mr. Trump is still maintaining his dominance over the Republican Party.
Time and again, Mr. Trump has selected states to visit where active Republican primary campaigns are underway or where his few G.O.P. critics in Congress have their districts. And as large crowds of Republican voters cheer on his agenda, Mr. Trump works to tighten his political grip over the party at a point in his term when other lame-duck presidents have started to lose their political power.
During no trip was this message more clear than on Wednesday at a packaging facility in Hebron, Ky.
After a crowd of supporters cheered on the war he has launched against Iran, Mr. Trump began railing against Representative Thomas Massie, the Kentucky Republican who has been a rare G.O.P. voice criticizing the president over foreign wars, domestic spending and his handling of the Epstein files.
“Massie is a complete and total disaster as a congressman and, frankly, as a human being,” Mr. Trump said from a makeshift stage at Verst Logistics.
“We’ve got to get rid of this loser,” he added at another point. “This guy is bad. He’s disloyal to the Republican Party. He’s disloyal to the people of Kentucky. And most importantly, he is disloyal to the United States of America.”
Mr. Trump then brought onto the stage a primary challenger to Mr. Massie whom the president has supported to try to defeat the seven-term congressman: Ed Gallrein, a farmer who has repeatedly voiced his support for Mr. Trump.
“Just give me somebody with a warm body to beat Massie,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Gallrein. “And I got somebody with a warm body, but a big beautiful brain and a great patriot. He’s unbelievable.”
With war raging in Iran and voters worried about rising costs, Mr. Trump made stops in Ohio and Kentucky to try to emphasize that he has not lost his focus on the domestic economy. He visited a pharmaceutical company in Reading, Ohio, to discuss steps his administration has taken to try to lower the costs of prescription drugs, and the packaging facility in Kentucky to ostensibly talk about tax cuts and other economic proposals.
The White House is well aware that the economy will probably be a deciding factor in the midterm elections. Mr. Trump has embarked on a tour of states — including Michigan, Georgia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Texas — to try to make his case to voters.
But he has also used the stops to display his influence over his party.
During a recent event in Texas, the leading Republican candidates in that state’s Senate race both paid homage to Mr. Trump. Afterward, Mr. Trump said he would pick one to endorse, and call on the other to drop out of the race.
In another clear display of party dominance, Mr. Trump paid a visit to the home district of former Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia Republican who was once a solid ally of the president before turning against him and leaving politics.
“I predict that ‘Representative’ Thomas Massie will go down as the WORST Republican Congressman in the long and fabled history of the United States Congress, even worse than Crazy Liz Chaney, Cryin’ Adam Kinzinger, and Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Brown (Remember, Green turns to Brown under stress!),” Mr. Trump wrote on social media on Wednesday, carrying on his feuds with both Ms. Greene and Mr. Massie. “They are all misfits and losers, but Massie, who is running against a great American Patriot in the Kentucky Primary, will hopefully lose BIG. I LOVE KENTUCKY!!!”
Mr. Trump’s antipathy toward Mr. Massie, a Republican with a libertarian streak, goes back years. In 2020, Mr. Trump wrote on social media that Mr. Massie was a “third rate Grandstander” after the congressman opposed a Covid-19 relief measure; the president called for Kentucky voters to “throw Massie out of Republican Party!” Mr. Massie then won his primary by more than 60 points.
But Mr. Massie has angered the president even more in recent months. He has been a leading voice calling for the full release of the Epstein files, and opposed Mr. Trump’s moves to increase government spending and launch foreign wars.
Mr. Massie has tried to turn some of his fights with the president into areas of agreement.
“I predict ‘President’ DJT will begrudgingly sign my beautiful Epstein Files Transparency Act, causing beleaguered princes and ambassadors and prime ministers and CEOs around the world to be arrested or resign in total shame,” Mr. Massie wrote on social media in response to one of the president’s attacks. “Oh wait, that already happened.”
At the rally on Wednesday in Kentucky, Mr. Trump acknowledged that this was perhaps the most vitriolic of his political broadsides.
“I’ve done this before,” the president said of trying to unseat his Republican critics. “Not quite as violently and miserably as this one, but I just can’t stand this guy.”
Two Republican voters who live in the district and attended the rally, Nancy Holian and Lois Bradford, told The New York Times they would not be voting for Mr. Massie after hearing the president’s remarks about him.
“We’re not going to vote for him again,” Ms. Bradford said. “I completely loved what Trump has been doing. I’ve supported him 100 percent and that’s why I voted Massie in, to support our president. But he does not support our president. He has joined forces with Democrats against him.”
Luke Broadwater covers the White House for The Times.
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