Montana Sen. Jon Tester, a Democrat running for re-election in 2024, is bragging in a new campaign ad that he helped save hunting safety programs from a Biden administration effort to defund them.
The ad conveniently neglects to mention that Tester put the hunting programs in the administration’s crosshairs in the first place.
“I love teaching hunter education and passing on Montana’s outdoor heritage to the next generation,” says John Salazar, who is identified as a “hunter education teacher” in the ad.
“When I heard the Biden administration was trying to block funding for gun safety and hunter education classes, I knew Jon Tester would do what he always does — give ’em hell,” Salazar continues.
“Jon got his Republican colleagues on board to stop Biden’s policy and defend our Second Amendment rights. Montanans know Jon always defends our way of life from anyone — no matter what.”
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The Daily Wire blew a massive hole in Tester’s claims on Friday, noting that the Democrat voted “yes” on Senate Bill 2938, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which banned the use of federal funds for “training in the use of a dangerous weapon.”
When the Department of Education attempted to use SB 2938 to target school shooting programs, Tester was forced to save face by insisting that the Biden administration was “misinterpreting” the measure.
“Anyone who has ever lived in rural America would know that shooting sports and hunting are simply part of our Montana way of life,” Tester wrote in a September opinion piece for Fox News.
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“Efforts to strip these school safety courses are just the latest example of folks in Washington not understanding our rural communities, and I’ll do everything in my power to stop them in their tracks.”
Congress eventually addressed the issue by passing the Protecting Hunting Heritage and Education Act, which ensured that school shooting and archery programs would not lose their funding.
Former Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy, who is running to unseat Tester, shared the Wire’s report on X.
“The Biden-Tester playbook is the swamp at its worst: creating a crisis so you can campaign on ‘solving’ the same crisis you created,” Sheehy posted. “Montanans see right through Two-Faced [Tester] trying to pull a fast one on them in an election year.”
The Biden-Tester playbook is the swamp at its worst: creating a crisis so you can campaign on ‘solving’ the same crisis you created.
Montanans see right through Two-Faced @jontester trying to pull a fast one on them in an election year. #RetireTester https://t.co/RsrQK9MFtB
— Tim Sheehy (@SheehyforMT) January 8, 2024
Others were more blunt.
“You are a liar,” one user posted in response to Tester’s ad on YouTube.
Tester is a vulnerable Democrat in the Senate. And now he is trying to trick voters into thinking he is a good old boy facing down the woke Biden attack on Montana’s hunting traditions — after he voted to jeopardize them himself.
Hopefully, Montanans won’t be fooled.
