President Donald Trump slammed Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., calling the lawmaker ‘the worst Republican Congressman’ in a Monday night Truth Social post, while noting that he is seeking a challenger he can support against the incumbent lawmaker.

‘Thomas Massie, the worst Republican Congressman, and an almost guaranteed NO VOTE each and every time, is an Embarrassment to Kentucky. He’s lazy, slow moving, and totally disingenuous – A real loser! Never has anything positive to add. Looking for someone good to run against this guy, someone I can Endorse and vigorously campaign for!’ Trump declared in the post.

The president’s post linked to a video by MAGA KY targeting the congressman for ouster. ‘Let’s fire Thomas Massie,’ the voiceover declares.

Fox News Digital reached out to Massie early on Tuesday morning, but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

Massie, a fiscal hawk, voted against passage of the Trump-backed One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Trump has been a vociferous critic of the congressman.

In a Truth Social post last month, the president asserted that Massie ‘is not MAGA,’ and declared, ‘we will have a wonderful American Patriot running against him in the Republican Primary, and I’ll be out in Kentucky campaigning really hard.’

Billionaire business tycoon Elon Musk has indicated that he will donate to support Massie’s re-election bid.

Recent studies confirm what many clinicians, myself included, have quietly observed for years: Liberals — especially young liberals — are reporting worse mental health than their conservative peers. Statistician Nate Silver’s Substack recently spotlighted this disparity, and while many factors are at play, one explanation remains oddly absent from the national conversation: the psychological cost of cutting people off over politics. 

In my work as a clinical psychologist, I’ve watched this pattern unfold in real time. Some clients describe rising anxiety, loneliness and a growing sense of disconnection — but they don’t initially trace it back to politics. Only after reflection do they realize: they’ve quietly (or, in some cases quite loudly and proudly) distanced themselves from family, ended friendships, or withdrawn from romantic prospects — not because of mistreatment, but because of political disagreement. 

As I was researching for my upcoming book Can I Say That? Why Free Speech Matters and How to Use It Fearlessly, I noticed a striking pattern — what I now call ‘The Five Ds’: defriending, declining to date, disinviting, decreasing contact and outright dropping someone over political views. These behaviors are often framed as moral stands. But when practiced habitually, they can degrade the very relationships we rely on for emotional well-being. Research backs this up — liberals are statistically more likely than conservatives to engage in the Five Ds over political differences. 

The cost is real. The U.S. surgeon general has declared loneliness a public health crisis, linking it to depression, anxiety and even physical health problems. Social support is a powerful protective factor — it helps regulate emotions, buffer stress and reinforce a person’s sense of meaning and connection.  

As social creatures, humans rely on relationships to regulate stress. When those bonds are cut over politics — especially through the habitual use of the Five Ds — liberals may be isolating themselves in ways that make them more vulnerable to loneliness, anxiety and diminished emotional regulation. 

Some do this in the name of safety, seeing opposing views as threatening. But this is a dangerous shift. Conflating disagreement with danger undermines mental health and shrinks our capacity for dialogue. Even The New York Times recently published an essay titled ‘Is It Time to Stop Snubbing Your Right-Wing Family?’ in which former Obama speechwriter David Litt wrestles with whether to stay in contact with his conservative brother-in-law. To his credit, Litt expresses openness to reconnecting. But his tone is hesitant, not declarative.  

The piece reads less like someone awakening to the dangers of ideological cutoffs and more like someone reluctantly conceding a grudge. That this question — whether to maintain ties with family — was posed at all in a national newspaper shows how far the goalposts have shifted. Ostracizing loved ones over votes once seemed extreme. Now it’s mainstream content. 

This mindset of seeing opposing views as intolerable, or even threatening, isn’t just common — it’s increasingly celebrated, even when it harms us. The phrase ‘words are violence’ may feel righteous, but taken literally, it breeds anxiety and isolation. When we view differing viewpoints as threats, we push people away — not because we must, but because we’ve convinced ourselves we should. The result? We’re lonelier and more brittle than ever. 

None of this is to say that all relationships must be preserved. Boundaries are important. But ideological purging — done habitually and reflexively — is something different. It’s corrosive. Ironically, conservatives — often caricatured as emotionally rigid — may be faring better precisely because they are less likely to sever ties over politics. Their emotional well-being may benefit from tolerating disagreement and maintaining bonds across divides. 

As a psychologist, I don’t believe political ideology is destiny. But relational habits shape mental health. When we cut off those closest to us, even over serious disagreement, we deprive ourselves of a key buffer against emotional distress. What’s worse, we often do so under the illusion that the cutoff is virtuous. 

The solution is not to avoid politics. It’s to resist the reflex to cut and run. That begins with a simple mindset shift: disagreement isn’t danger, and tension doesn’t always mean toxicity. We can learn to talk through our differences — even when it’s hard. 

Mental health and free speech are more connected than people realize. If we want to feel less anxious, less isolated and more connected, we need to rethink the social costs of ideological purity. The Five Ds may feel righteous in the moment — but the long-term cost to our mental health may be far too high. 

Democrats have railed against potential Medicaid cuts since President Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election. Now that his ‘big, beautiful bill’ has passed through Congress, they are making Medicaid a top talking point ahead of competitive midterm elections expected in 2026. 

Republicans, meanwhile, are doubling down on Medicaid reform included in Trump’s megabill, which also includes sweeping legislation on taxes, immigration and energy. 

‘My policy is if you’re an able-bodied worker, get a damn job,’ Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., told Fox News Digital. ‘If you want government benefits, go to work and get a job.’

A provision in the megabill requires able-bodied, childless adults between the ages of 18 and 64 to work at least 80 hours a month to be eligible to receive Medicaid benefits. Individuals can also meet the requirement by ​​participating in community service, going to school or engaging in a work program.

Fox News Digital asked lawmakers on Capitol Hill if taxpayers should have to pay for Medicaid bills for able-bodied workers who are under 65 and unemployed. 

Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine, said in both Arkansas and Georgia, where work requirements have already been imposed, it ended up costing taxpayers more money to administer the work requirements. 

‘We’re talking about a very small population, and in the two cases where they tried it, it ended up, number one, disqualifying people who met all the requirements but gave up on the paperwork. These aren’t people that are used to filling out a lot of paperwork every month. And it also cost the state a lot to administer,’ King said. 

The New England Journal of Medicine found that Arkansas’ Medicaid work requirement from 2018 to 2019 ‘found no evidence of increased employment … and a significant loss of Medicaid coverage among low-income adults.’

Similarly, the Georgia Budget & Policy Institute (GBPI) reported that 80% of the $58 million spent in the first year of Georgia’s Pathways to Coverage program went toward administrative costs. 

But Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., emphasized that Republicans ‘want these programs to be around for the people who need them.’ She said Medicaid reform is about ‘strengthening and preserving these programs at the rate that they’re growing.’

‘These programs were intended to be safety nets, not hammocks that people stay in, and the success of these programs should be measured by how many people we get off of them,’ Britt said. 

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., agreed, telling Fox News Digital, ‘What you don’t want is for somebody to become dependent. I’d tell people: safety nets should bounce you to your feet. They shouldn’t be like flypaper in which you stick and can never get off.’

‘We’re not saying, ‘Hey, we’re not throwing you out.’ All right, but you gotta go get a job. You either get a job, or actually you can even volunteer, all right? And that will satisfy the requirements for work,’ Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., explained. 

But Democrats who spoke to Fox News Digital continued to push back against the work requirements included in the ‘big, beautiful bill.’ 

‘I think people [who] are able to work, trust me, they’d rather work than to get the piddling dollars that they get from Medicaid. It’s insulting to suggest that a person would rather sit at home rather than work and get this meager amount of money. All of this has just been totally expanded to fit a narrative that allows them to cut into those people who really deserve Medicaid,’ Rep. Troy Carter, D-La., said. 

And Rep. Lateefah Simon, D-Calif., said, ‘We need to be able to have an infrastructure in this country that supports the elderly and the sick and the widows and the child. This bill, it violates all those basic principles.’

Fox News’ Peter Pinedo contributed to this report. 

President Trump has been in office for six months, delivering on campaign promises, securing his ‘big beautiful bill’ by his self-imposed deadline and taking decisive action on the world stage.

The president was sworn into office Jan. 20, and the Trump administration has operated at warp speed since Day One.

Key tenets of Trump’s first 100 days included imposing harsh tariffs on Chinese imports, starting and continuing peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, and cracking down on border security amid a mass deportation initiative. 

The next chapter of the second Trump administration began, with the House of Representatives, as promised, passing Trump’s ‘One Big Beautiful Bill,’ before Memorial Day, sending it to the Senate for weeks of negotiations.

The Senate made its changes, approved the legislation and kicked it back to the House just in time for the lower chamber to pass the bill before Trump’s self-imposed Fourth of July deadline. 

The president welcomed House and Senate Republican leadership to the White House July 4 for a signing ceremony on his landmark legislation, which included key provisions that would permanently establish individual and business tax breaks included in his 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, and incorporate new tax deductions to cut duties on tips and overtime pay. 

Trump’s second administration has also focused on the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which was run by Elon Musk. DOGE proposed cuts to programs that the Trump administration chalked up to wasteful and excessive government spending.

Congressional lawmakers prepped a rescissions package — a bill to codify those DOGE cuts into law. Congress passed that package by its deadline. 

Trump signed the package Friday, which blocks $8 billion in funding to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and $1 billion to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for the remainder of the fiscal year. The dollars had been allocated by Congress for the duration of fiscal year 2025.

As for Musk, his ‘special government employee’ window expired, and he returned to the private sector. Shortly after, Musk started a short-lived feud with the president, who chose not to prolong the tensions. Trump only hit his former ally briefly, and carried on with business as usual, leaving Musk to a lonely rant on social media.

Meanwhile, on the world stage, the president ordered strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. 

Trump’s historic precision strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites in June hit their targets and ‘destroyed’ and ‘badly damaged’ the facilities’ critical infrastructure — an assessment agreed upon by Iran’s Foreign Ministry, Israel and the United States. 

But Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei recently issued his latest threat against the U.S. and ‘its dog on a leash, the Zionist regime (Israel),’ saying that Iran’s attack on U.S. Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar was just the beginning of what Tehran could throw at Washington. He warned that ‘an even bigger blow could be inflicted on the U.S. and others.’

Iran has until the end of August to agree to a nuclear deal with the United States and its allies, Fox News has learned. 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the foreign ministers of France, Germany and the United Kingdom set the de facto deadline, according to three sources with knowledge of a call Wednesday among the officials. 

If Iran fails to agree to a deal, it would trigger the ‘snapback’ mechanism that automatically reimposes all sanctions previously imposed by the United Nations Security Council. 

The sanctions were lifted under the 2015 Iran deal. 

In his first six months as president, Trump also signed a sweeping order blocking travel to the U.S. from nearly 20 countries identified as high-risk for terrorism, visa abuse and failure to share security information.

The travel restrictions — announced under executive order 14161 — apply to nationals from 12 countries, including Afghanistan, Iran, Somalia, Libya and Yemen, all deemed ‘very high risk’ due to terrorist activity, weak or hostile governments, and high visa overstay rates. 

Domestically, the president has focused efforts on securing the border, with border crossings at a record low.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported the lowest number of border crossings in recorded history in June. Nationwide, there were 25,228 CBP encounters, the lowest monthly number the agency has recorded, including a ‘historical low’ of 8,024 apprehensions. Encounters include legal ports of entry, whereas apprehensions are arrests of those coming into the United States illegally. 

As for tariffs, the Trump administration had leveled tariffs as high as 145% on Chinese goods following the president’s reciprocal tariff plans in April, when China retaliated against the U.S. with tariffs of its own. China and the U.S. reached a preliminary trade agreement in May, which Trump said China violated in a Truth Social post at the end of May.  

An agreement was reached between the U.S. and China in June, which includes China supplying rare earth materials to the U.S., and that Trump will ‘work closely’ with Chinese President Xi Jinping ‘to open up China to American Trade.’

‘Full magnets, and any necessary rare earths, will be supplied, up front, by China,’ Trump said in June. ‘Likewise, we will provide to China what was agreed to, including Chinese students using our colleges and universities (which has always been good with me!). We are getting a total of 55% tariffs, China is getting 10%. Relationship is excellent!’ 

The president also celebrated the U.S. Army’s 250th birthday with a massive parade in Washington June 14 — kicking off a yearlong extravaganza leading up to America’s 250th birthday.

Outside the White House, Trump administration agencies have delivered on promises. 

The Department of Education unveiled plans to scale down its workforce, terminating nearly 1,400 Education Department employees. The Supreme Court upheld Trump’s move.

The Justice Department released the audio of former President Joe Biden’s interview with former Special Counsel Robert Hur. Hur was investigating Biden for alleged improper retention of classified records.

Congressional lawmakers had been demanding the audio of that interview be released since 2024, after the transcript of Biden’s interview was littered with mistakes and revealed significant memory lapses.

The Department of Justice also has started an investigation into Biden’s pardons his final days in office to determine whether they are valid. Fox News Digital has learned the pardons, in his final weeks in office, were signed by autopen, with just one signed by hand — the pardon for his son Hunter. 

Trump has also directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to make public any relevant grand jury testimony relating to the Jeffrey Epstein case. 

Over at the FBI, CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, intelligence officials and political appointees are in the process of declassifying all records related to the Trump–Russia investigation, also known as ‘Crossfire Hurricane.’

Fox News Digital also exclusively reported that former FBI Director James Comey and former CIA Director John Brennan are under criminal investigation relating to their actions tied to the Trump–Russia probe.

Fox News’ Emma Colton, Diana Stancy, Elizabeth Elkind and Louis Casiano contributed to this report.