WATCH
Independent Seth Bodnar on MeidasTouch: “Montana deserves a senator who doesn't work for Chuck Schumer, and who's not afraid of Donald Trump”
Bodnar talks to Ken Harbaugh about the urgent need for political reform and breaking the grip of dysfunction on our national system
MISSOULA, MT— In case you missed it, Independent U.S. Senate candidate and Green Beret Seth Bodnar joined Ken Harbaugh, host of the Ken Harbaugh Show, on MeidasTouch Network.
Watch the full interview here. Below are key excerpts:
Ken sits down with Bodnar, the Independent taking on Montana's open Senate seat
MeidasTouch
August 31, 2026
The thing I've been hearing out on the campaign trail, from Republicans, from Democrats, is that the fight in Montana right now isn't between the Republicans and the Democrats. It's actually between the extreme, mostly the far right, and the rest of us. This is a coalition for the rest of us.
If you look at rural Montana right now, export markets for farmers have been crushed by nonsensical tariffs. Tariffs should be used like tools, not like toys.
You see input costs soaring, diesel at over $5 a gallon. I was talking to a woman last Friday who farms up near Conrad, Montana. She's harvesting right now, uses 300 gallons of diesel a day in her equipment. Do the math … That's $600 a day coming out of her pocket, due to a nonsensical war in Iran.
The so-called Big Beautiful Bill that passed last year gave a trillion dollars of tax cuts to the wealthiest in this country, while causing changes to Medicaid that are going to result in an estimated 30,000 Montanans losing access to health care, a $5 to $6 billion impact to our hospitals. You know which hospitals shut down first? The rural ones. And when you lose a rural hospital, you don't just lose access to critical care. You lose a hub for jobs and for community in rural America.
[There’s] a lot of misinformation out there … What does a pickpocket do before they try to take your wallet out of your back pocket? They create a diversion. Pay attention over here while I'm picking your pocket, and you don't notice. We're seeing a lot of that on behalf of the Republican Party. Let's just call a spade a spade.
The challenges for the Democratic Party in rural America run deep, and I think there's some self-reflection that has to happen. Ten years ago this year, Chuck Schumer said publicly [for] “every blue-collar voter we lose in rural areas, we'll gain back two in the cities and suburbs” … That's a strategy that may win you the House; may win you the popular vote in a presidential election. It's not a strategy for winning in places like Montana.
Montana deserves a senator who doesn't work for Chuck Schumer, and a senator who's not afraid of Donald Trump. People resonate with that. People want to be seen, they want to be recognized, they want to feel like they're being paid attention to.
I've said repeatedly, I'm not running against Montana Democrats. I'm not actually running against a lot of Montana Republicans either. I'm running against a dysfunctional national system that's carved this country up into areas of dominance, where we effectively have one-party rule, just a different party in different parts of the country. Montana's fallen on the red side of that one-party-rule line, and I think people are feeling pretty frustrated by that. That creates opportunity.
I think we're in a moment of substantial political reform in this country. I think we'll see, over the next five years, some pretty, I hope, seismic change to what our current system looks like.
Think about it like a football field. Most Montanans politically live somewhere between the 25-yard lines … The frustration is they feel like the loudest voices for the two options are sitting near the one-yard line. And there's a broad, sensible majority—a common-sense majority—that doesn't feel like it has a strong voice … We need [a coalition] to serve that majority of Americans who don't feel like they have a solid political home.