GOP candidates clash in Montana congressional debate

Radio host and congressional candidate Aaron Flint made a forceful case for his alignment with President Donald Trump’s foreign policy agenda Tuesday evening, challenging rival Al Olszewski over public comments that Flint said undermined the president during sensitive Iran negotiations.

Secretary of State Christi Jacobson refused to participate in the debate. Jacobsen has come under fire and is currently under investigation for misuse of funds in her official office.

The two Republican candidates — the only ones present for what the Montana GOP billed as the race’s sole scheduled debate before the June 2 primary — squared off for about 90 minutes at Calvary Chapel in Bozeman before roughly 120 people. State Senate President Matt Regier moderated. Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen, the third candidate in the race, did not attend. State Republican Party Chair Art Wittich cited a scheduling conflict.

Natural resource jobs, housing affordability and U.S. military strikes on Iran dominated the evening. The debate opened with a prayer led by Dale Fricke, an assistant pastor at Calvary, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance.

Flint drew a clear contrast with Olszewski on the Iran conflict, defending Trump’s decision-making and pushing back on what he characterized as unhelpful public second-guessing from his opponent.

“I read an article in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle,” Flint said. “You appeared to be seriously undermining President Trump, just as we were in the middle of crucial negotiations to bring all of this war to a halt. Your comments seemed anti-Trump, undermining the commander in chief.”

Flint framed the U.S. campaign against Iran not as an open-ended military adventure but as a decisive resolution to long-standing threats. Referencing the joint U.S.-Israeli strike on Tehran in February that killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Flint said Trump was finishing what previous administrations had left unresolved. “We are sick and tired of these forever wars, and we do not want to see a long-term boots-on-the-ground Iraq-style nation-building exercise, and I think President Trump shares that mission as well,” he said. “Maduro is behind bars. Khamenei is dead.”

While declining to rule out a congressional vote on further military authorization, Flint warned against letting the War Powers Act become a tool of the left. When Olszewski raised the possibility of reforming the act, Flint noted that the lawmakers most actively pushing such reforms are U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar. “Do you want Ilhan Omar to have veto authority over the commander in chief while your sons and daughters are in harm’s way?” Flint asked.

Olszewski, who served as an Air Force surgeon during the Gulf War, said he supports the president but believes Congress has a constitutional obligation to weigh in. “I trust he has information we do not have,” Olszewski said of Trump. “Congress is going to have to act and say yes to what our president’s doing, no to what he is doing, and then tell Trump under what conditions he can or cannot continue.”

Flint offered a concrete agenda on housing, centering on cutting regulatory costs, rebuilding Montana’s timber industry and backing Trump’s push to ban large institutional investors from purchasing single-family homes.

“Thirty percent of the cost of a home is all due to red tape and regulations,” Flint said, arguing that compliance costs add $100,000 before construction even begins. “I support President Trump’s ban on these big Wall Street firms buying single-family homes. I think that’s something that we’ve got to get across the finish line.” He also called for expanding trades education to grow the construction workforce.

Olszewski agreed that Wall Street buyers are distorting the market but argued the deeper problem is wages. “The only way you can afford an expensive house is you’ve got to have a job that pays good money,” he said. The remark produced the unintentional comic moment of the night. While listing high-paying occupations that could bring young Montanans home, Olszewski said: “Trades jobs, natural resource jobs … or a good natural resource job in western Montana, in one of those mines, or, you know, a sawyer or a hooker” — followed by a long pause — “as in timber, not the other way around.”

Both candidates expressed support for the Libby Exploration Project near the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness and praised the Stillwater Mine as a model for balancing resource development with environmental and worker protections.

Flint laid responsibility for the recent elimination of roughly 700 jobs at Sibanye-Stillwater’s Montana palladium mines squarely on Democratic policy failures — Biden-era electric vehicle mandates that undercut catalytic converter demand, and the administration’s failure to stop Russian producers from flooding the U.S. palladium market. “700 mining jobs killed because of President Joe Biden’s green electric vehicle mandates,” Flint said. The U.S. Commerce Department imposed steep antidumping duties on Russian palladium in February, but the company has said it does not expect significant hiring to resume before 2027.

Flint pressed Olszewski on a 2013 legislative testimony in support of a bill tied to Medicaid expansion, calling it a record that conservatives in the district deserve to know about. “When you testified in support of bringing Obamacare to Montana, what a setback it was,” Flint said, noting that he was publicly opposing the expansion at the time.

Olszewski acknowledged the testimony but said he gave it under obligation to a medical board whose position he had opposed internally. He argued his overall legislative record is clear. “I voted against Medicaid expansion throughout Montana in 2015 and 2019,” he said. “I am the only state legislator who’s killed it three times.”

Flint wore his presidential endorsement from Trump prominently, citing it at multiple times as a signal of his commitment to the America First agenda and his ability to deliver results for Montana in Washington.

. The primary is June 2.