Congressman Thomas Massie is laughing off criticisms from President Trump, as the commander-in-chief fires off near-daily social media posts about the “bum” lawmaker from Kentucky. Mr. Massie says his colleagues are giving him some quiet fistbumps far from the president’s view. 

Speaking to reporters just off the House floor on Tuesday, Mr. Massie says he’s the target of the president’s ire while the One Big Beautiful Bill Act languishes in the Senate. Mr. Trump has also raged about Mr. Massie calling the bombing of Iranian nuclear sites a move that was “not constitutional.”

In the past three days alone, Mr. Trump has called the congressman a “BUM,” a “third-rate” lawmaker, and a “grandstander” who should be avoided “like the plague.”

Mr. Massie was all smiles while talking about the president’s social media posts, however. Mr. Trump has said he should be primaried and kicked out of the House.

“This is the guy sending seven B-2 bombers to the other side of the planet [who] is spending 15 minutes a day worried about me,” Mr. Massie said with a laugh.

This isn’t the first time Mr. Trump has come after the Kentucky lawmaker. In 2020, as the then-45th president and Speaker Pelosi were trying to get the multitrillion-dollar CARES Act through the House by unanimous consent so that members of Congress didn’t have to physically return to the chamber to vote, Mr. Massie was the lone objector. 

In retaliation, Mr. Trump called on voters to reject Mr. Massie in that year’s GOP primary, though he did not endorse a specific candidate. Mr. Massie would go on to win the Republican nomination in Kentucky’s Fourth District with 81 percent of the vote. 

“In 2020, I got my Trump antibodies from a natural infection when he came after me, and, you know, I survived,” Mr. Massie said. “It will deplete his political capital if he doesn’t succeed, and he knows that, so that’s gotta be part of his calculus.”

“I am not going to lose,” he said, flashing a smile. “I do not lose.”

Despite the incessant nagging from the commander-in-chief and his staff, Mr. Massie says he would welcome any kind of rebuilding of their working relationship “bridge,” as he describes it. 

“I’m all for a cease-fire” with the president, Mr. Massie said. “He dropped his bunker busters and I survived, so let’s have a cease-fire. … He is a politician and you gotta get to 218 in here,” he added, pointing to a door that leads onto the House floor. 

When asked on Tuesday if he planned to support Mr. Massie for re-election, Speaker Johnson said that he leads the “incumbent protection program.”

“I certainly understand the president’s frustration” regarding Mr. Massie, the speaker said. “If you’re here and you’re wearing one team’s jersey, and every single time you vote with the other team, people begin to question what your motive is and what your philosophy is.”

“I want him to come to his senses,” Mr. Johnson added of his colleague. 

Mr. Massie says the speaker’s comments don’t worry him at all. “Whether he’s for me or against me, the results are probably the same,” he said. 

Even though the haranguing from some fellow Republicans seems to be unending, Mr. Massie says his House colleagues are sticking by him, even if it isn’t in public. “They like my tweets, especially the one where I said Trump has declared so much war on me that it should require a vote of Congress,” he told reporters. 

“I’m getting the fist bumps — private fist bumps,” Mr. Massie said.