Trump mobilizes thousands in Bozeman in support of GOP Senate candidate Sheehy • Daily Montanan

Daines reconnected Tester with Harris, even though the Montana Democrat has not yet endorsed Harris for president, having previously supported her Senate nomination and attacked Tester for his support of Trump’s impeachment. He said Sheehy “supports Trump” and would fight to put right-wing judges on the federal bench and help him “build the wall” on the southern border.

“The nation is watching Montana; they’re counting on us, 88 days from now, in this critically important election,” Daines said. “If we’re going to take this country back, we need to elect President Trump, and we need to elect Tim Sheehy to support President Trump in Washington.”

In what was his most high-profile political appearance in Montana to date due to Trump’s presence, Sheehy portrayed Tester’s votes in the Senate as crucial to stopping Trump’s policies while he was president, even Tester has attempted to distance himself from the Biden administration on issues like the border and energy this election cycle.

Sheehy said the path to winning back the Senate went directly through Montana and relied again on his military career as a Navy SEAL and his business acumen in building Bridger Aerospace, a Bozeman-based aerial firefighting company, into a successful Montana operation — neither of which Tester had done, he said. Sheehy said the nation was “at a crossroads” and reiterated that he entered politics and this particular race after the U.S. left Afghanistan.

“I said, ‘Enough is enough. I’m tired of this nonsense. We’ve got to save this country.’ And a few years later, here we are,” Sheehy said. “The reason I’m running for this seat is very simple. When I understood the importance of this race, when I understood that control of the United States Senate came down to this seat, it was clear that my new path to serve this country was in the United States Senate.”

He told his supporters that even if Trump won the White House, the lack of a Republican majority in the Senate would hamper his performance.

“You have to give him a Senate by retiring Jon Tester,” Sheehy said.

Trump took the stage around 9:30 p.m. The gym was completely filled from the previous speakers. Extremely tight security was needed to enter the meeting.

Initially, he mentioned Sheehy, then later brought him on stage and closed with a speech specifically about Montana, but most of his speech was about the presidential election.

“We’re going to throw crazy Kamala out and we’re going to get Joe Biden out of the White House,” Trump told the crowd before launching into a meandering speech that lasted more than an hour and a half, in which he discussed Biden’s withdrawal, his hopes that Biden would reenter the race, his claim that he had the strongest economy and border security in U.S. history and would bring them back on “day one,” and attacked the LGBTQ community, the press and the Harris-Walz ticket.

Trump called the US a “failing nation” and alleged that the Biden-Harris administration was deliberately harming the country.

“I wish they would make our country great, but they’re going to destroy our country,” Trump said. “You know that? They even know it; and they’re probably doing it on purpose.”

Trump also repeatedly called what he still falsely calls a “rigged election” in 2020 and said the Republican National Committee was working to repeat those efforts this year.

He made xenophobic comments about migrants who came to the U.S. illegally, falsely claimed that Harris was letting some “walk around free” to attack, rape and murder Americans, and falsely claimed that she would give undocumented immigrants all the benefits that Americans enjoy.

“It’s called a mass deportation by Trump, because we don’t have a choice. We don’t have a choice. If Harris wins, there’s going to be an endless stream of illegal alien rapists,” Trump said.

He also made pointed comments about Tester’s appearance, criticized his support for the Inflation Reduction Act, which has earned Montana hundreds of millions of dollars, and called Tester a “big sloppy man.”

Trump brought Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, a former physician to the president, onstage to express his hostility toward Tester, six years after Tester derailed Trump’s attempt to appoint Jackson as Veterans Affairs secretary in 2018 by publicizing complaints that Jackson had overprescribed certain medications and had been drinking on the job.

“This man tried to destroy me. He tried to destroy my family. I’ve been waiting for six years to come back here for this night, to be with this man, to go after (Tester),” Jackson said, calling Tester a “Swamp hippopotamus.”

Trump returned to Sheehy more than an hour after the start of his speech, bringing him onstage and praising his military career, his business life and calling him “handsome.”

“Tim Sheehy, you should vote for him,” Trump told the crowd.

Sheehy said he was angered by seeing American troops die in Afghanistan before Trump took office, but his support for Trump was bolstered when he ordered the killing of Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani in Iraq in 2020.

“You are the one who dropped the bomb on that bastard Soleimani, and I will always support you for that,” Sheehy said.

To conclude his speech, Trump gave a shout-out to the Montana Republicans who had helped introduce him, saying he would deport “pro-Hamas radicals,” destroy drug cartels, restore peace between Ukraine and Russia, end taxes on Social Security and tipping, Federal funding for universities should be cut and an Iron Dome should be built across the US, just as it protects Israel from rocket attacks.

“I think we are going to have the greatest election victory in the history of our country,” Trump said.

The Tester campaign took out a full-page ad in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle on Friday touting the recently launched “Republicans for Tester” and criticizing Sheehy’s health care plan, which Tester says would close four dozen rural hospitals in the state. In 2018, Trump visited Montana four times in support of Matt Rosendale, who lost to Tester that year.

“Jon Tester is proud of the work he has done with President Trump to care for Montana’s veterans, tackle waste and fraud in the federal government, and help secure the southern border,” campaign spokesman Harry Child said in a statement Saturday morning. “Jon’s strong record is why earlier this week, Montana Republicans from across the state — from elected officials to business owners to Trump voters — endorsed Jon in his Senate campaign.”