Conservative activist Charlie Kirk holds a rally for Tim Sheehy in Missoula before the debate with Tester

MISSOULA — Ahead of Tim Sheehy's debate Monday night with Democratic Sen. Jon Tester, the Republican candidate spoke at a conservative student organization rally at the University of Montana.

Charlie Kirk, founder of Sheehy and Turning Point Action and conservative activist, discussed bureaucracy, the border and the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan during the “Save Big Sky Rally” at the University of Montana's George & Jane Dennison Theater and took tester in the sights.

Before introducing Sheehy, Kirk spoke for about 15 minutes, describing a shift among young people toward the political right due to inflation and immigration. Kirk said a national movement that rejects “radical Democrats” includes people who may disagree on certain issues but agree on the big things.

“We agree that freedom of expression is a cornerstone of this country,” he said. “We agree that when making decisions, citizens must always take precedence over the citizens of another country. … We believe that if you don’t have a border, you don’t have a country. An open border is not a border. We believe that God created men and women and that men do not belong in women’s sports.”

Tester spends more money on advertising than Sheehy because the incumbent is “perfect for California liberals,” Kirk said.

Kirk told the crowd of several hundred people that the chance of sending a “truly conservative” Sheehy to the Senate will only be achieved if viewers urge their family and friends to vote throughout the vote and “make sure that Trump has a unified government to work with.”

Sheehy said the “most insidious” change in the last four years of the Biden administration was the growth of “unaccountable bureaucracy.” Restrictions on businesses and schools during the COVID-19 pandemic are a taste of what Democrats want America to look like, he said.

“Our Constitution never imagined that the executive branch would be so overreaching and aggressive against its own citizens,” he said. “It is important that we return to pro-business policies. It's about more than just taxes. It’s about recognizing that businesses are at the heart of the American spirit.”

Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL, spent about 10 minutes talking about his service in Afghanistan and the state of the U.S. military. Sheehy said it was his experiences in the war and watching the United States withdraw from Afghanistan in 2021 that led him to become involved in politics.

“We were there for 20 years and the government we built lasted less than a day,” he said. “If that doesn't scare you, how incompetent our own government has become, that it can't solve any problems, whether it's our border, whether it's healthcare, whether it's our budget or whether it's the war abroad that we've been waging for 20 years “I don’t know what will scare you.”

Sheehy said the military is experiencing “record levels of non-readiness” among its aircraft and ships, as well as low recruiting. The Defense Department doesn't need more money, but it does need less bureaucracy to drive innovation, he said.

Sheehy told the veterans in the room that they had a responsibility to continue their service by stepping up to “save this country by November 5th.”

Kirk and Sheehy emphasized the importance of the race and its potential to turn the Senate into a Republican majority.

“For a state like Montana, the Senate is our strongest expression of political power in the nation because we only – now we have two members of Congress. “We don't have much influence over who becomes president. But we have as much say in the U.S. Senate as New York, California and Florida. That’s the great equalizer.”

Sheehy acknowledged that while Trump has a large lead in Montana, his race with Tester is closer because voters will split the ticket. He encouraged the crowd to speak to those voters and remind them that Tester voted to impeach Trump and voted against his Cabinet and Supreme Court nominees.

Kirk and Sheehy encouraged Montanans to vote early. Sheehy said Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen is doing a “fantastic” job and that this will be Montana’s safest choice.

During his comments, Sheehy was interrupted twice, once by two protesters who called him a racist and later by another protester.

Tribal leaders and community members have called on Sheehy to apologize for the references to Crow Indians and alcohol after audio recordings of the comments were released in late August. In a recent interview with Fox News, Sheehy said the recordings were old and suggested they had been edited to make him sound bad, the Daily Montanan reported.

“These friends back here just called me a racist,” Sheehy said during Monday’s rally. “It’s like, you know what? I fought alongside Muslims, Jews, Hindis, every race you can imagine, I was in foxholes with them, in gunfights with them. We were covered in the same mud in the same places.”

About two dozen people protested outside the venue at the end of the event, chanting “Get your hate out of our state” and “Shady Sheehy has got to go.”