Exclusive — Combat Veteran Kent Keirsey: ‘The Fight for Freedom’ Is at Home, Not Abroad

Republican candidate for office and Iraq War combat veteran Kent Keirsey spoke with Breitbart News about his campaign and how he realized “the fight for freedom was here, back at home.”

Keirsey outlined his experience as a combat veteran in Iraq in the early 2000s and how that led him to run for office.

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“I joined the military when I was 17, went to West Point, had no doubt in my mind that America was the greatest country on the face of the planet. And so I stepped up to serve that,” Keirsey said.

“I’m proud that we still have men and women today that think of our country that way are willing to step up and serve and I think it’s a noble profession. You know, that’s one of the reasons I’m running. I think that we need to have folks in office and understand that understand what it means to serve in Congress, in our country, especially these times when we have conflicts blowing up around the globe.”

Boyle discussed the high stakes in Keirsey’s race in North Carolina’s newly created 13th congressional district. Keirsey called out the “activist judges” who redrew a pro-Republican map to make it more advantageous to Democrats.

We have a great Republican legislature here that put forward perfectly fine maps through our legislative process. We have some activist judges here in North Carolina that decided they wanted to draw the maps instead, made it where we had seven Republican seats, six democratic seats, and one contested seat, and that’s where we’re I’m fighting to make sure that our delegation coming from North Carolina is Republican. 8-6.

The conversation switched gears to Keirsey’s post-military life, and he talked about getting his business and law degrees then building small businesses “to add value to the world.” Keirsey built businesses in the healthcare and real estate industries.

I wanted to really understand what made this country great because I felt like, you know, while I was fighting for freedom abroad, and we have men and women doing that today, and that’s important, that really the fight for freedom was here, back at home. And I went to understand on a visceral level what made our country great. So I went off, and I studied the law. I studied the Constitution, and then I went off to school obviously. I met folks that were starting businesses, veterans that have started their own business. And I thought to myself; this is a real way to add value to the world. You create businesses, you build things you employ, folks. This is where innovation happens.

Boyle then brought up the six West Point cadets who recently overdosed on drugs laced with fentanyl while on a spring break trip in Florida. Keirsey called the situation an “absolute tragedy.”

“I can only imagine how heart breaking that is for for families. And I think you’re absolutely right that we don’t we don’t need substances out on our streets that are going to kill people,” Keirsey said.

“One part of the reason I’m running for Congress here, I think we need to have folks that can approach this with with fresh heads and really attack the problem people are afraid of.”

Keirsey went on to talk about President Joe Biden’s “tragic” foreign policy that he believes is an embarrassment to the country. “I think you’re right from a national security standpoint, the last year has been pretty tragic. The border is one part of this, we need to secure our borders in this country, it’s an embarrassment,” he said.

Half of it is that we need to actually have some common sense policies and invest in securing our border. The other half of it is we cannot signal to the world that they can just come here and violate our laws, and then we’re gonna take care of them and write them checks. We need to signal the world that folks want to come to this country. They need to do so legally. And they need to come here with attitude. They’re going to work hard and make a living here, not a handout.

Keirsey mentioned how Biden’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan inspired him to run for U.S. Congress.

“We managed to get 140,000 people out of there. In a short amount of time, our military did a great job on the ground and tactically and operationally to make sure that they pulled that off. I was I was shocked that we were able to get out there in the timeline that we did when it was really tragic to me was when we left folks behind,” he said.

Keirsey fears that Biden’s weak foreign policy will embolden our adversaries to engage in more conflict on the world stage. “Our adversaries have seen the weakness that we showed there the our inability to win these conflicts, or our disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan and that’s where you see Russia flexing his muscles in the Ukraine,” he said.

Turning to inflation, Keirsey called out Biden for blaming the increased inflation rates on Russian Leader Vladimir Putin. “It’s not just that Putin invaded Ukraine, and even if you could blame it on Ukraine, I would turn back and say, this administration’s policies gave Putin the sense that he could do that without repercussion,” he said.

Keirsey said massive government spending contributed to inflation, which he called a tax on the American people. “You’re either taxing through inflation or you’re taxing through, you know, over taxing.”

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