FLORENCE, Ky., May 16, 2026 — Rep. Thomas Massie revealed Friday night that President Donald Trump delivers the same speech about his MIT uncle and superior genetics every time the two men speak by phone — a detail that drew laughter from the crowd at Massie’s campaign rally in Florence, Kentucky, and shed an unlikely humanizing light on one of the nastiest Republican primaries in American history.
“Whenever I call him, I gotta schedule a minute for the first thing he tells me every time I call him,” Massie told the crowd, impersonating Trump’s cadence: “‘Massie, you’re a sharp cookie. You went to MIT.’ ‘You know, my professor was — my uncle was Professor John G. Trump. He was at MIT 41 years. It’s a record.’ ‘And, you know, I went to Wharton, which is basically the hardest school in the world to get into.’ ‘So I’ve got even better genetics than you.'”
The crowd erupted in laughter. “He’s literally told me this three times,” Massie said, pausing for effect. “I don’t know if it’s a script on his phone he reads.”
A Decade-Old Talking Point
The genetics script Massie described is not new. Trump has been invoking his uncle, Dr. John G. Trump, as evidence of his own superior intelligence since the very first days of his political career. At a June 2015 New Hampshire rally — the second event of his 2016 campaign — Trump said: “I had an uncle who went to MIT who is a top professor. Dr. John Trump. A genius. It’s my blood. I’m smart. Great marks. Like really smart.”
He repeated the line in a July 2016 South Carolina speech that went viral: “My uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart.” He has since deployed the talking point at rallies across the country, citing his uncle’s tenure at MIT as proof of intellectual lineage — and by extension, his own fitness to lead.
John G. Trump was a genuine scientific figure. A physicist and professor of electrical engineering, he spent decades at MIT researching high-voltage phenomena, electron acceleration, and the medical application of radiation in cancer treatment. During World War II, he conducted radar research for the Allies. In 1943, the FBI called him in to examine Nikola Tesla’s papers and equipment after the legendary physicist died in his New York hotel room. He was awarded the National Medal of Science in 1983. He died in 1985 at age 78.
Trump has variously claimed his uncle served at MIT for 40, 41, 42, and 44 years — the number shifts depending on the rally. MIT records indicate John Trump had a staff or honorary role at the university for 52 years, holding the title of MIT professor for approximately 44 to 49 of them, making him one of the longest-serving members of faculty — though not definitively the all-time record holder, as Trump has repeatedly claimed.
Trump Said It at the Hebron Rally Too
The genetics line was not reserved for private phone calls with Massie. Trump deployed it publicly at his March 11, 2026 rally at Verst Logistics in Hebron, Kentucky — a rally held expressly to campaign against Massie — where he noted that Massie had attended MIT before pivoting to his standard Uncle John talking point.
“He’s got one thing going, he went to a good college,” Trump said of Massie at the Hebron rally. “But I know a lot of stupid people that went to a good college. And my uncle was the longest serving professor in the history of that particular college, University, MIT, 41 years. My uncle was there 41 years. So, that means I have much better blood if you go by that. But I went to the hardest college of all to get into, the Wharton School of Finance. That means I’m real smart.”
The audience at the Hebron rally laughed. The audience at the Florence rally laughed again when Massie told them Trump had said essentially the same thing to him on the phone — three times.
The Paradox at the Heart of the Race
Massie’s anecdote landed as a punchline but revealed something more layered about the dynamic between the two men. Trump, who has called Massie “the worst and most unreliable Republican Congressman in the history of our Country,” a “major Sleazebag,” and a “complete and total disaster as a congressman and frankly as a human being” on Truth Social, apparently opens every phone call with him by telling him he’s “a sharp cookie” who went to MIT.
Massie, an MIT-educated mechanical engineer who holds multiple patents and built his own house from the ground up, has never publicly questioned Trump’s affection for his own uncle’s academic record. Instead he has treated the script as something between a quirk and a compliment — something to laugh about at a campaign rally rather than relitigate on cable news.
“Just like, you know, I asked — do any of you agree with your spouse more than 90 percent of the time?” Massie continued after the genetics bit, segueing into his broader argument that a congressman who agrees with the president 90 percent of the time should not face a primary challenge over the 10 percent. “If you’ve been married any period of time, you know if you’ve—” — the crowd laughed again, following the analogy before he finished it.
The Broader Stakes in Florence
The Florence rally drew more than 100 supporters and a roster of congressional allies including Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, and Rep. Victoria Spartz, R-Ind. — all of whom traveled to Northern Kentucky to campaign against the Trump-backed challenger, Ed Gallrein.
Boebert told the crowd “I support the president and I support Thomas Massie” — and joked, “I think the president will still support me, but we’ll see.” Trump answered that within two hours, posting on Truth Social that Boebert was “Weak Minded” and inviting challengers to run against her in Colorado’s 4th Congressional District. The filing deadline for that primary has already passed.
Paul, who Trump had described in a separate post that same day as “very difficult, and highly unreasonable,” told the Florence crowd: “This election is about Thomas Massie but it’s about more than Thomas Massie — it’s about each of you. It is about the remnant. It is about the wing of the party that believes in free markets and trade and capitalism.”
Massie closed his own remarks with characteristic composure. If he loses Tuesday, he said, no one will remember that his allies showed up. “If I win,” he told the crowd, “they’ll probably be emboldened.” And as for the tens of millions poured into the race against him — the most expensive House primary in American history at over $25.6 million in ad spending — he offered a prediction: “Republicans are going to have a hell of a hangover. They’re buying bad vodka and overpaying for it.”
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