Montana’s GOP Leaders Suddenly Bailed (w/ Ryan Busse)

Hey guys, it's Lorne Egan here at The Bullwark. There's been a lot of political news this week out of Montana,

and I'm joined today by Ryan Bussey to talk through it all. Ryan is running the Democratic

Primary for Congress in Montana's first district, which is currently represented by Republican

Ryan Zinke. But Zinke announced earlier this week that he's retiring, and just a few days after Zinke

said he wouldn't run again, Montana Senator Steve Daines also said that he was going to retire.

So there's a lot of shake-up going on in Montana politics this week. Ryan, just really quickly,

I want to get your reaction to these pair of retirement announcements. Were you surprised what

spend the reaction from folks on the ground? Who knew? Montana was the center of political

universe this week. I know, right? Yeah, they're dropping like flies out here. Yeah, I was,

honestly, the Zinke thing was not super shocking. It had been rumored that his heart really wasn't

in it, and I had personally suspected that something might be up. So it was a little surprising,

but not shocking. The Daines thing, a U.S. Senator, a sitting U.S. Senator with seniority,

pulls that kind of, and for those who don't know, he waited until four minutes before the filing

deadline sneaks in his hand-picked successor, I guess, who they've coordinated. A guy, a U.S.

attorney who nobody in the state knows, there aren't 10 people in the state who knows who this guy

is, slipped him in last second, and also because of that, because of the last minute thing,

lots of Dims didn't file to run without, you know, it would be tough to run against a sitting

U.S. Senator. So it's really, it's quite a shake-up, and the right side of the Republican Party,

pretty hot about this, because it sort of deprives everybody of democracy here. So yeah,

it's been quite a thing. Yeah, incredibly democratic of him. I want to talk about your political

background a little bit. You ran for Governor in 2024 and lost. I'm curious what challenges you

saw running statewide as a Democrat, because this is the place where Democrats used to win. Obviously,

there was Governor Steve Bullock, John Tester, was a Senator from Montana. What do you think has

changed in the past couple of years? Yeah, so I, I guess everybody watching this, I'm going to,

I want to give you a little bit of hope, and I know they're varying outlooks about hope or despair

on the Bullwork team, but I'm going to be on on the team Hopium here for a minute. On the

hope side? There you go. I'm going to be on team Hopium. Look, two years ago, when I ran,

we, Senator John Tester ran then too. This was the most expensive per capita race in the history

of the nation that Senate race was, and it totally nationalized everything here. $321 per voter

was spent on that race. I mean, that is an astounding sum of money. The closest comparable

that same year was Ohio at $44 per year. And what that spending did to the electorate here,

combined with the Biden mess, the Harris mess, all of the nationalization, there was no local politics.

There were no issue politics. It was full on national superheated culture war all the time every day,

like never stopped. As an illustration, I would do, I like to do kind of a sicko like this. I like

to do right wing talk radio. So I'll just get on the radio and just take calls on right wing

radio. And two years ago, every call that came in or every other call was like, you know,

kids in bathrooms and trans kids in sports, just like a non-stop diet tribe of the culture

war traps that were out there. I just, and we did 187 events that year. I was in people's homes.

I was in their breweries with them. And I never once sensed that the voters really were that

sort of partisan energized. I didn't feel like this place that elected Democrats forever had really

changed. But once, so with the people that didn't feel any different, but once they got in a

political environment like on talk radio or something, it totally changed. So fast forward to now,

two years later, I do the same talk radio deal 10 days ago. And this should tell, you know,

Bullwork folks what's going on. The first call it comes in, Elizabeth, lifelong Republican,

she can't take the corruption anymore. This crypto stuff's killer. The next person, I think

his name is Bob, lifelong Republican. What's wrong with the Epstein files? Well, why won't they

release Epstein files like goes off the next caller, some old guy from Hamilton, Montana. It's like,

I don't know what to do, but I can't afford my health care. Like, and it's an hour of that.

So two years ago, total nationalized culture war craziness to now people's lived experience and

what they're energized about is like our stuff. And I think that portans very well for what's

going to happen in November. On the culture war stuff, do you feel like there's a lesson for

Democrats to learn there? Because I hear you that that's probably not going to be the motivating

factor in the cycle. Obviously, the political environment has changed dramatically. But in tough

years for Democrats, that is a card that Republicans consistently play. So is there a lesson to be

learned? Do you think for the Democratic Party, like if you could tell a national Democrats to do

anything to help make Montana Democrats more successful long term, more palatable in a state

like Montana, what would that be? I think, and I do think there's some lessons to be learned. Look,

at least when times are super good or the economy feels fantastic and people aren't losing their

health care, the like culture warring works. It does. We've seen it. It's, you know, it's elected

Donald Trump twice and damn near elected him the middle time. I think what Democrats need to do

is nominate candidates and run people like me that don't give the Democrats or don't give

the Republicans a place to grab on to, right? You look at this, often vain race in Tennessee,

right before Christmas, it was a Trump plus 16 district. And I met Bane and she's super impressive,

like she's a spark plug. You don't want to get in her way. As a candidate, as a person, she's

impressive. And she was, she was only pulling like two points down in a Trump plus 16 district,

right? So everybody thought, I think she's going to win. But then is the Republicans figure out,

oh, wait, there's culture warplaces to get a hold of her. She had cheered, defunding police.

She had, she had celebrated like burning down police stations like this stuff that works.

They got a hold of her. They swung her around. She lost by nine and a half. Still over performance,

but there was a place to get a hold of her. Me, you know, I'm a white dude, sold guns, drives trucks,

drinks beer, cusses too much. Like it's hard to get a hold of me. It's not that I'm not progressive

because I believe it's time for universal health care. And I believe that even Republicans believe

it's time for universal health care. But the culture-waring places, it's hard to get a hold of me.

And I think running candidates like that that look and feel like the district's important.

Yeah, I live in Nashville. So I was very interested in Athens, right? But you brought up guns.

And I want to talk about that part of your background. You left your position as vice president

of sales for a firearm producer. And you wrote a book about the gun industry and your kind of

break and disillusionment with the firearms industry in 2021. You talked to me about that breaking

point that you had. Walk us through why you got there, why you wrote this book and kind of where

you land on this. Yeah, so my experience in the firearms industry, it really for me was foretelling

what happened in our political world. I was raised on a ranch, you know, I'm a ranch kid,

ranch and farm. And hunting and shooting for me was like the best part of my life. And so after

I graduated from college, I'm thinking, I'm just, I'm gonna go do this thing that I love. And I

got into the gun industry. And for a while, it was a dream for me. I get to hunt and shoot. But

responsibility where I grew up, I mean, my father's best friend was killed by, by this guy. And my

father's best friend's father was killed by this guy when he was 16 with a gun. So like my family

always understood what responsible gun ownership meant and what the implications are if you weren't

responsible. That was deeply ingrained in my childhood. And it was deeply ingrained in the gun

industry for a long time when I was there. And then as I, about halfway through, I thought,

I started figuring out, wait, the industry isn't just building and selling these things that I like

to use when I'm hunting or shooting. And I do this with my kids now. I'm proud of that. But it's

also fuming this dangerous like political radicalization that's splitting the country. It's

using something that's important to me. And creating these really dangerous radicals. I started to

see that NRA is happening through the industry. And I just, I had this kind of bifurcated existence

where I was proud of owning and selling guns and working for a company and really troubled

about what the industry I was in was doing. And I could do both of those for a while. But as it got

further along in my career and the radicalization just got way worse, I just couldn't feed that

what the industry was doing anymore. And so I did something no career coach would ever say to do

at 50 years old at the peak of my career. I quit. Neither my wife or I were born with any money or

inherited any money. And so whatever financial stability we had, that was out the door. Took lots of

death threats. My kids took death threats. Sarah took death threats I did. We worried about going

to the grocery store. But I wrote that book because I thought the world needs to know that radicalization

irresponsibility is a bad thing. And so I did that. And I still am a proud gun owner,

hunting shoot with my kids all the time, proud of the gun company I helped build. And I'm super

troubled about the radicalization that's that's spilled out of the industry. A lot of your public

profile is kind of tied around your break with the gun industry. And I'm curious, you know, on the

one hand, you still talk about how hunting is a big part of your life. But do you think that this

break is a politics that can sell in Montana? Or do you think that like talk to me about how you

kind of view the politics of this in the state? Yeah, good question. So Montana has the highest

percentage of gun owners in the Union in 67 and a half percent of adults in Montana own guns.

It's high. But I don't know, I shouldn't say none, but I virtually know Montana's I know that

don't think being responsible doing the right thing goes hand in hand with that kind of freedom.

I mean, it is an immense sort of powerful freedom. Few things that you do in your life have the

potential ramifications to other citizens like owning a gun. And you know, for instance here,

you can't you can't hunt. And most people do hunt. I'm a hunter. We primarily eat wild game in

our house. I'm proud of that. But you can't you cannot be a hunter in the state if you don't take

a hundred safety course, including a gun safety course. You cannot obtain a hunting license. Nobody

in Montana thinks that that's a bad idea. So the balancing of responsibility with freedom is

something I think everybody here cares about. Everybody I know does. And one thing that I think

has brought that home, this incredibly horrific thing in Minneapolis. And I know Tim and

everybody else is very exercised about this. And they should. But we saw right there what irresponsibility

with guns versus responsibility with guns is. And most people in Montana see themselves

as pretty, not as those ice agents. The Trump administration sees gun ownership as those ice

agents taking your rights away from them. And if you don't, if you doubt me, just look at Trump's

words. You know, you can't bring a gun to a protest. All these things that he and Kashpatel

and everybody said, well, that's news to every gun owner in Montana. And so I think that those

sorts of things really highlight the radicalization that I was warning about. And that's,

and they've got the attention of gun owners here. I want to talk a little bit about some senate

news out of Montana. As I mentioned, up top Steve Danes is retiring. And University of Montana

president Seth Bodner announced that he's going to run as an independent candidate. Yeah.

Senator John Taster, the former Democratic Senator, reportedly encouraged him to get in the race,

but not as a Democrat, basically saying that you can't win with a D next year name statewide.

I'm curious if you agree with Taster's assessment on that and what you kind of make of this shakeup.

I'll start with the shakeup first. I do know, so I know all the folks in the race. I know,

Seth, I know Riley Neal, Democrat running. I don't know. I don't know this Republican running because

not many people know him since he was slipped in there with four minutes to go. I think there's

an argument that being an independent gets you some votes, at least an initial voting, at least

an initial polling right on paper, it looks good. I got to tell you, I know like John ran a tough race.

A three term senator shouldn't lose. I get where he's coming from. I think 2024 was a bit of

an aberration just because of the Biden stuff, the Trump stuff. Do I believe that a damn

can't win statewide in Montana? No, I don't, I don't believe that. I also don't think it's easy.

And I also don't think you can't do it if you don't take on the national party because

there are things that the national party does or stands for or styles that they have that just,

man, they just don't jive out here. And so I think there's an artful way to do it. I mean,

I'm doing it. Like, for instance, universal healthcare. I mean, a big impediment to universal

healthcare. Yeah, it's Republicans, but there's a ton of Democrats standing in the way.

And people know that. And when I mentioned this on the trail, like, look, if there are Democrats

in the way, put a frickin elbow in them, get them out of the way. And I'm telling you that the rooms

are rupped. And so there's a way to do it and run as a Democrat without running as a national

Democrat because Montana Democrats aren't really national Democrats. I think that's the way to win

statewide. Who knows with it with Danes getting out? It's, it's just completely thrown everything

up in the air. I don't know where it's going to land. I do think the seats big time in play right

now, though, it's with him jumping out. It's going to be a big time. So it sounds like you're saying

correct me if I have this wrong. Maybe like embracing some more of economic populism combined

with cultural moderation is kind of the recipe for success in a state like Montana. Is that how

you're viewing it? Yeah, I think one thing I would say and I have said this on the trail,

like Republicans are pretty good at setting culture ward traps. Democrats have been damn good at

stepping in them. We need to step around them. It's not that every single person in this state

in this country doesn't deserve personal dignity. They do, but every single person deserves to be

able to buy a house or to get health care. Or, you know, those are 100% issues. And,

and they're 100%, you know, circumstance. I have two boys 18 and 21. And I'm really worried

that they're not going to get a chance to live in this state that I love so much. Montana, by the way,

is the least affordable housing state in the country, the least it's worse than California.

On a per capita compare income versus housing expense, it's horrible. And people working people,

they can't buy a house here. A lot of working people have to drive two, three hours to work because

they have to, you know, get some rental place out in the country. They can't afford to live or work

in Missoula or Bozeman. It's a, it's a rough existence. And those sorts of issues across

all partisan, you know, all partisan ish, all levels. And they really usurp all these cultural

war things. And I think Democrats need to just like zero and on that kind of stuff.

Before I let you go, you are running in a primary. And Sam Forstag, who's a smoke jumper and union

leader has gotten some buzz too. I'm curious what you view as the main distinctions between you two

and what your path to the, to the nomination is. Yeah, we feel pretty good about where I am.

You know, I'm the only candidate in this thing that run a general election race, a statewide race.

I got really good name recognition, especially in the district here. And I think folks are,

they understand what's at stake in this race. You know, I've got a history of sacrificing

of I hope being a pretty good moral leader integrity. And I think people in Montana, especially in

Western Montana, they know how important this race is for our state. But the truth is there

could be election interference across the country. In fact, I think there probably is going to be

of some sort. And I think it will probably happen in blue cities, blue states. And so some of these seats

that we count as sure and shoe and winnables in other places may not be who knows what they pull.

And I, and I'm running like this seat may be the one that matters to the house majority.

It's up in the list already. And with Zinky jumping out, it's going to be high on the list.

And I think voters understand it's, it's, it's not time to take a fly or it's time to,

to elect somebody really serious. And that's who we are.

All right, Ryan, appreciate you joining and come back and keep us updated on Montana politics.

You guys keep up the good work. Love it all. Thanks for having me. Thank you.