Este artículo estará disponible en español en El Tiempo Latino.

An attack ad by a super PAC called MAGA Kentucky targets Republican Rep. Thomas Massie — a longtime conservative foil of President Donald Trump — with claims that distort the congressman’s votes on some of Trump’s policy goals.

The 30-second broadcast and digital ad, the first phase in a $1 million ad buy, according to Axios, began airing in late June in the northern Kentucky district where Massie is seeking reelection in 2026. The ad is titled “RADICAL DEMOCRATS,” and its narrator asks, “What happened to Thomas Massie? When did he decide to start voting with the radical Democrats? Massie voted against President Trump’s tax cuts. Massie voted against finishing Trump’s wall. Massie even voted against Trump’s ban on taxpayer-funded sex changes for minors.”

The ad is referring to Massie’s votes against Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Massie was one of only two Republicans to vote against the initial House version of the bill on May 22, and the final Senate version of the bill on July 3. Although the bill contained elements of all three issues highlighted in the ad, Massie’s opposition was based on the bill’s impact on the national debt. The ad singles out aspects of the bill that Massie has generally supported.

During Trump’s first term, Massie voted for Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in 2017, and he has said repeatedly that he supports extending tax cuts in it that were scheduled to expire at the end of this year.

“Look, I’m for the tax cuts, extending those tax cuts. I voted for those in 2017,” Massie said in a May 20 interview on Newsmax2. “Here’s the problem: we’re cutting more taxes, and we’re increasing spending. And to the extent they say we’re cutting spending, that doesn’t happen in these first few years. They’re saying, ‘We’ll do that in the later years.’ The problem is the later years never come.”

“There are a lot of good things in this bill,” Massie said in a Newsmax interview on June 11. “We do need to deport the people who’ve come to this country illegally. I do support renewing the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that I voted for.  But let me tell you what they’re not talking about … Number one issue, no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, the tax break for seniors, that all expires in three years. And that’s because they’re using a budget gimmick where they’re trying to say this thing balances five years from now. But it doesn’t balance now.”

As for voting against “finishing Trump’s wall,” Massie has been a staunch supporter of building more border wall, though he has not always agreed with Trump’s method for funding it. In 2019, for example, Massie voted with Democrats to upend Trump’s attempt to fund the wall by declaring a national emergency. Massie argued that Congress, not the president, should decide on funding for construction of the border wall.

But he also supported and voted to provide more than $5 billion to fund Trump’s border wall in fiscal year 2019. And in 2023, Massie co-sponsored H.R. 164, the Close Biden’s Open Border Act, which sought to provide $15 billion for border wall construction.

As for the ad’s claim that Massie “even voted against Trump’s ban on taxpayer-funded sex changes for minors,” Massie has opposed gender-affirming surgery for children.

Massie said in post on X after his vote: “Although there were some conservative wins in the budget reconciliation bill (OBBBA), I voted No on final passage because it will significantly increase U.S. budget deficits in the near term, negatively impacting all Americans through sustained inflation and high interest rates.”

As we’ve written, multiple independent analyses have found that the legislation, which Trump signed into law on July 4, will add trillions of dollars to the federal deficit over 10 years.

Massie had sought to amend the reconciliation bill to address federal jurisdiction in various cases of gender-affirming surgery. When the bill made its way through the Senate, according to Massie, the legislation allowed for funding of such medical procedures. Alluding to the MAGA Kentucky ad, Massie said on X, “What’s ironic is the senate stripped the ban on sex changes for minors from the BBB (referenced in the ad), so now everyone supporting the current BBB is for sex change for minors, using their logic?”

Long History of Animosity

The political friction between Trump and Massie goes back years. In March 2020, the Kentucky lawmaker tried to block Trump’s $2 trillion coronavirus economic stimulus package by forcing Congress to return to Washington for a vote on the bill, leading Trump to call Massie a “third rate Grandstander.”

In 2024, Massie was critical of Trump for not fighting to ensure funding to complete the southern border wall during the president’s first term.

Massie also endorsed one of Trump’s early challengers in 2024, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, in the Republican presidential primary.

Massie and Trump clashed again in June, after the U.S. bombed the uranium enrichment facilities in Iran. Massie posted support for a War Powers Resolution vote in Congress to rein in Trump’s actions. “This is not our war,” Massie said on X. “But if it were, Congress must decide such matters according to our Constitution.”

After Massie registered opposition to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Trump lambasted Massie on Truth Social as “a LOSER” and as “weak, ineffective,” and Trump has vowed in speeches to endorse a Republican primary opponent to Massie in the 2026 election. “I think he should be voted out of office,” Trump said.

Massie’s War Chest

Massie has held his office in Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District since 2012, and he easily defeated primary challengers in the last three election cycles, winning 75% of the vote in 2024, 75% in 2022 and 81% in 2020.

Trump advisers are looking for a viable challenger in 2026, and Fox News posted a July 1 video of Trump saying Massie will have “a good opponent.”

Massie has been gearing up for the fight. He has $1.7 million in his war chest, the AP reported, including $584,000 raised between April and June.

He also has the support of Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, who said he plans to endorse Massie in 2026, the Louisville Courier Journal reported.

Another supporter of Massie is Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who is engaged in his own feud with Trump over the recently passed “big beautiful” law, saying he will support primary challengers to members of Congress who voted for the bill.

Musk shared a July 1 post by another user on X that said, “I donated again to @RepThomasMassie’s re-election campaign. Who’s next?” Musk responded, “Me.”

We reached out to Massie’s office for comment on the MAGA Kentucky ad, but did not get a response to our questions.

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org does not accept advertising. We rely on grants and individual donations from people like you. Please consider a donation. Credit card donations may be made through our “Donate” page. If you prefer to give by check, send to: FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, P.O. Box 58100, Philadelphia, PA 19102.

The post MAGA Ad Distorts How Massie Diverges from Trump appeared first on FactCheck.org.

Este artículo estará disponible en español en El Tiempo Latino.

The Trump administration’s border czar, Tom Homan, has been repeating the misleading claim that there are “over 600,000 illegal aliens with criminal records walking the streets of this nation.”

That number includes legal immigrants, not just those who entered the country illegally; about a third of them have only been charged, not convicted; and it’s unclear how many of them have been, or currently are, incarcerated. The figure also includes people who entered the country over the last several decades.

Homan made the claim on July 12, at the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit in Tampa, Florida, and twice on July 7, including in an appearance on Fox News, which reported that new funding to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will enable the current force of 5,000 agents to triple to 15,000. There, Homan said, “This is going to make this community safer. … We’ve got over 600,000 illegal aliens with criminal records walking the streets of this nation. With this plus up, we can take them into custody and remove them quicker.”

The White House told us that Homan’s claim was based on data from a 2024 letter from then Department of Homeland Security Deputy Director Patrick Lechleitner to Rep. Tony Gonzales, a Republican from Texas who had requested information on the number of noncitizens on the ICE docket who had been convicted or charged with a crime.

The data showed that, as of July 21, 2024, “nearly 650,000 criminal aliens were on the [Non-Detained Docket],” a White House spokeswoman told us, referring to the list of noncitizens who have been charged with a crime but are not in ICE custody.

But there are important caveats missing from Homan’s claim.

Of the total 647,572 noncitizens with criminal histories who were listed as being “non-detained” as of July 2024, 126,343 — or, about 20% — had “traffic offenses.” Another 92,075 had “immigration” offenses. So, at least a third of the total did not have violent criminal histories.

In comparison, 14,944 were listed as having “homicide” charges; 20,061 were listed as having “sexual assault” charges; 105,146 had “assault” charges; 30,631 had “larceny” charges; and 21,106 had “fraudulent activities” charges.

Not all of those listed in the 2024 data had been convicted, though. Of the 647,572 total, 222,141 — or 33% — had been only charged. It’s unclear how many of those pending cases ended in convictions.

It’s also important to note that the data doesn’t distinguish between immigrants who crossed the border illegally, immigrants who overstayed their visas, and immigrants who are in the country with documentation.

“The non-detained docket includes not just unauthorized immigrants but green-card holders and noncitizens on long-term non-immigrant visas who have made themselves removable by virtue of a criminal conviction,” Michelle Mittelstadt, director of communications for the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, told us when we wrote about this data last year.

Lechleitner’s letter was sent in September, and President Donald Trump, who was campaigning at the time, distorted the data, falsely claiming that then Vice President Kamala Harris “let in 13,099 convicted murderers.” More recently, Trump has repeatedly used the figure “11,888 murderers,” though he appears to be citing the same data.

We asked the White House why the number is different, but we didn’t get a response to that question. Instead, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told us in an emailed statement, “Joe Biden let thousands upon thousands of violent criminal illegal aliens into American communities including murderers, rapists, gang members, and other violent criminals. President Trump will deport them all.”

When we wrote about Trump’s claims in September, DHS told us that the figures weren’t just for recent immigrants, but included people who entered the country over the last 40 years or more.

And DHS said in a statement at the time that the data “also includes many who are under the jurisdiction or currently incarcerated by federal, state or local law enforcement partners.” So, the 647,572 people on the list were not being detained by ICE, but some number of them were in the custody of state, local, or other federal authorities. We asked DHS last year, and again this week, how many were in the custody of other agencies, but we didn’t receive a response.

Also, given that the data cover several decades, “[i]t would be worth noting that people with criminal convictions who are not in custody have, for the most part presumably, served whatever sentence was imposed on them,” Mittelstadt told us in an email last week.

It’s also possible that some of them have been deported.

Since the Trump administration has put an emphasis on deporting immigrants with criminal backgrounds, we asked DHS for updated figures. The department didn’t respond to our request for that data, but a spokesperson provided a statement that said Secretary Kristi Noem was using ICE to “target the worst of the worst.”

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org does not accept advertising. We rely on grants and individual donations from people like you. Please consider a donation. Credit card donations may be made through our “Donate” page. If you prefer to give by check, send to: FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, P.O. Box 58100, Philadelphia, PA 19102. 

The post Border Czar Makes Misleading Claim About Immigrants With Criminal Records appeared first on FactCheck.org.

Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act (07/17/2025 legislative day)

GENIUS Act (07/17/2025 legislative day)

Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025 (07/17/2025 legislative day)

Russell T. Vought, the head of the Office of Management and Budget, said he and other administration officials wanted access to the Fed’s building in Washington.

The move was a stunning reversal of Biden-era efforts to address racial disparities in local law enforcement.

Closing Mauna Loa and three other U.S. sites that track greenhouse gases would disrupt a decades-long record of the planet’s changing atmosphere.

An even more intense battle is expected on the Senate floor over the nomination of a Trump immigration policy enforcer to a lifetime judicial post.

Arizona Democrats voted late Wednesday to boot their embattled party chair, Robert E. Branscomb II, ending a brief tenure that was defined by infighting. Statewide officials had already redirected their campaign efforts through a county party amid the squabbling.

The party voted 476-56 after hours of delays, clearing the required two-thirds threshold by eight votes.

Branscomb defended himself until the very end, telling attendees on the call that the effort to remove him was “rooted in misrepresentation, divisive tactics and does not reflect our democratic values.”

The controversy surrounding Branscomb dates back to April, when he sent a letter to members of the state committee that attacked Sens. Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego and aired private disagreements among them.

In response, all of the state’s top elected Democrats said in a letter that Branscomb “lost their trust.”

Gov. Katie Hobbs, Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and Attorney General Kris Mayes — who are all up for reelection in 2026 — went on to create a statewide coordinated campaign to circumvent the state party, a prospect POLITICO first reported in April.

Maurene Comey, the daughter of former FBI Director James Comey, was fired Wednesday from the powerful Manhattan US Attorney's Office - where she prosecuted Jeffrey Epstein and his accomplice Ghisla...

Hint: there's roughly a 98-99% gross profit margin from factory to doctor's office.