Green Beret veteran and Gold Star husband Joe Kent this week announced a primary challenge to Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA) after she became one of nine Republicans in the House to vote to impeach former President Donald Trump.
Kent, who served on the Military Families for Trump Advisory Board, announced his primary run on Twitter on Thursday.
“Time to get off the bench — I’m running to primary Jaime Herrera Beutler in Washington State’s 3rd District. She no longer represents the hard working people of our district & must go!” he tweeted.
He also tweeted his first campaign video in which he said:
I’m Joe Kent, an America First Republican… . I’m primarying Jaime Herrera Beutler because she voted for the impeachment of President Trump against the will of the people of this district. I’m running to push back against the status quo, the far-left, and the establishment in their effort to halt the progress made by President Trump and the great working men and women of this district. It’s essential that we in the 3rd District fight back now.
…
The time to act is now. Since the 2020 election, we’ve seen conservatives and Trump supporters labeled as insurrectionists and terrorists by the far left and the mainstream media. I want to earn your support and go forward to fight for you in Congress. Just like I fought for this country for over 20 years in special operations and over the course of 11 combat deployments. The entire time I was fighting for this country, I lived by the motto, ‘If not when, but now? If not me, then who?’ Send me.
Kent was a strong supporter of former President Donald Trump throughout his administration and frequently wrote op-eds in support of his policies, particularly on foreign policy, for Breitbart News, Fox News, and other outlets.
Kent first met Trump after his wife, Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer Shannon Kent, was killed by a suicide bomber while she was deployed to Syria fighting ISIS in 2019. She worked alongside special operators and was known for her intellect, skill, fearlessness, and bravery. Kent is now raising their two young sons and their much-doted-on cat, Slayer.
Kent discussed his run Friday on the Lars Larson Show.
Beutler “stabbed us in the back,” he said, noting that Washington’s 3rd District went for Trump in the 2020 and 2016 elections.
“I don’t know what she was thinking, but we need to get some actual qualified representation of this district into D.C. to push back hard against the far-left policies that are coming from D.C.,” he added.
Kent said as a Green Beret he learned to build strong teams and learned that “no one person is ever smart enough.”
“You have to be willing to reach out to everybody within your ranks from your most senior general all the way down to the private that’s turning wrenches or digging foxholes,” he said. Kent came into the Army as a private and worked his way up to warrant officer.
“I’m willing to drive anywhere and talk to anyone in this district so they can tell me what issues matter to them. It’s impossible for one person to know exactly what affects each single person, but it is our job to go collect that information to build a team that’s going to represent them and to take those needs directly to Washington, DC,” he added.
He said being a single father has given him a new outlook on what it takes to run a family. “I have a really newfound respect for what homemakers do and what it takes to be a sole breadwinner … It’s given me a more well-rounded sense of what it takes to really run a household.”
“So I want to combine that with all the federal government experience I have in building teams, take that to D.C., and never forget where I came from and why I’m there,” he said.
“We can’t have weak establishment Republicans in Congress who want to cut a side deal or look good to the media that are unwilling to call it out for what it is,” he said, slamming President Joe Biden’s decisions to kill the Keystone XL pipeline and other recent actions.
“We have to be strong and call all of that out,” he said.
To learn more about Kent, visit his website at www.joekentforcongress.com.
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