This is the story of two Republican congressmen whose U.S. House districts face each other on both sides of the Ohio River and can tell you what it means to buck Donald Trump on what he likes to call his “big beautiful bill.”
One of those GOP congressman is Warren Davidson of Troy, Ohio, whose 8th Congressional District meanders down western and southwestern Ohio into western and northern Hamilton County because of a redistricting attempt at saving former congressman Steve Chabot in 2022.
The other is the famed “Congressman No,” Thomas Massie, whose massive northern Kentucky district takes in all or part of 15 counties, from Bardstown to Ashland. But the population center of Kentucky’s 4th District is directly across the river from Cincinnati in Boone, Kenton, and Campbell counties.
Trump’s bill, passed by Republican majorities in both houses of Congress and signed into law on Independence Day, would extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts which, at the time, were opposed by Democrats who said it favored the wealthiest Americans.
The bill is partially paid for by huge cuts in health care and nutrition programs, like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the bill would add $3.4 trillion to federal deficits over the next 10 years and leave millions without health insurance. Trump disputes that.
In May, when the House voted on Trump’s spending bill, Davidson and Massie were the two Republican “no” votes.
Davidson explained his vote at the time this way on his X account:
While I love many things in the bill, promising someone else will cut spending in the future does not cut spending. Deficits do matter and this bill grows them now. The only Congress we can control is the one we’re in. Consequently, I cannot support this big deficit plan. NO. pic.twitter.com/ClnqUzQyOk
— Warren Davidson 🇺🇸 (@WarrenDavidson) May 22, 2025
“While I love many things in the bill, promising someone else will cut spending in the future does not cut spending,” Davidson said. “Deficits do matter and this bill grows them now. The only Congress we can control is the one we’re in. Consequently, I cannot support this big deficit plan.”
But, less than two weeks later, when the reconciliation bill came to a vote on the floor of the House, just before the July 4 holiday, Davidson voted “yes.”
Here’s what he said on his social media accounts afterward:
“This bill isn’t perfect, but it’s the best we’ll get and includes major wins,” he wrote. The bill, he said, has previsions to “secures the border, pro-growth tax policy, Medicaid work requirements, enhanced Food Stamp work requirement, cuts to Biden’s Green New Deal, drops AI surveillance. For these reasons, I’m voting yes on both the rule and the One Big Beautiful Bill.”
Quite a U-turn for the congressman from Troy.
Other than his social media statement, Davidson has said little else about his change of heart. When asked if he was personally lobbied by Trump to get on board, Connor White, Davidson’s chief of staff, had only this to say: “We’re going to decline to comment.”
Maybe all it took for Davidson to do an about-face on the “big beautiful bill” was much simpler than personal lobbying by Trump, Jim Jordan or other MAGA Republicans in the House. Perhaps all he had to do was look to the south at Thomas Massie’s predicament and decide he wanted no part of the wrath of Trump.
There was never any question about where Massie stood on Trump’s tax and spending bill. He was a “no” vote from the start and has never wavered.
Being an independent player, always willing to buck party or president, is Massie’s brand. And he has a long history of clashing with Trump, who calls him a “grandstander.”
After Massie once again defied Trump on the tax and spending bill, Trump dipped into his massive, $500 million-plus political fund to produce a 30-second TV ad that began running last week in the Cincinnati media market, which dominates northern Kentucky.
The ad is called What Happened to Thomas Massie? and it hammers at the congressman for a multitude of “sins” against Trump, including favoring sex change operations for minors to “siding with the Democrats and the Ayatollah” after Trump’s bombing of uranium enrichment facilities.
In addition, Trump is threatening to find a GOP challenger to Massie in next year’s 4th District primary.
Massie told Axios last week that he had easily fought off primary challengers in the past three elections.
“If somebody got in this race and they were a reasonable person, not crazy to run against me, I would call them up and say, 'You know what you should do before you dedicate the next year and a half of your life to getting your a** kicked? You should do a poll,' " Massie told Axios.
But Donald Trump has a knack for making every election a referendum on himself; and he has the resources to do it again in Massie’s district, where Trump is enormously popular. All Trump lacks at this point is a candidate to carry the banner.
North of the Ohio River, Warren Davidson has to be watching this play out in Massie’s district and thinking that the last place he wants to find himself is in Massie’s shoes, with the full weight of MAGA World crashing down on him.
Read more:
- Analysis: Warren Davidson says 'Trump Derangement Syndrome' is running rampant
- Analysis: How Ohio's 8th congressional district is a textbook case of gerrymandering
- Mayor Pureval answers questions about Cincinnati's crime spike
