HEBRON, Ky. — President Donald Trump on Wednesday touted lowering prescription drug prices in Ohio and campaigned in the Kentucky district of Rep. Thomas Massie, calling his fellow Republican a “nutjob” he said should lose their party’s upcoming primary.

It was a full day on the road as Trump attempted to project economic and political strength even as war in Iran has scrambled financial markets and hurt his poll numbers.

Massie is one of the few remaining Republicans who has dared defy Trump in Congress, and the president took the unusual step of holding a rally in Massie’s northern Kentucky district. He gleefully told the crowd, “I just can’t stand this guy,” and called him “stupid” and a “disaster.”

“We’ve got to get rid of this loser,” said Trump, who has endorsed Massie’s challenger, Ed Gallrein, in Kentucky’s primary on May 19.

The event felt like vintage Trump from his reelection bid in 2024 — so much so that he briefly called Gallrein, a farmer, business owner and retired Navy SEAL, to the stage. There, Gallrein declared, “Tom Massie stands with the ladies of ‘The View.’ Mr. President, we stand with you!”

The trip was a test of Trump’s ability to cleanse his party of those who oppose him, but also to try to stay on an economic message increasingly strained by the military action launched by the U.S. and Israel against Iran.

Polls show that Americans were increasingly wary of Trump’s handling of the economy even before the conflict began, and fighting there has derailed Trump’s messaging, as the low gas prices he once bragged about are now surging and stocks that had set record highs have slipped.

Employers also cut an unexpectedly high 92,000 jobs in February, and revisions trimmed another 69,000 jobs from December and January payrolls — which the White House had previously hailed as “blockbuster.”

Iran looms large in Ohio, Kentucky stops

Trump’s swing began with a tour of Thermo Fisher Scientific in suburban Cincinnati. There, he discussed his administration’s efforts to persuade major manufacturers to lower prescription medication prices so that they are closer to what is charged abroad.

“I used some very strong negotiating talent to get every single country to almost immediately approve,” he told reporters.

But the president also told reporters that what was happening in Iran was “an excursion that will keep us out of a war.” He added of Tehran, “for them, it’s a war. For us, it’s turned out to be easier than we thought.”

Later, at the Kentucky rally, Trump suggested the conflict wasn’t about to end, saying, “We don’t want to leave early, do we? We’ve got to finish the job.”

He said that Iran was on the verge of rebuilding its nuclear capabilities, saying that fighting needed to continue so, “We don’t want to go back every two years.”

That contradicts many previous Trump claims and justifications for the U.S. and Israel launching strikes on Iran — not the least of which was Trump saying U.S. strikes last summer had obliterated that country’s nuclear capabilities.