Good morning! Today is Thursday, May 21st 2026, and this is The American Conservative's Morning Brief. Thomas Massie's primary defeat in Kentucky, fueled by more than $30 million and a Trump-aligned super PAC built solely to destroy him, signals that the Republican Party now answers to one man rather than any platform or principle. As the U.S.-Israel-Iran ceasefire enters its forty-third day, Tehran warns of strikes reaching "places you cannot even imagine," while Vice President Vance concedes an "option B" military restart remains on the table and oil holds at $106 a barrel. Israel has quietly relaunched its Act.IL troll operation as RiseApp through Reichman University, part of a record $730 million hasbara budget aimed at reversing collapsing American support across party lines. and now for the details. We begin in Kentucky, where Congressman Thomas Massie's primary loss this week is being read as a defining moment for the modern Republican Party. Massie, a fiscal conservative with libertarian roots and one of the most independent voices in the House, conceded Tuesday night to Ed Gallrein, a former Navy SEAL handpicked by President Trump to challenge him. The race became the most expensive congressional primary in recent memory, with more than thirty million dollars spent, much of it from pro-Trump billionaires Miriam Adelson and Paul Singer. A super PAC called MAGA Kentucky was formed for the sole purpose of unseating Massie. The breaking point, according to TAC, was Massie's push to release the Epstein Files, alongside his vocal criticism of U.S. policy toward Israel and the recent campaign against Iran. As Spencer Neale writes for The American Conservative, the machinery that took Massie down was transactional and personal, not ideological. Neale quotes a senior White House adviser telling CNN, "occasionally you have to shoot a hostage." His conclusion is pointed: the Republican Party of 2026 no longer belongs to a platform or a coalition of voters with shared beliefs, but to one man. Cross him, Neale writes, and the machine will find you, even in Kentucky, even at the cost of thirty million dollars, even if you're right. Turning to the Middle East, where the ceasefire between the United States, Israel, and Iran is now in its forty-third day, and negotiations to formally end the war and fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz remain deadlocked. Iran's Revolutionary Guards warned Wednesday that any renewed attack would trigger an Iranian response reaching, in their words, "places you cannot even imagine." At the White House, Vice President J.D. Vance said progress has been made, but acknowledged that an "option B" remains on the table — a restart of the military campaign. Iran's conditions have not changed: sanctions relief, release of frozen funds, withdrawal of U.S. forces from areas near its borders, an end to the naval blockade, and a halt to hostilities including in Lebanon, where Israeli strikes killed at least nineteen people Tuesday. Harrison Berger reports for The American Conservative that Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf directly invoked Vance's own memoir, posting on X that "Hillbilly 2" is incoming, and that "America's poor and forgotten will foot the bill for the broligarchs" and Beltway war merchants. The economic backdrop bears that out. Berger reports Brent crude is trading at one hundred six dollars a barrel, and AAA puts the national average price of regular gasoline at four dollars and fifty-six cents. Also from The American Conservative this morning, a detailed look at an Israeli online influence operation aimed at American audiences. Israel has relaunched a program originally known as Act.IL, first developed by officials at the Ministry of Strategic Affairs to coordinate pro-Israel messaging and pressure social media platforms to suppress critics. The program has been rebranded as RiseApp, operated through Reichman University, and according to its own materials will mobilize a database of more than forty thousand online operatives. Reporting for TAC, Harrison Berger documents the program's lineage, including its origins in a broader Israeli intelligence effort called Concert, designed to create third-party-operated propaganda and surveillance firms that obscured their ties to the Israeli government. Berger notes that one predecessor firm, Psy-Group, staffed by former Israeli intelligence officers, also pitched social media manipulation services to the Trump 2016 campaign before shutting down and rebranding when federal investigators began asking questions. The relaunch follows Knesset approval of Israel's largest-ever foreign propaganda budget — seven hundred thirty million dollars, a fivefold increase from last year. Berger writes the surge in spending comes as surveys show declining American support for Israel across party lines, a trend Israeli officials view as a direct threat to the unconditional U.S. backing their government depends on. Those are today's highl
