Tim Sheehy’s Cry for Help
Tim Sheehy’s Cry for Help
Buoyed by Trump’s endorsement, the GOP contender for a Montana U.S. Senate seat just needs a little advice—and a lot of money.
TIM SHEEHY NEEDS MY HELP. He told me so himself. The email he sent me the other day cut to the chase: “I cannot tell you how valuable your input would be to me and my team as we work to flip Montana and defeat Jon Tester in November.”
My input? Fancy that.
Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL, is seeking the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate seat that’s up for election this cycle in Montana. I do not live in Montana, but apparently Sheehy still wants my advice. Also, it turns out, my money.
For a brief moment, it looked as though Sheehy was going to have some serious competition for the nomination. On February 9, fellow Republican Matt Rosendale, a former state lawmaker who has represented Montana’s 2nd congressional district since January 2023, declared his candidacy for the seat. A few hours later, Trump announced via Truth Social that he was backing Sheehy. Trump, uncharacteristically, had good things to say about the candidate he passed up:
I also respect Matt Rosendale, and was very happy to Endorse him in the past - and will Endorse him again in the future should he decide to change course and run for his Congressional Seat. But in this instance, Tim is the candidate who is currently best-positioned to DEFEAT Lazy Jon Tester, and Regain the Republican Majority in the United States Senate.
Sheehy, Trump noted, is “a Political Outsider,” having never held public office before. (An Associated Press article says Sheehy “runs an aerial firefighting company, Bridger Aerospace, which he founded near Bozeman.”) The all-but-certain GOP pick for president says Sheehy is “Strong on the Border” and a big fan of the Second Amendment, which is “constantly under siege.” He will, Trump assured us, “stand tall in the fight against the Radical Left Democrats, who are Destroying our Country.”
Rosendale vowed that he would not give up. “I love President Trump,” he posted on X. “But he needs actual fighters in the U.S. Senate to enact his Agenda 47 - and that’s me and not Mitch McConnell’s hand pick, Tim Sheehy.”
Oh, snap.
But less than a week later, on February 15, Rosendale gave up, citing the fact that he did not get Trump’s endorsement: “By my calculations, with Trump endorsing my opponent and the lack of resources, the hill was just too steep.” Now it’s not clear whether Rosendale will even seek re-election to his House seat. He is a broken man.
Before we leave Rosendale with his beers and tears, let’s pause just a moment to reflect on the aforementioned initiative he had hoped to help Trump enact in the U.S. Senate, even after not getting his endorsement. Agenda 47 is Trump’s plan to “end veteran homelessness in America” by cracking down on illegal immigrants. As Trump explains things: “Under Crooked Joe Biden, the U.S. government has spent nearly $1 billion to house illegal aliens and foreign migrants in expensive luxury hotels courtesy of you, the American taxpayer, and they want to spend billions and billions more.”
What’s happening, Trump contends, is that many states are “running out of hotel space because the rooms are all booked up with illegal aliens,” leaving no rooms for some 33,000 veterans now “living in filth and squalor on our streets.” And so, the former and, in the minds of some of his followers, still-current president will, “on Day One”—the start of his planned dictatorship—“cut off Joe Biden’s massive spigot of funding” now going to help illegals live the good life and use the savings to “totally eradicate” veteran homelessness.
Trump’s team has elsewhere explained that Agenda 47 will entail rounding up and deporting undocumented immigrants and detaining them until they can be deported. As CNN reported last fall, “The proposals would necessitate the building of large camps to house migrants waiting for deportation and the tapping of federal and local law enforcement to assist with large-scale arrests of undocumented immigrants across the country.”
While that may be every bit as crazy as it sounds, it is not outside the realm of possibility. Given Sen. Joe Manchin’s decision not to run for another term, Tester’s Senate seat in Montana is seen as perhaps the most vulnerable among Democratic incumbents seeking re-election this year. Sheehy, who also supports the total eradication of illegal immigration, has a good shot at beating Tester in deep red Montana. It could just be the race that allows the Senate to go back to Republican control, and all that entails.
SHEEHY, IN HIS EMAIL, included several links to a survey he asked me to take to help advise him going forward. The first question: “Before receiving my email today, were you aware that Montana is now ground zero in the battle to retake the Senate?”
I checked the yes box. I might have added that the U.S. Senate seat held by Democrat Sherrod Brown in Ohio—another state that went big for Trump in 2016 and 2020—is also seen as highly vulnerable, as is the seat now held by Democrat Jacky Rosen in Nevada and the one being vacated by Manchin in West Virginia, but there wasn’t room.
Another question asked: “On a scale of 1-10, how interested are you in helping us defeat Democrat Jon Tester, flip this Senate seat, and recapture the Senate majority?” The options were “1-5,” “6-10,” and “Other.” I picked “Other” and entered a zero. Then there was this: “While Montana voted for Donald Trump by double digits TWICE, my Democrat opponent votes with Joe Biden 91% of the time. Does knowing this make you more likely to get involved in my race?” I answered yes.
Sheehy also wondered whether I would “classify the situation at the southern border as a security crisis?” There were only two possible answers: “Yes it’s a national security crisis,” and “It’s bad but not yet a crisis.” There was no way to mention what I thought about the Republicans’ determination to not do anything about it—at least not until Trump gets re-elected, and they can start building the camps.
But, Sheehy’s survey takers are perpetually reminded, what is needed for this dream of mass detention to come true is donations to his campaign, in suggested increments of $5 to $9,900. In what happens to be a true statement, what is billed as the “LAST QUESTION” sets forth: “My DEM opponent has 10x as much money as we do in the bank.” According to Federal Election Commission reports, Tester is the fifth most prolific fundraiser among all those running for Senate in the 2019-2024 election cycle; through the end of last year, he has raised $25.2 million and has $11.2 million cash on hand. Meanwhile, number thirty-two ranked Sheehy had raised only $5.3 million since June 27, 2023, and had just $1.3 million cash on hand. (Of course, by the time November 5 rolls around, both campaigns will be bursting at the seams with cash.)
I tried to submit my answers to the questions that I was able to answer. But the way things are set up, there is no way to do so unless you donate at least a dollar to his campaign. And that’s something I would rather have my face eaten by wild boars than do.
THE REASON I WOULD NEVER GIVE SHEEHY MONEY is that I know a thing or two about him from all of the fundraising appeals he’s sent my way. I’ve gotten dozens of these appeals since July, shortly after he launched his campaign. All mention if not stress that he served as a Navy SEAL—which is important, as it would mean, according to Trump’s lawyers, that if ordered to do so by the commander in chief, Sheehy could assassinate the president’s political rivals without anybody getting in trouble over it.
In an email titled “This is my most critical mission to date,” Sheehy declares: “Our homeland is in danger. Not from overseas terrorists but Washington’s radical Democrats who want to fundamentally alter the fabric of this GREAT nation. This FAR-LEFT liberal agenda is assaulting our society, communities, and the American Dream.” He adds, “The only way to pull America out of this leftist tailspin is by taking back the Senate in 2024, and our path to the Majority runs through this race in Montana.”
This is pretty much Sheehy’s constant message: He’ll bring his military experience to the task, using the skills he learned as a Navy SEAL to guide him through the legislative process. But, other than engaging in mortal combat with the libs, what exactly does Sheehy seek to accomplish? The “On the Issues” section of his campaign website offers some clues.
Here, Sheehy asserts that he supports Montana agriculture (without a mention of how Trump’s foolish trade war kneecapped U.S. farmers), veterans (presumably except for those Trump considers “suckers” and “losers”), Social Security and Medicare (whose dedicated funding source Trump has pledged to cut should he get another term in office), national security (so long as Vladimir Putin is OK with it), and fiscal responsibility (Sheehy bemoans the $32 trillion national debt without noting that Trump, in his four years, rang up almost a quarter of this sum).
Sheehy touts his advocacy of gun rights (“I will fight back against any attempt by liberal politicians like Joe Biden and Jon Tester from pursuing a radical gun control agenda,” a kind of takeoff on Trump’s boast to the NRA that “we did nothing” to limit access to guns), energy and economy (he’ll oppose “the disastrous socialist Green New Deal that would destroy Montana’s economy and jobs and devastate our communities” but do nothing about the climate crisis putting these all at risk), and education (“above all, we need leaders in Washington to stop things like drag queen story time from replacing the Lord’s Prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance in our classrooms.”) Above all?
And, of course, there is the issue of border security. Sheehy promises to “finish the wall, and finally put an end to illegal immigration once and for all,” which rhymes, even if it does not make sense.
Sheehy is trying ever so hard to be worthy of the support that Trump is giving him. The subject line of his most recent email to me is heartbreaking: “I have never seen your response.” He’s right. Of all of the times that Tim has reached out to me, there’s been, well, nothing that I’ve given in return. And yet he is all but certain to try, try again. The future of the U.S. Senate, and indeed the nation, may depend on it.
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