Rep. Thomas Massie's willingness to buck the party line has become so routine that House Speaker Mike Johnson doesn't even factor him into the equation for tough votes.

Why it matters: Johnson's majority now stands at 218-214, meaning he can lose only one GOP member on party-line issues. Massie is rarely part of the majority.

• "What's my incentive to vote for anything?" Massie told us recently. And when asked by us today if Johnson had his back, Massie replied, "No."
• 🥊 Just this week, Massie was one of three Republicans to vote to end a blockade on challenging President Trump's tariffs, got into a heated exchange with Attorney General Pam Bondi, and was the only Republican to vote against the rule for the SAVE America Act. (He objected to the rule language.)

🚘 Driving the news: Massie routinely votes against procedural rule measures — once a rubber stamp for the majority party — effectively shrinking Johnson's margin to zero on party-line votes.

• The Kentucky Republican was one of just two GOP lawmakers to oppose Trump's signature "big, beautiful bill" and he led the push to release the Epstein files.
• Bondi called Massie a "failed politician" today during a heated exchange at a Judiciary Committee hearing — and Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) didn't defend him.

Zoom out: Trump's political operation has launched an aggressive effort to unseat Massie — its first bid to defeat a sitting Republican incumbent this cycle.

• "If Trump quit attacking me, and Mike Johnson said the best things about me, there'll still be millions of dollars spent against me," Massie told Axios.
• But, Massie added, "if they quit attacking me, I might not be able to raise money," noting he raised half a million dollars online in January alone.

The intrigue: GOP leaders often don't bother whipping his vote, viewing the effort as futile.

• "There's really nothing in [Johnson's] pay grade that he could do," Massie said when asked if there's any way Johnson could get his vote. "The speaker is going to do whatever the president wants; he has to."
• "I think they're actually going to shrink their own majority if they try to force somebody like me out," he added.

The other side: "I have the back of every House Republican," Johnson told us tonight, adding, "It would be helpful if Thomas would play with the team more."

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— Kate Santaliz

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries laid out his expectations today for how Democrats should — and should not — register defiance to Trump during the Feb. 24 State of the Union.

Why it matters: Last year's speech to a joint session of Congress was rocked by Democrats holding up signs, heckling and walking out in displays of resistance.

• 📢 Jeffries said there were "two options" for how to approach this year's address, according to a senior House Democrat and two others familiar with his comments during a meeting with his Democratic whip team.
• The first: Lawmakers can boycott the event, as has been done in recent years for speeches given by Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
• The second option: They can sit in "silent defiance," which was Democratic leadership's preferred tactic for last year's speech.

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— Andrew Solender

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer set the tone for a grilling from Foreign Relations panel Democrats tomorrow over a State Department nominee's controversial social media comments — including posts he has since deleted.

Why it matters: With Democrats on the committee expected to be unanimously opposed, Jeremy Carl will need to win over every Republican to be reported favorably to the floor to serve as Trump's assistant secretary of state for international organizations.

• "I am going to ask him about his statements with respect to women, and the antisemitic comments," Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), the committee's ranking member, told us.
• "I'm amazed that Republicans have not pulled his nomination," said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.). "He has such a flagrant series of just horrible missteps, discriminatory, antisemitic comments."
• "He's trying to get confirmed for a job in diplomacy," said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii). "And to put it as gently as possible, he has demonstrated that he's not exactly diplomatic."

Zoom out: In September, CNN reported that Carl deleted thousands of social media posts, including one in which he wrote that "the great replacement is real."

• In December, Jewish Insider reported on some of Carl's past comments, including in which he appeared to call for addressing the "Jewish question."

🔎 Zoom in: "To call Jeremy Carl a radical and a bigot and unqualified is all far too kind," Schumer said on the floor this week, adding that he has a "long history of making violent, antisemitic and openly racist comments on podcasts and on social media."

The other side: "I know Jeremy Carl personally, and he is not an antisemite. He will do much for U.S.-Israel relations," Michael Doran, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, said on X.

• The State Department did not respond to a request for comment.

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— Hans Nichols