Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie’s longtime wife passed away last year. In the midst of his recent remarriage, President Donald Trump attacked him online.
Thomas Massey shares his impressions of Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
U.S. Representative Thomas Massie shares his impressions of Donald Trump and U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
- U.S. Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky recently remarried after the unexpected death of his longtime wife last year.
- Massie’s new wife is Carolyn Grace Moffa, a former staffer to Republican Sen. Rand Paul.
- Former President Donald Trump publicly mocked the lawmaker’s remarriage on social media.
FORT MITCHELL, Ky. – After Republican U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie and his new wife married this fall, they immediately went to work on their Kentucky farm.
“We put on our work clothes, she kept her veil on, and we slaughtered the chicken,” he said. Carolyn Grace Moffa, a former staffer to Republican Sen. Rand Paul, helped bleed, burn and pluck the birds.
The private ceremony in Garrison, Kentucky, remained secret for about two weeks, but the couple tied the knot on November 2 at a farm in Pennsylvania with about 150 guests, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).
There, the couple enjoyed margaritas made with raw milk and fresh peaches from the orchard along with their wedding cake. This was after he signed a disclaimer stating that he would take full responsibility if a guest became ill while eating.
The wedding took place about 16 months after Massey’s wife and high school sweetheart, Rhonda Massey, suddenly passed away after a long battle with health issues. She was 51 years old.
“I still cry every day,” Massey told USA TODAY network partner The Enquirer in an exclusive interview Nov. 15 at Bigby Coffee Shop in northern Kentucky. “People say, ‘Wait, he didn’t grieve long enough for his wife.’ I’m still grieving.”
His comments came a day after President Donald Trump mocked the congressman for remarrying.
President Trump wrote on Truth Social, “Is Thomas Massie…married already?? Well, that was quick! No wonder polls give him less than an 8% chance of winning the election. Anyway, Thomas Massie (?), have a great life. His wife will soon realize she’s a loser!”
In response, Massey said, “His attacks have gradually gotten more intense and his attacks have gotten softer, but he still managed to maintain that with his attacks last night.”
But Massey and Moffa didn’t take the comment too seriously.
“Carolyn and I were at odds, and she said, ‘You said he’d be mad if you didn’t invite him to the wedding,'” Massey said.
After all, the incendiary lawmaker frequently endures insults from Trump and other Republicans.
Massey and Trump’s public feud
Massey and Trump have had an on-and-off feud over the years, but after Trump was re-elected as president in January, it looked like the feud would be permanent. President Trump has publicly called for Massie’s ouster and is supporting Republican Ed Galine in the Republican primary against Massie.
Their latest public spat concerns the highly controversial Epstein file.
Massey led the public release of the files. He sidestepped Republican leadership with a discharge petition that received final signatures on November 12th.
With the clock now ticking and his bill expected to be voted on in the House of Representatives for passage on Tuesday, Trump reversed his position late Sunday, urging Republicans to support it.
Massey’s mystery
Trump’s comments aren’t the worst or weirdest things Massey has read online.
“Some people think I have a shadow,” he said. “They have their own conspiracy theories, like that I was fired or that I had a jaw implant.”
But the Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate, an inventor and tinkerer, has yet to find a way to clone himself.
In fact, she says her recent change in appearance is mainly due to sadness.
Without his wife of many years, Rhonda (who frequently took care of the farm, home, grown children, and elderly parents), Massey didn’t know what to do with himself.
“So while I didn’t have anyone to share my grief and food with, I lost half my weight that way. And I started running to clear my head and get healthier,” he said.
In total, I lost about 30 pounds in just over a year.
He also sported a salt-and-pepper beard during last year’s parliamentary Christmas break.
His late wife and “Mamaw” didn’t like him growing a beard, so he remained clean-shaven for decades. When he was scheduled to appear on television that winter, he didn’t shave.
“My mom said I looked like a hobo… then some people on the internet said I looked like a homeless person on a bender,” he said.
But I noticed that women seemed to like it, so I left it alone.
“What to do if your spouse dies”
After Massey’s wife died, he anonymously joined a Facebook group for widows and widowers.
There he connected with others, “compared notes,” and eventually learned that happily married men often seek such relationships again.
But that wasn’t what he and Rhonda talked about. They always thought he would die first.
“We thought we were going to roll the tractor ourselves, crash the bulldozer into the ravine, (and) not be seen for two days, flip the car over in the mountains of West Virginia and head to Washington, D.C.,” he said.
He talks to her about what part of the farm to sell and tells her the value of her gun collection so that she can get a fair price if she sells it.
But eventually, he talked to his two daughters about dating and whether it was what Rhonda wanted.
“One of my daughters was particularly insightful because she had just gotten married that year, literally months before (Rhonda’s death), and was having conversations with her wife about what to do if her spouse died,” he said.
Massey doesn’t want to talk about exactly when they started dating because she’s already under scrutiny. However, after his wife’s death, his relationship with his four children became the most important thing in his life, and he said he would not have started dating if his children had not approved of it.
reconnection and butterflies
Massey met his new wife about 10 years ago through his good friend, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul.
Moffa was an employee and later worked with Paul on agricultural policy, so her and Massey’s paths sometimes crossed.
Once, she even visited the farm she shared with Rhonda during a farm tour in Kentucky. Massey and Rhonda showed her the Crack Capacitor, a mobile solar-powered chicken coop that collects rainwater.
Although it had been years since they had met Mofa, he eventually contacted her and asked her out on a date.
“I don’t hesitate to say this. When I first saw her in the Library of Congress, I was surprised, because I had a general image of her, but never in the context of a date,” he said. “So when she showed up, I was very (emotionally) attracted to her.”
Massy’s “extension of expiry date”
“Carolyn accomplished what most people could never do. She got Mr. No to say yes,” the pastor said at the November wedding.
Massey, who is known for voting no on issues even if it makes him unpopular with other Republicans, didn’t see the joke coming.
“I wasn’t ready for that. I laughed twice. We were all going wild when we heard that,” he said.
As for the new marriage, there is a lot to find joy in for him.
For example, before an interview with the Enquirer, Ms. Moffa said that Ms. Massey had something in her tooth and helped her remove it with dental floss before the photo was taken.
Massey boasted that his new wife is politically savvy, interested in farming and healthy eating, and that they travel together to and from Washington, D.C. The latter is something he always hoped Rhonda would be able to do at some point, but they never had that opportunity.
Most of all, Massie’s remarriage is bad news for those hoping to unseat him in the 2026 Republican primary.
“I think Carolyn is trying to extend my shelf life far beyond what my enemies would like,” he said.
