Trump touts cutting drug prices, slams fellow Republican Rep. Massie
during stops in Ohio, Kentucky
[March 12, 2026]
By WILL WEISSERT and SAGAR MEGHANI
HEBRON, Ky. (AP) — President Donald Trump on Wednesday touted lowering
prescription drug prices in Ohio and campaigned in the Kentucky district
of Rep. Thomas Massie, calling his fellow Republican a “nutjob” he said
should lose their party's upcoming primary.
It was a full day on the road as Trump attempted to project economic and
political strength even as war in Iran has scrambled financial markets
and hurt his poll numbers.
Massie is one of the few remaining Republicans who has dared defy Trump
in Congress, and the president took the unusual step of holding a rally
in Massie's northern Kentucky district. He gleefully told the crowd, “I
just can't stand this guy,” and called him “stupid” and a “disaster.”
“We’ve got to get rid of this loser,” said Trump, who has endorsed
Massie’s challenger, Ed Gallrein, in Kentucky's primary on May 19.
The event felt like vintage Trump from his reelection bid in 2024 — so
much so that he briefly called Gallrein, a farmer, business owner and
retired Navy SEAL, to the stage. There, Gallrein declared, “Tom Massie
stands with the ladies of ‘The View.’ Mr. President, we stand with you!”
The trip was a test of Trump’s ability to cleanse his party of those who
oppose him, but also to try to stay on an economic message increasingly
strained by the military action launched by the U.S. and Israel against
Iran.
Polls show that Americans were increasingly wary of Trump’s handling of
the economy even before the conflict began, and fighting there has
derailed Trump’s messaging, as the low gas prices he once bragged about
are now surging and stocks that had set record highs have slipped.
Employers also cut an unexpectedly high 92,000 jobs in February, and
revisions trimmed another 69,000 jobs from December and January payrolls
— which the White House had previously hailed as “blockbuster.”
Iran looms large in both Ohio and Kentucky stops
Trump's swing began with a tour of Thermo Fisher Scientific in suburban
Cincinnati. There, he discussed his administration's efforts to persuade
major manufacturers to lower prescription medication prices so that they
are closer to what is charged abroad.
“I used some very strong negotiating talent to get every single country
to almost immediately approve,” he told reporters.
But the president also told reporters that what was happening in Iran
was “an excursion that will keep us out of a war.” He added of Tehran,
“for them, it’s a war. For us, it’s turned out to be easier than we
thought.”
Later, at the Kentucky rally, Trump suggested the conflict wasn't about
to end, saying, “We don’t want to leave early, do we? We’ve got to
finish the job.”
He said that Iran was on the verge of rebuilding its nuclear
capabilities, saying that fighting needed to continue so, “We don’t want
to go back every two years.”
That contradicts many previous Trump claims and justifications for the
U.S. and Israel launching strikes on Iran — not the least of which was
Trump saying U.S. strikes last summer had obliterated that country's
nuclear capabilities.
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President Donald Trump speaks with reporters before departing on
Marine One from the South Lawn of the White House, Wednesday, March
11, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Also Wednesday, Trump did an interview with Cincinnati’s WKRC-TV CBS
and said he planned to tap the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve,
in an effort to bring down gasoline prices.
“Right now, we’ll reduce it a little bit, and that brings the prices
down,” Trump said, without providing details.
That interview followed the president acknowledging during the tour
of the drug factory that stock markets had been volatile as gas
prices have risen, saying, “I figured we’d be hit a little bit. But,
we were hit probably less than I thought.”
“We’ll be back on track in a pretty short while,” Trump said.
“Prices are coming down very substantially. Oil will be coming
down.”
Trump laces into Massie
At the rally, the president stressed the importance of Republicans
winning the midterms, ticking off his administration’s
accomplishments while telling the crowd, “The midterms are going to
be very, very important to keep it going.”
But that doesn't extend to Massie, who Trump called “the worst.”
Massie is an outspoken Trump critic who opposed the White
House-backed tax and spending measure and bucked Trump by pushing to
have files related to the sex trafficking investigations into
Jeffrey Epstein released.
He’s also criticized the U.S. strike on Venezuela that toppled
then-President Nicolás Maduro and, most recently, the war in Iran.
Massie told The Cincinnati Enquirer that Trump’s endorsement is “all
my opponent has going for him.” adding that Gallrein “has promised
to be a rubber stamp when he gets to Washington D.C. and I don’t
think people here want a rubber stamp.”
Wednesday's swing was part of a tour the White House said would see
Trump travel the country and attempt to show that he’s taking
kitchen table issues seriously and reassure voters nervous about
still-rising prices and economic growth. It followed Democrats
pushing the message that the everyday cost of living remained too
high and winning the Virginia and New Jersey governors' races in
November.
Since then, the president has made stops in Pennsylvania, Georgia,
Michigan, North Carolina and Texas — though his speeches have
sometimes been more focused on his own political grievances than on
his plans to help lower everyday costs across the country.
Even in Kentucky, Trump spent long stretches mocking his Democratic
predecessor, President Joe Biden, and slammed California Gov. Gavin
Newsom for publicly talking about his dyslexia, saying “I don’t want
the president of the United States to have a cognitive deficiency.”
Then, while flying back to Washington, Trump took to his social
media website to again criticize Newsom on dyslexia, which is a
learning disability. Trump called the governor “a Cognitive Mess.”
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