(patriotic music) - Welcome to the Montana Broadcasters Association, Greater Montana Foundation Debate for United States Senator.

I'm Cam Maxwell.

Thanks for coming.

I'm President and CEO of Desert Mountain Broadcasting here in Montana.

We're in Billings, Bozeman, and Butte, and we're all very excited to be here.

Mr. Sheeny, Senator Tester.

Thank you.

It's my pleasure to introduce our candidates for today's debate.

US Senator Jon Tester, a third generation Montana farmer, a proud grandfather, a former school teacher who has deep roots in hard work, responsibility and accountability.

Jon ran for and was elected to the Montana Senate in 1998.

In 2005, Jon's colleagues chose him to serve as Montana Senate President.

The people of Montana then selected Jon to the United States Senate in 2006.

They voted to send him back in 2012, and then again in 2018.

Jon and his wife Sharla, still farm the same land near the town of Big Sandy Montana, that was homesteaded by Jon's grandparents in 1912.

Mr. Tim Sheehy is a graduate of the Naval Academy class of 2008.

He graduated from the US Army Ranger School.

Tim was commissioned into the US Navy and completed Seal training.

In 2014.

Mr. Sheehy founded Bridger Aerospace and its sister company, Ascent Vision Technologies.

Bridger Aerospace is a major Montana employer having created over 200 Montana jobs and is one of only a few publicly traded companies in Montana.

Mr. Sheehy and his wife Carmen, are raising their four children on their cattle ranch near Bozeman.

The format for today will be a direct question to the candidate from one of our panelists.

The candidate will have 90 seconds to answer, followed by a 60 second rebuttal from the second candidate.

And then the first candidate will have a final 30 seconds to respond to the rebuttal.

Each candidate will have two minutes for an opening statement.

At the conclusion of the debate, each candidate will have two minutes for a closing statement.

A random drawing decided the order of today's debate.

Senator Tester will go first with opening and closing statements and receive the first question.

Our panelists for today all represent Montana broadcast radio and television stations.

Laurel Staples is the evening news anchor for NBC Montana.

Jonathon Ambarian is Senior Political Reporter for Montana Television Network.

Stuart Davis is the News Director for the Montana Radio Company at KCAP in Helena.

And Ben Wineman is an evening News Anchor for nonstop local news, Cowles Montana Media Company.

So we start with Senator Tester and his two minute opening statement.

- Well I wanna thank you Cam, and I wanna thank the Montana Broadcasters Association for hosting this debate and for Fairmont for providing the facility.

This is a very important election coming up.

Montana's values are on the line.

I have the distinct honor and privilege and my wife and I farming the land that my grandparents homesteaded.

That my parents took over in the '40's and that Sharla and I took over in the late '70's.

This family farm helped my grandparents and my parents raised myself and my two brothers and has helped Sharla and I raise our kids.

It's been great 'cause Montana happens to be the greatest state in the country, but the bottom line is Montana is changing.

We're seeing a lot of folks come into the state.

Rich folks, they wanna try to buy our state, to try to change it into something that's not.

Montana's always been a state where your word is your bond and a handshake means something.

And that the truth matters.

Unfortunately, many of these folks are coming in, they're buying big ranches.

They're locking people off of not only that ranch, but the public lands around it.

And that's not what Montana's about.

Montana's about truth, honesty, and being able to raise your family in a way that you can be proud to develop a work ethic, to be able to send them off to college, to be able to have them come back and be able to live in a state that happens to be the greatest state because of the people that live here.

I'm Jon Tester, I'm running for the United States Senate so I can fight for Montana to keep the Montana we all know and love.

- Thank you Senator Tester.

Mr. Sheehy, your two minute opening statement, please.

- Well, thank you to The Montana Broadcast Association for hosting.

Thanks, Senator Tester for coming and for your many years of public service to our nation.

And thanks to the Fairmont Hot Springs for hosting this great event.

When I was 18, I joined the military.

I met my wife in the military.

And when we joined at that time, there was no question we were going to war.

It wasn't a if it was a win.

And we fought in our nation's longest war, and it was a long fight, it was a tough fight.

We lost lots of friends.

I've been wounded in combat.

My wife's brothers served as well.

It's a family business these day the military is.

fathers will serve, sons will serve, even grandchildren will serve at the same time.

And you learn a lot in military service.

You learn the power and the greatness of this nation.

You also learn the incredible solemn responsibility you have as a leader when you're entrusted with And when I watched Kabul fall in the summer 2021, while I was flying water bombers protecting our public lands, I knew our nation was at a crossroads.

As I saw the bodies fall from the airplanes.

And I saw 13 US Marines killed at the Abbey Gate.

One of them looked just like my wife Carmen, Sergeant Nicole Gee and every time I look at that picture, it's hard not to choke up.

And as I was on the phone with interpreters and American citizens we were leaving behind trying to get them out safely.

I knew at that point our nation was at a crossroads and something had to be done.

And since then, there's been no accountability for that failure.

And I'm running because I'm very concerned about the direction of this nation.

I love my four children.

I wanna raise them in the greatest state, in the greatest country.

We've invested in growing our business here.

But it's pretty clear for Montanan's and they don't have confidence in their government anymore.

They want common sense back.

They want a government that works for them that they can trust, and that actually puts their interest first.

They want a secure border, cheap gas, safe streets, boys are boys, girls are girls.

We have a lot of work to do.

Let's get to work.

- Thank you very much Mr. Sheehy.

We now began the debate with the question from Laurel Staples for Senator Tester.

- Alright, despite positive indicators from recent surveys, the polls show most Montanans and Americans say the economy remains the top issue with inflation and income inequality.

Do you agree in what economic policy would you support from Montana and the nation to change that?

- Look, economic opportunity is what this state's built on.

Working families and small businesses is critically important to making sure we have economy that moves forward.

I think we need to focus on those kind of things.

If we wanna move an economy forward, I think we need to focus on things like housing and childcare, those are critically important.

What we've seen happen in the state over the last few years is we've seen property values go up and people not be able to buy houses.

'Cause folks are coming in here and buying two, three houses, making this into their personal playground.

That's not right.

The result of that is also driving up property values and driving up taxes where we have a generation right now, that can't afford to buy their first home.

So we've gotta look at policies that move forward.

Housing, childcare, by empowering the private sector.

I would say not only used programs in the Department of Ag and HUD, the Housing and Urban Development, but also used things like tax credits to empower the private sector to make more workforce housing in this country, why?

Because if we're gonna have an economy in this country, particularly in Montana, that works for us, we've gotta empower small businesses.

They have to have employees.

- Thank you Senator Tester.

Mr. Sheehy.

- Well, I agree with Senator Tester on that we need to focus on affordable housing.

And that's exactly what I've done with my companies.

We've actually built an affordable housing apartment building nearby because as housing prices soared in our state economy, our folks couldn't afford to live here.

It was our biggest challenge growing our company was convincing folks to come to Montana and absorb these crazy housing costs and their direct result of these economic policies coming outta the Biden administration.

Printing money every day, that's sky rocketing inflation, driving interest rates up that's making mortgages unattainable for who are trying to become young adults and buy homes and build their lives together with their families.

And as we continue to print this money and forgive billions of dollars of student loans, we are literally pushing, it's an upward transfer of wealth from the lower class to the upper class.

As these people cannot struggle and build their financial wherewithal.

We gotta get inflation down, we gotta get interest rates down.

We gotta make the economy work for everybody.

- Thank you, Mr. Sheehy.

Senator Tester.

- High cost is very, very important to deal with.

And we need to deal with the common sense ways at the federal level.

And whether it's housing, whether it's childcare, whether it's making sure that there's affordable education for the next generation of entrepreneurs and business people as well as workforce is critically important.

I fought for those issues while at my tenure in the United States Senate and I will continue to fight for those issues while in my next term in the United States Senate.

- Alright, thank you Senator Tester.

Our next question comes from Jonathon Ambarian - Thank you, Mr. Sheehy, you've been highly critical of the Biden administration's border policies.

Do you see the President's latest executive action as a positive step?

And what more do you believe needs to be done?

- Well, I'm glad he is finally talking about border security after three and a half years of the most catastrophic border crisis we've ever seen.

I fought along two poorest borders in my career.

Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, where we had adversaries on the other side, literally killing Americans every single day.

I've served along the US southern border, lived along that border in the military from San Diego to Yuma.

The border we're seeing right now, we've never ever seen it this bad.

And Biden inherited the securest border in American history.

All he had to do was nothing.

And instead, Joe Biden and the Democrats selectively opened up our border and have incentivized the largest mass migration in the history of our nation.

We don't even know how many are here, 10 million, 15 million, 20 million.

Listen, we want immigrants to come here.

This nation's built on immigration, but they ought to come here the right way.

And we have every right as a nation to know who they are, and whether or not they should be here.

So the policies that have come outta this administration have directly caused this crisis.

And now what we're seeing five months before the election is pathetic political pandering of the American people trying to hoodwink them into thinking that this is an accident that could have been avoided.

When in fact this was an intentional, an intentional border crisis.

And now they're trying to fool us to say we're gonna solve it before we get there.

And time and time again, Joe Biden and Senate Democrats, including Jon Tester, have had the opportunity to shut down that border pass legislation to do so.

Instead, we've had messaging bills that are nothing but political theater that have continued this terrible border crisis.

It's time to shut it down.

- Thank you, Mr. Sheehy.

Senator Tester.

- Making sure we have secure ports and border in this country is critically important and it's critically important on the southern border.

We need to know who's coming across that border.

The President put out some executive orders should have been done years ago, quite frankly, but it is only on the President.

Congress could have acted three months ago and chose not to.

There was a bipartisan bill that was drafted by a conservative Republican, a liberal Democrat, and an Independent that would have changed the asylum laws to make them more realistic to today's environment.

Would've put more customs and border protection people on the southern border.

That's why they endorsed the bill, by the way, and would've put technology at our borders to stop the deadly fentanyl that's flowing into this country.

But that bill went nowhere.

Why?

Because quite frankly, people were told not to vote for it because they wanted to keep it a political issue in this country.

It's one of the reasons my opponent said he wouldn't vote for the bill if he was in the Senate before the bill was even released to read.

Truth is I was sent to Washington DC to solve problems.

There was a solution.

Congress failed.

- Thank you, Senator Tester.

Mr. Sheehy.

Well again, we've heard time and time again from Senator Tester, he wants to secure the border, yet it's still wide open.

Three and a half years this has been going on.

A 100,00 Americans a year are dying from fentanyl related overdoses.

I went to war, we went to war as a nation for 20 years.

After 19 hijackers killed 3,000 Americans.

Now we have a 100,000 dying a year with an intentional invasion of our country.

And we're doing nothing about it.

It's about time we stop playing politics with the border, stop trying to pass messaging bills, and we actually seal the border and protect Americans.

We have to put our citizens first.

We have to put our border first before we secure the rest of the world's borders.

- Okay, thank you very much Mr. Sheehy.

Next question comes from Stuart Davis for Senator Tester.

- In April, you, along with 78 of your Senate colleagues, passed a $95 billion foreign aid package with $61 billion earmarked for Ukraine and its ongoing war with Russia.

Why do you feel supporting Ukraine is important and are you in favor of future aid to Ukraine?

- Thank you for the question.

Vladimir Putin unnecessarily invaded a country next door to him that wanted to be democracy.

They wanted to be like us.

Those are Zelenskyy's words, not mine.

We wanna be like you guys.

All you have to do is read your history to find out that we had people like Putin in previous parts of this world that created situations that resulted in World War II.

I think it's important we support democracies.

I think it's important we support Ukraine and remember this Stuart, China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, they're all connected.

All those conflicts are connected, to Indo-Pacific or whether you're talking to Ukraine or whether you're talking to Israel.

And the bottom line is, is that we need to support those folks.

And by the way, most of the money that was in that Ukraine package was spent right here and invested in manufacturing in this country for weapons to be sent over to Ukraine so they could fight the war.

It is critically important if we're gonna be the leader of democracy in this world, that we continue to support democracies around this world that wanna be like us.

If we fail in this, this country has changed in a way that I've never seen in my lifetime.

We cannot fail, democracy is the best form of government and we need to support it throughout the world.

We are the world leader.

- Thank you, Senator Tester.

Mr. Sheehy.

- Well we do have to support free nations and we have to support democracy.

And I hope Ukraine wins.

But the reality is, while we have a wide open border and Americans are dying every single day, we don't have the wherewithal to fight Israel's war with Hamas.

Protect South Korea from North Korea, protect Taiwan from China, protect Ukraine from Russia, and protect all of Western Europe and secure the globe's seas which we've been doing for a 100 years.

The entire world depends on a strong America.

I support Ukraine's right to independence.

I even lost a former seal teammate over I've donated thousands of my own dollars to equip American freedom fighters with medical equipment and protective gear so they can come home.

But the reality is Europe has had 80 years to rebuild their defense industrial complex since World War II.

We have single handedly with sometimes four 5% GDP spending held up Western's security bubble for them as they spend 0.5 or 1% GDP.

We've been warning them for over a decade.

You need to stand up and protect your own sphere of influence.

You should build your own militaries because we cannot be counted on to protect the entire world any longer.

And then when we're looking down the barrel of 35 trillion of debt, a wide open border and threats all over the world, from Taiwan to Korea, to Iran to Russia, at some point they need to step up and take care of their own problem.

We can support them and I do.

But it's a slap in the face to Americans to be sending billions, hundreds of billions of dollars to secure another country's border when ours is wide open.

That's not common sense.

- Thank you, Mr. Sheehy.

Senator Tester.

- Well, we saw Vladimir Putin do to Ukraine is unacceptable.

As a nation we cannot allow that to happen.

That's why I voted for funding for Ukraine, for Israel, and for the Indo-Pacific.

Look, China wants to replace us as the economic power and military power in this world.

It is important to note that before Tim Sheehy ran for this office, he wanted to put troops in Ukraine.

After he decided to run for this office now he would've said he would've voted against funding for Ukraine, big change.

In me, you've got somebody who's gonna support democracy around the world by supporting countries who want to be democratic.

- Thank you, Senator Tester.

Our next question comes from Ben Wineman, and it's for Mr. Sheehy.

- Sticking with foreign policy.

Mr. Sheehy, you've said America should support Israel with quote, unconditional support.

When does unconditional support need to be questioned or potentially changed?

- Well, thanks for the question Ben.

And obviously the Middle East is a very complicated environment.

I've been in 93 countries in my life.

I've fought, and most of those countries around Israel, I've been to Israel, worked alongside our Israeli intelligence military allies.

The truth is the word unique truly applies to Israel.

I mean, that state exists as the sole place in the world that Jews who've been the most oppressed people in the history of mankind can actually call their homeland and actually exist without fear of being exterminated every day.

That's a unique responsibility.

And obviously America has a key hand in that because we helped along with the British to ensure that state can endure for the last 80 years.

We have an obligation to continue making sure they can endure.

And that's what unconditional means.

Listen, Israel has every right to negotiate their own foreign policy, be it with the PLO, Hamas, Iran, Hezbollah, Saudi Arabia, Jordan.

But we need to always ensure that whatever policy comes out of any of those negotiations, we are standing behind Israel and supporting their right to exist.

Listen, counterinsurgency fights are not easy.

I've been there, I've done that.

When you have civilians mixed in with the enemy, when you have them using human shields every day, the scrutiny that the Israeli military is being put under right now is completely unfair.

Nobody wants civilians to die in battle.

I've been there, I've had to pull dead kids out of buildings, it's a terrible thing.

But you have to at some point execute the objective.

And when they are under constant attack from all sides, from an entire region that wants them to cease to exist, to hold them to a body cam standard of police officers like we're doing now, is completely unfair to those brave warriors who are defending their families.

It's also unfair to the nation of Israel.

So we need to stand behind them completely at all times.

And the biggest thing we can do for Israel is stop giving billions of dollars to Iran, which is what's been going on, through the Obama administration, through the Biden administration.

They've literally been writing billions of dollars of checks to Iran.

Much of that money has been used to fire rockets of Israel and frankly kill American troops.

You know this friend of mine right here, Ben Tipner, I carried him off the plane in Dover in a box and handed him to his family because he was cut in half by an Iranian EFP.

We need to stop giving Iran the billions of dollars that they so desperately want to kill Americans and kill Israelis.

- Thank you, Mr. Sheehy.

Senator Tester.

- A strong Israel is critically important and it's good for the United States.

Israel is in a tough part of the world.

They're a democracy, they have been a long time ally, probably the best ally we've had short of maybe Canada.

And the truth is, what Hamas did on October 7th is reprehensible and unacceptable.

And when the Israeli people decide to respond to that, because Hamas has taken hostages and killed over 1,500 people, it ends up in being war.

Tim Sheehy knows about war.

The fact is it's never pretty, and it's never cosmetically clean.

But the fact is, is that we cannot turn our back on Israel.

If we do, it's bad for us.

It's bad for that region, gives more instability to the world.

And we also cannot prosecute that war from the halls of Congress.

It needs to be done by the Israeli people.

And that's why I support Israel.

- Thank you Senator Tester.

Mr. Sheehy.

- Well, the worst thing about October 7th for me, obviously I was not surprised at all by what Iran did.

They've been backing vicious attacks on Israelis and Americans all over the world for half a century.

What surprised me was what happened right here in America.

The antisemitism we're seeing on our college campuses, the disgusting protests we're seeing in support of Hamas killing Jews from the river to the sea.

It's absolutely disgusting what we're seeing here from our institutes of higher learning to the halls of government.

We're even seeing sitting office holders demonstrating with these pro terrorist protestors that are burning American flags and calling for death of the Jews.

That's been a shocking awakening for me.

And I think for a lot of Americans that anti-Semitism is still very strong in our country.

- Thank you, Mr. Sheehy.

Our next question comes from Jonathon Ambarian, it's for Senator Tester.

- Thank you, Senator Tester.

You've said that you have concerns about how the Biden administration's policies will affect coal and energy production in Montana.

What can you do to make a change in that pattern of policy?

- First of all, affordable energy is critically important.

I think moving forward in this world economy we live in.

Ye who has affordable energy is gonna have a tremendous advantage in making sure that their economies are robust.

I am an all the above energy person, truly an all the above energy purpose person.

I have encouraged more oil and gas development in this country.

And what has resulted in is last year this country produced more oil and gas than ever before in this country's history.

That's a good thing.

I also encourage renewable energy.

Why?

Because I think the more energy we can put into the marketplace, the more it'll help drive down costs.

And I think that is a plus.

Some of the regulations that have come outta the Biden administration on energy are totally unacceptable.

And I've pushed back on those regulations and currently I'm pushing back on regulations that the EPA has put out that wants to shut down a coal plant and coal strip, the only coal plant in the country that's impacted by those regulations.

But the bottom line is he doesn't listen to me enough.

It needs to, it needs to understand that energy is really important, especially in a rural state like Montana, where distance is such a big deal.

And we're at a northern latitude where cold weather impacts battery technology in a real negative way.

So I'm gonna continue to fight for conventional energy and renewable energy as much as we possibly can produce moving forward, why?

Because I think it's really important for this country's economic future.

- Thank you, Senator Tester.

Mr. Sheehy.

- Bottom line is American energy is the bedrock of our economy.

Every household, I just happened to be in Montana Resources the other day, had a privilege of seeing the mining operation.

You know, the one of if not the largest consumer of electricity in Montana, most of the equipment operating that facility is electric.

If coal strip goes under and power prices increase anymore, there's a possibility the mine can no longer make things pencil.

That's gonna be terrible for the state's economy.

And obviously for the Butte Deer Lodge area, what we have to focus on is producing as affordable energy as possible for all Americans.

We're at gas prices double what they were when President Trump was in office.

The war on American energy is real.

We're seeing EV mandates that are trying to take away your pickup truck and put you in a Yaris.

We're seeing regulations being rolled out that literally through the Green New Deal, thanks to Biden's Radical EPA, that are gonna shut down coal strip, driving up energy costs from Montana all across the state.

We need to unleash American energy.

We need to make America net energy exporter.

We need to put us on sound firm footing in our energy sector so our companies don't have to wonder if when the next administration comes in, they're gonna take away their licenses to drill and make cheap energy for Americans.

- Thank you, Mr. Sheehy.

Senator Tester.

- As I said before, energy is critically important whether you're a working family or a small businessman or even a big business person.

Bottom line is, is you use energy every day and it's gotta be affordable.

It's gonna be what helps power this economy moving forward.

I truly need to think, we need to push as many options as possible.

We're a natural resource state.

Push those options.

We actually are pretty darn good at renewable energy too.

Push those options and continue to maximize more energy in the marketplace and that'll help drive down costs.

- Thank you, Senator Tester.

Our next question comes from Stuart Davis and it's for Mr. Sheehy.

- For generations home ownership has been a part of the American dream, however that dream is no longer a reality for many.

As inventory and affordability has dwindled, what can be done to improve the housing crisis?

- Well, thanks for the question Stuart.

And absolutely I mean, the American home is the American dream.

That's the bedrock of many families finances, and what we've seen in states like California, where building regulations become so strict, costs go up.

The housing problem is wrapped up into so many issues.

From inflation, which is record highs for a generation under this administration, interest rates are going up.

Also, we have a trade shortage.

You know, we've told three generations of young men, if they grow up to work with their hands they're a failure.

Instead, you know, they should go to college and get a degree in gender studies.

We don't have enough diesel mechanics, welders, pipe fitters, electricians, carpenters the skills that built our economy.

We don't have enough of them anymore because we've shut down the trade schools and we're forgiving $7 billion of student loans again.

You know, diesel mechanics and cops and firefighters are paying for those loans now, it's ridiculous.

You know, kids on Harvard campus are protesting a death to the Jews.

Meanwhile, their student loans are being paid for by hardworking Montanans.

So we need more tradesmen that can actually build our homes.

We have to unleash the timber industry.

We used to have 36 timber mills in Montana now we have five.

I know a little bit about our forest 'cause I fight wildfires for a living.

Our forests are so mismanaged.

We can't get cheap timber out of Montana to build homes in Montana, we're buying it from other countries.

And regulation, our local governments, our county governments have to be incentivizing cheap housing so people can actually afford to live in the communities they live in.

And right now we're seeing a crisis across Montana, and frankly across the country in that regard.

We need to have pro housing, pro-business, pro-development policies so that all American families can achieve the American dream.

- Alright, thank you Mr. Sheehy.

Senator Tester.

- Yeah affordable housing is critically important on all sorts of fronts.

We have a generation of young people right now that are entering the workforce that can't afford to buy a home, can't afford to enter into that American dream that we've known for generations.

We've got companies that want to hire people.

There's no place for them to live, and they're losing them in the state of Montana.

There's a lot of things we can do at the federal level, and I've went over some of them already in this debate and we need to do it.

But we also need to be realistic about what's caused this problem.

We've had a lot of folks move into this state, a lot of folks with thick wallets, a lot of folks that drive up the cost of housing.

And quite frankly it's resulted in an unaffordability in housing.

And I would just tell you on the housing front, Tim Sheehy is not the solution, he's part of the problem.

We need to work together to make it so that businesses can hire people and they have a place to live.

We need to work together to make sure the next generation of young people right now can afford to buy a home.

- Thank you, Senator Tester.

Mr. Sheehy.

- Well, you're heard it again.

If you come here from outta state, you're part of the problem.

If you're not from here, Jon Tester doesn't think your voice matters apparently.

Creating jobs in this state was an honor for me to do.

And creating affordable housing, literally building affordable housing from scratch so our employees could afford to live in our state, was a priority for me and my company and we've done that.

We have to cut red tape, we have to increase access to trade school skills, and we need to focus on vocational And the most important thing, we gotta get inflation down.

We have to get the dollar strong.

We have to make sure American families can afford to fill their gas tank, buy their groceries, and buy a home.

- Thank you, Mr. Sheehy.

Our next question is from Ben Wineman, its for Senator Tester.

- Senator Tester, why is this race so important on a national scale?

And with the spotlight that's gonna be put on Montana over the next few months, how do you focus on Montana and Montanans?

- I'll answer the second part of that question first, I focus on Montanans by number one, being a farmer.

I am one of the few, if not the only person that has a real job outside the United States Senate.

I do that because I believe in the citizen model legislature.

That's what we have in the state of Montana, by the way.

And it works pretty darn well.

And I'm pretty proud of it in our state.

And I think we ought to have it at the federal level.

That keeps you grounded, it keeps, you know what costs are.

It keeps you aware of what's going on in the economy.

And that's really, really, really important.

This race is important because Montana happens to be the greatest state in the greatest country in the world.

Rural America needs to have good representation back in Washington DC.

You need to have people back in Washington DC that actually understand the challenges in rural America and be able to argue and fight for those family farms and ranches, those small main street businesses that quite frankly don't seem to take much importance in Washington DC.

And so all those things have an impact on the amount of interest in Montana.

But look, in the end I'm gonna continue to listen to Montanans and take their good ideas back to Washington DC and put them into law.

'Cause that's what I do, it's one of the reasons I'm rated one of the most effective senators in the United States Senate.

'Cause I work across the aisle and I get things done.

- Thank you, Senator Tester.

Mr. Sheehy.

- Well Montana is at the center of the political universe in 2024.

We have a huge responsibility as Montanans because the control of the Senate hangs in the balance.

And we've seen what Democrat control of the Senate means, especially when we have a Democrat in the White House.

We've seen a runaway spending.

We've seen an executive branch of government that's running out of control.

We see a wide open southern border, record high interest rates, record high inflation.

And Jon Tester supported Biden's agenda 95% of the time, F rated from the NRAA, 100% Planned Parenthood.

You know, these are just facts that this agenda coming outta this White House has been empowered by the Democrat controlled Senate, and primarily by a deciding vote that could have stopped so many of these bills, but 95% of the time supported them.

Jon Tester and I can both be good men who want the best for the future.

We can also disagree on how that should be achieved.

And right now, Democrat control of the White House and the Senate has led our nation to the worst condition we've been in 40 years.

We've got an economy that's on its knees and we've got foreign policy crisis all over the world that we can't even hope to begin to address right now.

It's time for a change in leadership.

America's not heading in the right direction.

Montana has a chance to do it.

- Thank you, Mr. Sheehy.

Senator Tester.

- We're able to do some good things.

An infrastructure bill that's biggest investment in infrastructure since the Eisenhower administration.

Something's been talked about my entire life and never been done to make sure every road, bridge, people are wired with broadband.

Electrical transmission grid is up to 21st century standards.

Things like the PACT Act, which deals with toxic exposure for our veterans, never been passed.

If you wanna say I'm deciding to vote to beat that I think would be a bad, bad decision.

Things like the Chips and Science Act that brings jobs back here from China.

Those are just the few of the things that I've voted on and we've gotten done.

- Thank you, Senator Tester.

Our next question comes from Laurel Staples.

It's for Mr. Sheehy.

- China continues to grow into a larger security threat with balloon spotted over the country, including right here in Montana, along with dire warnings of a major cyber attack.

How do you believe the nation should respond?

- Well thanks Laura, and that's a very important question for our entire generation.

You know, I served in the Pacific region as a Seal and was privileged to be a mini submarine pilot conducting operations throughout that region and learn firsthand the lengths to with China is willing to go to push its agenda on the rest of the world.

They're literally to take over the South China Sea.

They're using submersibles, spacecraft, they are constantly tracking our aircraft in real time.

They have spies outside of every single one of our bases, and they're infiltrating our entire technology to where no one can walk around without a piece of Chinese microchip somewhere on their phone, their headset, their car, their cameras.

They have been waging a multi-generational effort against us, and we're now just awakening to that.

And a lot of our politicians wear that on their shoulders because they've been asleep at the wheel and they have not properly addressed this Chinese threat that's been coming for decades on end.

What we need to do is reshore our economy.

Make sure we're investing in American businesses first.

Montana has a great opportunity to do that.

I built an electronics manufacturing company with almost no supply chain independence on China.

We went all the way to Tasmania for a supplier so we wouldn't have to buy Chinese equipment.

We have to incentivize American business to do business here with American labor, with American jobs.

Getting our economy as decoupled from Chinese dependence as possible is important.

And finally, we gotta invest in our military, our Navy's on knees night now.

we have the lowest naval readiness and we've had in generations.

We can't fill the ranks of our military.

So if and when China does move right now, we are not ready to defend ourselves and our allies throughout the Pacific.

We have to focus on reenergizing our military industrial complex, and we have to focus on our economy, putting America first.

- Thank you, Mr. Sheehy.

Senator Tester.

- China is a facing threat to this country there's no doubt or argument about that.

They wanna replace us both economically and military as a world leader.

We need to fight back, as defense chair, I've tried to put as many dollars as possible to buy equipment not only for the Navy, but the Air Force, the army, and particularly in space I might add to be able to fend off the Chinese threat and it's coming and we've gotta deter it from happening.

If we don't, it's a big problem.

But let's look at the facts.

When it came to investing money into the Indo-Pacific and a bill that was asked about just a bit ago would included money for Ukraine and Israel.

Tim said no, he wouldn't have voted for that bill had he been in the Senate.

If you are going to ramp up against China, you have to have the resources to do that.

That's what that was Bill was for.

Thank God it passed.

That's why I voted for it.

But maybe the most disturbing thing is, once again, Tim Sheehy owned stock in a company that was controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.

I don't know anybody else in the world that's done that, he has.

- Thank you Senator Tester.

Mr. Sheehy.

- Well, you've taken plenty of Chinese lobbyist cash too.

So the reality is China is moving against us in every possible way, from cyber to our economy, to our military.

And Jon tester's chairmanship of the Defense Appropriations Committee and Joe Biden's stewardship in the White House has led to the lowest military readiness in a generation.

We focused on DEI and ESG in our military instead of making sure we are training war fighters.

I know a little bit about that and I'm proud to be married to a Marine.

So I'm fully supportive of women in uniform.

But guess what?

They'll pass the same standards as the rest of us.

We are at our lowest recruiting levels in a generation.

We don't have enough planes, ships, or submarines.

We are not ready to face China.

And that's Joe Biden and Jon Tester's fault.

- Thank you Mr. Sheehy.

Our next question comes from Stuart Davis, it's for Senator Tester.

- The political divide in our country is as deep as it's been in 160 years.

Hyperpartisan entrenchment by our elected leaders is also leading many to feel Congress is broken.

What do you feel can be done to bring both sides of the aisle together for more engagement and compromise?

- Montanans want people to work together.

Look, when my grandfather built his barn when he was homesteading just starting out, it was all grass.

The neighbors came together and built the barn.

Big hip roof barns still exist today.

When we needed a medical hospital in Big Sandy, Montana, some 50 years after my grandfather the community came together and built that hospital.

That's what Montanans expect.

They expect their elected officials to go back to Washington, DC and work together with other people regardless of political persuasions.

I have been declared as awarded as credit, whatever you wanna say, as one of the most bipartisan senators in the United States Senate.

I'm also, as I said before, one of the most effective senators in the United States Senate.

The reason I'm the most effective is because I'll work with anybody who'll work with me.

Let's focus on what we agree on, not what we disagree on.

And quite honestly, there are countries, China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, that are using the Internet to divide us.

And people listen to that garbage and they continue to divide, divide, divide.

Why?

Because they think it's politically opportune for them.

The fact is this country is built by people working together.

It will continue to be the greatest country that's ever existed on earth by people working together.

I take that example to Washington DC to try to make DC look a little bit more like Montana.

- Thank you, Senator Tester.

Mr. Sheehy.

- Well I'll agree with Senator Tester's statement we agree on more than we disagree.

I've been in 93 countries, fought alongside Muslims, Jews, Christians all over the world.

And you learn pretty quick in a foxhole in Afghanistan or the belly of a summer in the Pacific.

There's no Republicans or Democrats in that foxhole we're all Americans, and we need to heal this nation.

We're in a very tough time as a nation.

We're so divided and Senator Testers right, you know, we are succumbing to the Internet, devolving our society.

Foreign adversaries are using TikTok, using Facebook, using algorithms to target our children.

Literally turn them against their own country.

And unfortunately, you know, we have members in our own government who are empowering that.

They're increasing anti-American sentiment around the country.

Instead of making our kids proud of this country, they're telling them why they should hate it.

Instead of making kids want to join the military, they're telling them why the military is bad.

We need to increase pride in America.

And we can do that by setting the example, by working together and putting our country first instead of our party first.

- Thank you, Mr. Sheehy.

Senator Tester.

- In my opening statement, I talked about Montana values.

I talked about your word as your bond and the handshake means something.

Working together is another one of those.

Working together to improve your workplace, your community, your home.

It doesn't matter your relationship with your wife.

My wife's here, been married, gosh, 47 years, doesn't seem like that.

Be 48 here pretty quick.

The fact of the matter is, is that we need to have a society that works together and doesn't continue to divide.

Our elected officials play a huge role in that, by the way.

- Thank you, Senator Tester.

Next question is from Ben Wineman and it's for Mr. Sheehy.

- Mr. Sheehy, most Montanans seem hesitant to embrace tourism, embrace outsiders.

Is that territorialism that Montanans show actually hurt Montana or help Montana?

- Well, listen, you know, Montana values, I wasn't lucky enough to be born here and raised here.

You know, in the military we move around a lot.

Lived all over the country, both coasts as I said, most of the time I had a residence in the US, I was actually overseas.

So, you know, my wife and I decided to raise our children here, build our business here, and Montana's a very special place.

It's the best state in the country.

Best state in the best country in the world.

I haven't been to all the countries, but I'm almost there.

And we are so lucky to be Montanans, just like we're lucky to be Americans.

But of course, you know, the history of the American West is characterized by newcomers.

You know, it's characterized by expansion and, you know, reading some of the first person history of our state, you know, the settlers in the 1890s didn't like the settlers that came in 1902 and the guys were here in 1902, didn't like the guys that came here in 1912 and so on and so forth.

Think that's a theme.

And of course the natives didn't like any of us when we got here.

So I think there's always gonna be a period of adjustment.

Change is the only constant in this world.

But I think holding our Montanan values strong, tourism is a part of our economy that's never gonna go away.

But making sure that when tourists come here and how we manage our state is ensuring that when they come here, they're respecting our values, they're respecting our public lands.

And we don't turn Montana into California or New York or Texas, we keep it Montana.

- Thank you, Mr. Sheehy.

Senator Tester.

- Well tourism is critically important for the State of Montana, its economy.

I mean, it pumps billions and billions of dollars and creates tens of thousands of jobs in our state.

It's very, very important.

And we need to continue to encourage people to come and see the beautiful areas of our state and everything our state has to offer.

I think where the challenge begins is when people kind of move to our state and want to change our state, wanna make it into something where they came from.

And the state is under pressure on that.

We see it every day as Montanans.

Those of us who's lived here our whole lives understand that Montana has been changing particularly the last 10 years.

In ways that oftentimes we don't like.

And I think we need to push back against that.

I mean, we get folks that buy ranches and lock it up to hunters and charge people 10,000 bucks to go hunting on their place, that's a non-starter.

When you got folks that wanna sell off our public lands you don't have to be a millionaire to be able to be a hunter in Montana.

You got good fishing holes, good hunting, the best habitat, that's a non-starter.

So we need to preserve the Montana we know.

- Thank you, Senator Tester.

Mr. Sheehy.

- Well, I think one of the critical parts about Montana is our public lands, like Senator Tester mentioned.

My job's protecting public lands.

I fight fires from the air, I fly our water bombers and right now we're looking at a public lands crisis across our nation.

You know, we have public lands that are being walled off.

We have lawsuits stopping any potential timber development controlled burns or basic public access projects because they will be injuncted.

There'll be lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit.

There was a controlled burn trying to be done in California just a couple years ago that would've helped mitigate one of the worst fires in American history.

But it was blocked time and again by environmentalists.

We have to increase access to our public lands and most importantly take care of them.

- Thank you Mr. Sheehy.

Our next question is from Laurel Staples.

It's for Senator Tester.

- Montana's traditional industries, timber are seeing impacts to their infrastructure with mills closing and now the Missoula Livestock Facility closing as well.

How can you help those industries get their product to market and keep that funding viable for government and education?

- That's a great, great question, Laurel, in another way that Montana's changing and not for the better.

Look, I had a bill called the Forest Jobs Recreation Act that got held up because of political divisions that would've helped give us solid supply for our mills that would've helped keep those mills open.

It's unfortunate politics got in the way of getting it passed.

By the way, a portion of that bill called the Blackfoot Clearwater bill, which does the same thing, allows loggers to log, allows people to recreate and put some land aside for wilderness.

Same thing being held up for political reasons for no good reason.

Pass those kind of bills.

Make sure we invest in local meat processing, pass those kind of bills that helps the ranchers and make sure that we're adding value, allowing folks to add value to our Montana products because they have marketability around the world and around this country that will help put more money in the pockets of producers.

And the last thing is, we need to crack down on the four biggest processors in this country that produce 80% of the meat.

That's not competition, that's consolidation.

That doesn't work.

- Thank you, Senator Tester.

Mr. Sheehy.

- 80% of processed meats in America are processed by four companies, three of which by the way, are foreign owned.

And Senator Tester is exactly right.

We gotta break that up, but instead of talking about it, I've actually been a part of the solution there.

And as much as Senator Tester likes to criticize my ranch, we found it with one purpose.

And that is to vertically integrated a beef supply chain from when the time the calf hits the ground to the time it's processed, shipped and delivered, never leaves the state of Montana.

And just last week we started shipping nationwide door to door, bypassing the big four, ensuring that we are giving an alternate path to market to Montana's ranches, and we were closely with the Montana Stock Growers Association to try to help create a next generation program to bring first generations into ag, to make sure existing ranching and farming families can stay in ag and actually turn a profit so they can continue their family's operations.

I've been proud to actually produce a direct result in this regard.

Vertically integrated beef supply chain is a way for Montana's producers through our feed lot that we've built and grown outside of Billings and Shepherd, Montana to feed cattle in Montana, process them in Montana and ship them nationwide so we can have a stronger agriculture industry here in our state.

- Thank you, Mr. Sheehy.

Senator Tester.

- For 20 years, my wife Shara and I had a custom butcher shop.

Processing meat is really important for that has more cows than people.

The investments that have been made by the Federal Government I might add in some of these small butcher shops, is really money in the bank.

It will help ranchers add value to their bottom line, it will help consumers purchase more affordable, in this case, meat.

We need to take those kind of principles and move them forward, whether it's a special investigator in the Department of Ag to enforce the Packers and Stockyards Act or other things.

- Thank you, Senator Tester.

Next question comes from Jonathon Ambarian and it's from Mr. Sheehy.

- Mr. Sheehy, as someone who served in the military, how would you grade the job the Federal Government is doing at meeting the needs of veterans?

- I'd give it a solid D. Right now we have record high veteran suicides in this country.

We are giving more money per head to illegal immigrants in this country right now than we are to veterans.

Free food, free housing, free flights, free healthcare, free clothing in many cases.

As they pour in by the millions, we have homeless veterans killing themselves on the street, overdosing on opioids.

They can't get the care they need.

Meanwhile, illegal immigrants are getting access to VA resources.

They're getting access to taxpayer funded resources when our own veterans aren't getting what they need.

The worst problem with veteran care is the transition from active duty to VA care.

That handoff has still not been figured out after 20 years of constant war.

I'm still helping every day wounded veterans, including one in Billings who's missing both his legs, make sure that he is personally getting the care that he needs from our local hospitals.

And oftentimes, you know, we're helping folks like that get private care with donor money, with private money helping solve these issues because the VA can't get it done.

The VA's filled with good people.

But guess what?

It's an old bureaucracy that needs to get overhauled because it's not meeting the needs of our veterans.

I know that personally as a wounded veteran, as a VA healthcare enrollee, as the husband of a veteran, and my entire social circle is veterans.

The VA is not stepping up and doing what it needs to do for America's veterans.

It's about time we hold them accountable and get that agency overhauled so can do its job.

- Thank you, Mr. Sheehy.

Senator Tester.

- Taking care of our veterans and making sure this country lives up the promise we make our veterans is an incredibly high priority for me.

I think it's essential, especially when we have an all voluntary military.

Let's look at some of the things we've done both during the Trump administration and this administration.

We passed the Mission Act.

Why is that important?

Because it allows veterans to get healthcare outside the VA if they live in the more rural areas of this country and they choose to use a small hospital, say in Scobey or Wibaux, they can do that.

It's the Veteran's choice.

That's the Mission Act.

Let's look at the PACT Act, that I not only voted for, but I wrote, this bill deals with toxic exposure.

Something as country's never dealt with.

Whether it's a chemical exposure in World War I or radiation World War II.

Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, or whether it's the burn pits during the wars in the Middle East.

We finally got a point so the VA can take care of those folks.

Do we need to do more?

You're damn right we need to do more.

The issue around suicide and mental health is a crisis all across this country and it's particularly acute with our veterans.

We need to get more folks that are psychologists into the VA. - Thank you, Senator Tester.

Mr. Sheehy.

- Well, again, Senator Tester and I are agreeing.

The difference is he's had a chance as Chair of the VA committee for almost 15 years now to make structural change.

We had a great VA nominee in the Trump administration.

Ronnie Jackson, who could have been a leader.

His son is a Seal.

I happen to know him.

He served a career in the Navy as well Ronnie Jackson did, and could have been a fantastic VA secretary, Senator Tester made sure that didn't happen.

We need new leadership in the VA. We need the agency to be reformed to actually focus on the needs of veterans, not perpetuating its bureaucracy.

We are at a turning point with our veterans in this country.

People are not joining the military.

Our veterans have record high suicides.

We have in many cases, as I said, VA resources going to service illegal immigrants coming in while our veterans are not getting what they need.

It's time for a change.

- Thank you, Mr. Sheehy.

Next question is from Ben Wineman, and it's for Senator Tester.

- Senator Tester as a country, we are quickly approaching the two year anniversary of the repeal of Roe v. Wade by the United States Supreme Court.

What do you see as the future of abortion care here in our country and here in the state of Montana?

- Before I get to your question, I just want to clear up one thing from the last question and that is, is that let's talk about Tim Sheehy actions on healthcare.

He's already said he wants to purely privatize healthcare.

That means Medicare, Medicaid, the VA goes away.

That's for the record.

What I wanna see is I wanna see women being able to make their own healthcare decisions the same way it's been my entire life.

Choice is something that's very important.

The Federal Government should not be telling our women what healthcare choices they should be making.

It simply is not part of who we are as Montanans, who as Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, but we're all libertarians.

We don't want the Federal Government telling us to do anything.

And the bottom line, this is not a decision that should be made by politicians or This is a decision that should be made by the woman and her family and consultation with her minister and her doctor.

That's who should be making these decisions.

This freedom is on the line this election.

And if you think for a minute, there aren't folks out there that wanna take away their woman's right to choose you're wrong.

What I wanna see is I wanna see Roe reinstated the same way it worked for 50 years in my lifetime.

- Thank you, Senator Tester.

Mr. Sheehy.

- Again, common sense.

We need to apply common sense to all problems and the vast majority of Montanans and Americans do not want abortion paid for by the taxpayers up to and including the moment of birth.

Elective abortions up to and including the moment of birth.

Healthy nine month old baby killed at the moment of birth.

That's what Jon Tester and the Democrats have voted for.

That's what they've put on the table.

Time and again.

And the woman's health correct, is elective abortions paid for by the taxpayer up to and including the moment of birth.

That's barbaric, that's what China and North Korea do for population control.

I'll always protect the three rights for women, rape, incest, life of the mother.

And at some point the life of the baby does matter.

At some point, when the baby's viable, when it can feel pain, when it can come outta the womb and be a healthy child to grow and become our next generation, that baby has rights too.

And we have to have common sense protections for the baby's life as well.

Thank you, Mr. Sheehy.

Senator Tester.

- Tim, this is too important of an issue to play politics with.

For you to say that they're killing babies at 40 weeks is total BS.

The bottom line is nobody's talking about government taxpayer payment for abortions.

What we're talking about is who makes the decision.

Do you want a politician or a bureaucrat or a judge to make the decision?

If you do, vote for him.

If you want the woman to make the decision, vote for me.

- Senator Tester.

Thank you.

Next question comes from Laurel Staples.

It's for Mr. Sheehy.

- Alright, Mr. Sheehy, our jails and detention centers in Montana and the nation crowded with people struggling with mental illness.

How will you address the issue, increased resources and staffing and speed up the process of getting the Montana State Hospital in Warm Springs revamped?

- Well, thanks for the question, Laurel.

And obviously as a combat veteran, as part of a generation of combat veterans who we carried the largest combat burden of any recent generation, you know, we didn't do one deployment.

We went back again and again and again and again and again.

Many of us served five, six, 10, 12 tours in combat.

All volunteer over and over again.

Never has a war fallen on such a small population.

And as a result we're seeing mental health crisis coming from our veterans, which is tragic and I've been part of that, I've experienced it myself.

We've seen a deinstitutionalization not just in Montana, but nationally.

We've had a medical industry that's been over consolidated, especially in the last 20 years as we see big pharma and massive hospital chains focusing on what's profitable.

instead of oftentimes what the community needs.

And obviously mental health is not very profitable.

'Cause lots of times there's not operations and drugs and devices that are sold through it.

And it's a very hard problem to solve and it's hard to quantify.

So we need to reinvest in our local mental health facilities.

You know, Gail is just down the road.

As a matter of fact, you know, I used to use those facilities for training in the Seals.

We'd go to these abandoned mental hospitals and use them for urban combat.

The reality is it's a tragedy.

They've been closed and shut down and are withering away.

We need to reinvigorate those and make sure that states nationwide, but especially the state of Montana who has a unique mental health situation with as widespread as a rural population is, we are able to provide mental health services to all our residents, regardless of income.

- Thank you, Mr. Sheehy.

Senator Tester.

- Laurel, mental health is a critically important issue.

Look, Montana ranks first or second in suicides in this country every year.

Whether you're just a regular person or a veteran or a farmer.

Farmer suicide rates are, I think two and a half times higher than regular folks.

We've gotta figure out ways to solve the problem.

And I think it revolves around a couple things.

Access, when you're in crisis, to be able to either pick up the phone or have the broadband to be able to get ahold of somebody that can help you.

We're a rural state, a long ways away from psychiatrists, psychologists and we don't have enough of them in the state.

Getting residency slots so we can have more folks train here so they'll stay in here.

Really, really important.

And that applies to the private sector, that applies to our small community hospitals.

That applies to the VA.

But the bottom line is we have to develop the infrastructure and then take away all the criticism.

If you have a mental health problem, don't put a stigma on it, it can be fixed.

We need to let people know that so they can go out and get help when they need help.

- Thank you, Senator Tester.

Mr. Sheehy.

- Well, again, we have to reinvest in mental health infrastructure and as Senator Tester said, de-stigmatizing the issues.

We can't make it a scarlet letter on someone if they have a mental health issue.

We have to normalize their treatment and make sure they understand it's a sickness just like any other.

So we have to reinvigorate our mental health treatment.

Again, I've personally experienced that through myself as a veteran and many of my combat veterans as well, friends of mine.

We have to reinvigorate our mental health infrastructure and that's gonna happen largely at the state level, but we can help with block grants and support from the federal level to ensure that happens.

- Thank you Mr. Sheehy.

Our next and final question, we're very happy to be able to get the 15th question in.

It comes from Jonathon Ambarian and it's for Senator Tester.

- Senator Tester, as school districts deal with the increasing cost of education, does there need to be a change in the role the Federal Government plays in funding education?

- I think, look, public education's critically important to me, I'm a product of public education.

And it's what's built this democracy.

Make no mistake about it.

It is critically important for our state, our small towns, the folks who wanna privatize public education, you know, close those small towns down.

That's not what will help rural America grow.

The bottom line is the Federal Government needs to fund the program that they've mandated, and that's the special ed, IDEA.

That would be a great help to a lot of these school districts.

But I'll tell you what isn't a great help is the fact that last legislative session, and I'm a former school board member, I spent nine years on it.

Most of it comes from the local level and it should, those are where the decisions should be made.

But when you have property taxes that are increased across the board in this state, 50% and higher, it makes it really tough to go out to taxpayer and say, hey man, we need a mil levy for whatever it might be.

Because quite frankly, the taxes have been unnecessarily I might add increased on the taxpayers.

So I think the system we have works.

I think we need to put more priority on public education.

Quite honestly, I was a teacher for a couple years.

I could make more money cutting meat one day than teaching for five.

We don't pay our teachers enough and that's important too.

We need the best of the best in the classroom.

But as far as the Federal Government taking over funding for our local school districts, I don't think that would be a positive thing for our rural districts across Montana.

- Thank you, Senator Tester.

Mr. Sheehy.

- The Department of Education, like so many of our other federal bureaucracies has massively overfunded at the DC level.

And the actual impacts that funding are not moving it down to the level where they actually matter.

We're oftentimes, you know, alternating for last place in Montana.

We're not the last best place for teachers.

We're the least paid place for teachers and that continues to happen year after year after year.

Senator Tester knows that all too well.

So trying to bring a federal solution to a local problem, I don't remember the last time that ever worked.

It's about time we get the federal government out of our classrooms, our classrooms, our curriculum, our education should start with the family, should start with our community, not from DC.

And the Department of Education has not been a part of the solution, they're part of the problem.

We've had underpaid teachers for a generation and the DOE has not solved that problem yet.

It's about time, instead of pouring money into federal DOE bureaucracy, we bring it back to our local communities where they can actually have a bigger impact on our community's education.

- Thank you, Mr. Sheehy.

Senator Tester.

- Public education is a foundation of our democracy.

It is a foundation of our businesses.

We need to pay attention to what's going on right now in the state of Montana when it comes to public education.

Because it's one of the things that could change the state for the worst in a big, big way.

The federal government shouldn't be dealing this.

I came out of the state legislature.

The legislature has tools and quite frankly, they need to empower local government, particularly those local school boards, city councils, county commissioners to do the right thing.

- Thank you, Senator Tester.

Now we come to the final minutes of today's debate and the closing statements we got an extra question in, so we're gonna have to limit our closing statements to one minute.

If both candidates are okay with that.

- We can do that.

- One minute.

Senator Tester.

- Well Cam, thank you.

Thank the Montana Broadcaster Association.

I wanna thank everybody who's watching this debate at home and listening to it on the radio.

You know, debates are really important for an opportunity to hear unscripted how candidates feel about issues that impact our great state of Montana.

This election's really important.

If you want a Montana, that's the Montana you were raised in, this election's really important.

If you want a Montana that continues to be a place where people can hunt and fish without being millionaires.

This election's really important.

If you want a Montana where you can raise your kids and your kids can raise their kids and your grandkids can raise their kids just like my grandparents and parents did for me.

Then this election's really important.

I'm Jon Tester, Candidate for the United States Senate, and I'd appreciate your vote in November.

- Senator Tester, thank you.

Mr. Sheehy, your one minute closing statement.

- Thank you Cam and thanks to Senator Tester for coming and Montana Broadcasters Association.

It's very important to have debates.

We can actually talk about policy instead of the endless TV commercials that Montanans are being subjected to, that are scripted and usually filled with lies.

They can actually see the candidates, have a good honest discussion with each other about the issues that are most important to Montanans.

Right now, our nation's at a crossroads.

We are facing an array of threats that we have never seen as a country before.

I'm an optimist, you have to be an optimist to jump out of a plane at night into enemy territory.

You have to be an optimist to start a company from scratch on your barn.

And I believe we can solve these problems that America's facing.

But it's gonna take a new generation of leaders to do it.

We cannot keep having more of the same.

We cannot keep sending the same politicians back into office over and over and over again, and expecting different results.

Record high deficit, wide open border, foreign policy crisis all over the world, record inflation.

We have to solve these problems.

We need serious people to solve them.

It's gonna take a new generation of leaders to do it.

I humbly ask for your vote.

Thank you.

- Mr. Sheeny, thank you.

Senator Tester, thank you for joining us today to help inform and educate the voters of Montana.

I'd also like to thank our panelists for asking questions of importance on issues that affect Montanans.

The Greater Montana Foundation, Montana Broadcasters Association.

Hope you found today's discussion informative and thank you for joining us today.

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