Republican U.S. Senate candidate in Montana Tim Sheehy ripped Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) as “New York’s third senator” and contended that America “needs a new generation of leaders” during his appearance on Sirius XM’s Breitbart News Saturday.
Sheehy, a Navy SEAL combat veteran who has secured many impressive endorsements from prominent Republicans since his campaign launch last month, seeks to secure the Republican nomination and challenge Tester in the general election.
The stakes of the Montana race are high for Senate Republicans. Whoever secures the nomination will have a chance to unseat the vulnerable three-term Democrat, providing a crucial pick-up opportunity for the GOP in their quest for a majority in the next Senate.
Sheehy called the opportunity a “turning point” while speaking with Breitbart News Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle.
“We have New York’s third Senator here in John Tester and, you know, his voting record and his policy positions are in lockstep with the… Democrat Party, no question about it,” Sheehy said. “And you know, Chuck Schumer is very shrewd and has given him opportunities over the years whenever there’s a vote that’s frankly a bygone conclusion, they’ll throw it across the aisle so Tester can vote for it and say, ‘I’m a moderate,’ but the reality is, you know, he’s loyally in lockstep with Biden and Schumer and has been for a long time. He’s been in… elected office for almost 25 years.”
Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) speaks at a news conference on July 28, 2022, in Washington, DC. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
In the last Senate, Tester was an ardent supporter of President Joe Biden’s agenda, voting in line with it 91 percent of the time, FiveThirtyEight notes.
Sheehy contended that it is time to usher in a fresh generation to replace aging career politicians who lose “touch” with everyday Americans after decades in Washington, DC.
“You know, we’ve had the same eighty-year-old guys running this country for 30 years, and obviously, we’re facing some serious problems,” he said. “We need a new generation of leaders. It’s time for our generation, you and me, it’s time for our generation to step up and say, ‘Hey, you know, we need to step in, step into the arena and take charge of our country.’ And a lot of that comes down to just common sense.”
“I live in the real world. I run a business. I have a young family. I’ve worn the uniform and in combat, and I’m telling you guys who’ve been in this building way too long, you know, ‘You’re smelling your own crap,'” he went on to add. “We need to get fresh blood in there to start solving these problems, and John Tester is emblematic of that. He’s been there way, way too long. And you know, once they’ve been in elected office that long, they lose touch with what it means every single day to get things done as an American.”
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Breitbart · Tim Sheehy – July 15, 2023After Sheehy and his wife, who was a United State Marine, retired from the armed forces due to injuries, they moved to Montana, where they founded Bridger Aerospace, an aerial firefighting company, and several other businesses, including a “cattle and feeding operation.”
Sheehy noted that his family is “newer” to the industry and that he has seen how families who have worked the industry for generations to “feed our country” are being “sold out by these policies that let these foreign corporations come in and take over our food supply chain.”
He also highlighted the difficulties facing the agriculture industry in light of inflation.
“Inflation just crushes the agriculture community. You know, when diesel doubles in price, I mean, you look at these big tractors out harvesting… hay and wheat and barley… you wanna talk about guzzling diesel and these people are trying to feed the country,” he said. “And… commodity prices don’t adjust for diesel prices, unfortunately, nor do they adjust for interest rates when you have to take loans out on farm equipment. So, you know, these wrongheaded Democratic economic policies that we’ve seen that have just tanked our economy in the last two and a half years have an outsized effect on a rural state like Montana.”
Sheehy also zoned in on many Democrats’ handling of the coronavirus pandemic, arguing it offers a window into how the left seeks to implement “more government” and “more “control.”
“When they had complete control with their emergency powers, we saw what they wanted,” he said. “They wanted to control when and where your kids went to school, what they learned in school, what you put in your body, whether you could go to work or not, whether you are an essential worker or not,” Sheehy said.
“They really laid out a blueprint for the last two and a half years,” Sheehy went on to add. “That was very clear, and it showed us when you give them ultimate control what they’re going to do with it. And at the end of the day, that’s more government, not less. That’s more control, not less. And a state like Montana, where we have a very strong individual spirit, hard-working gritty people… they don’t want to be told how to live their lives. They’re happy to pay their taxes and do their job at the end of the day.”
“You know, we used to be kind of a purple state really, based in labor, but the last few years, you know, the policies of the national Democrat Party of which John Tester was in lockstep have left the state of Montana, and that’s why you’ve seen a very rightward shift in the voting record – not a rightward shift of Montana’s people – but a rightward shift in the Republican dominance of the state,” he said. “It used to be seven out of eight statewide seats were Democrat, one Republican, now it’s the opposite. John Tester is the last remaining seat, and we’re going to fix that.”
Sheehy, who has endorsed former President Donald Trump in his bid to reclaim the Oval Office, holds endorsements from six of the ten Republican senators who have endorsed Trump, including Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Ted Budd (R-NC), Tom Cotton (R-AR), Steve Daines, Bill Hagerty (R-TN) Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), and Markwayne Mullin (R-OK).
He has also secured endorsements from prominent Montana Republicans, like Daines – the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee – Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT), and Gov. Greg Gianforte (R-MT). Sheehy noted that he had known Gianforte, who he called a “mentor,” since the early stages of Bridger Aerospace, and later met Daines. Zinke pinned a purple heart on Sheehy “when [he] was a SEAL.”
“So I’ve known those three guys for years, and it meant a lot for them to ask me to do this,” Sheehy told Boyle. “But to be honest with you, Matt, endorsements that mean by far the most to me are when the rumors started to leak out I might do this, and friends and comrades I fought in the battlefield with have reached out and said, “Hey Tim, you know, we haven’t talked in a decade, but I hear you’re thinking about running, please do. It would mean a lot to us… to have you in office.'”
Breitbart News Saturday airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 from 10:00 A.M. to 1:00 P.M. Eastern.
