Politics over breakfast: Trump-endorsed House candidate Aaron Flint talks issues

Conservative firebrand Aaron Flint likes his coffee Americano — with a splash of whole milk and some sugar free vanilla.

The Chronicle caught up with Flint over a sausage patty and two eggs over easy at Jam, when the brunch restaurant opened before dawn at 7 a.m. Friday. A man of habit, the Army combat veteran, longtime host of the conservative radio show “Montana Talks” and now 1st Congressional District candidate rises at 3 a.m.

It’s been nearly two weeks since Flint’s final radio show from nearly seven years on the air, when he went all in on his heat-of-the-moment candidacy to succeed retiring Rep. Ryan Zinke on March 2. Flint is now the one answering the questions after largely querying and listening to his talk-show guests.

“What do you say when you get the endorsement of the president of the United States?” Flint, who recently moved to the Flathead Valley, asked rhetorically. “I started thinking about how incredible it is an every-day Montana kid is running for an office like this.”

Flint has the endorsement of Zinke and President Donald Trump after Zinke’s surprise recent announcement that he’s not running for re-election.

The former Interior secretary said in a letter to constituents that health issues motivated his decision to leave Washington.

Flint faces a crowded June 2 Republican primary in challengers Ray Curtis, Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen and Albert Olszewski. The winner then faces either Ryan Busse, Russell Cleveland, Sam Forstag or Matt Rains after the Democratic primary.

Prioritizing the ground game, Flint checked off nine Montana county campaign visits by the weekend.

Zinke wasn’t the only surprise decision. Sen. Steve Daines sent shockwaves across Washington and Montana by announcing he wouldn’t seek re-election, a maneuver critics on both sides of the aisle say slammed the door on a competitive election process.

“The Daines news was a total shocker to me,” Flint said.

Flint pointed to Sen. Tim Sheehy’s whirlwind 2024 election where he flipped a seat occupied for 18 years by Democrat Jon Tester.

“People, they want new blood, they want new leadership, they want some fresh faces in Washington,” he said.

Flint first met Zinke on “Montana Talks” in 2013, when Zinke represented Whitefish in the state Senate.

“I got back from Afghanistan in 2009 and I remember hearing, ‘Oh, there’s this state senator guy out of Whitefish and he was a Navy SEAL Team Six guy’,” Flint recalled. “As a military guy, I’m like, ‘I’ve got to get this guy on the radio’. We got to be good friends ever since.”

The issues“This race, the western congressional seat, could determine (Republican) control of the U.S. House of Representatives,” Flint said. “It’s America’s 250th birthday. (voters) are going to determine whether or not this country remains a free republic for another 250 years.”

Both the nonpartisan American political website 270toWin and the Cook Political Report newsletter rank midterms as a toss-up whether Republicans keep a majority in the U.S. House. Despite national uncertainty, Cook Political Report ratings from March 10 classify the 1st Congressional District election as “likely” safe for Republicans.

“The fear is if the other side (Democrats) take over control of Congress, they are going to waste everyone’s time with (Trump’s) impeachment on day one,” Flint said. “The other concern is they are going to open our borders wide open again, they’re going to massively increase government spending. Government spending is what drove inflation, which is what made everything so unaffordable in the first place.”

Federal budget deficit spending under Joe Biden’s presidency was larger than Trump’s first 2017-2021 term, according to GIS Reports, an independent political forecasting and analysis service. Trump also left his first term in the White House with the largest peacetime budget deficit in American history and a national debt exceeding 100% of the economy for the first time since World War II, per The Manhattan Institute, a conservative-leaning public policy think tank.

Encouraging trade careers, training and adjacent education are other top agenda items for Flint, who, like Zinke, believes in defending public access to public lands while encouraging Montana extractive industries such as forestry and mining.

Heather Swift, Zinke’s chief of staff and other members of his legislative team are assisting Flint’s candidacy, per Swift, who was also at the breakfast.

“There’s places where we’re ready to mine,” said Flint, referencing projects in Libby as well as Sweet Grass and Stillwater counties.

A copper mine south of Libby is in the exploration and permitting phase. The project, located beneath the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness, is undergoing environmental review for further exploration. The historic, highly toxic Zonolite vermiculite mine near Libby is permanently closed and remains a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Superfund site.

Sibanye Stillwater, the mine’s South African parent company with locations in Sweet Grass and Stillwater counties, laid off 700 of its Montana workers in the fall of 2024. The mine’s bottom line took a hit after Russian producers sold palladium in the U.S. below market value during the country’s invasion of Ukraine, crashing the mineral market.

The Department of Commerce responded by imposing a 132.83% antidumping duty on Russian palladium imports in February. No Russian palladium entered the U.S. market after July, 2025, per Stillwater.

“Where have these Democrat congressional candidates been?” asked Flint, who said he has a cousin working at the Stillwater mine. “I haven’t heard them say jack squat about the Stillwater mine. The Democrats were allowing the Russians, while they’re killing Ukrainians, to dump palladium into America. So Russia’s profiting off of palladium, and they’re using U.S. money to kill people (and) union jobs in Montana. I take that very personally.”

Flint also spoke on Iran.

“I think we all want an end to the forever wars,” Flint said. “As an Iraq-Afghanistan veteran myself, a lot of Americans are just sick and tired of hearing about the Middle East. We are just ready to be done with that whole part of the world.”

Trump green-lighting the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei via a joint Feb. 28 U.S.-Israeli strike on Tehran didn’t start a war, but is ending pre-existing issues, according to Flint. News emerged on Friday morning that Kamenei’s successor and son, Mojtaba Khamenei, was likely wounded and disfigured, per U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.

“I think he’s (Trump is) trying to end this war with Iran and bring it to a quick halt,” said Flint. “That’s what I want to see. We can’t allow the terrorists in Tehran to get their hands on a nuke, but we also don’t want to see forever wars.”

Flint won’t rule out congressional halt of Trump involving the military in Iran. The Republican-controlled Congress narrowly voted against constraining Trump’s war on March 5.

“Congress has the power,” Flint said, describing the 2021 troop withdrawal from Afghanistan under the Biden Administration as an embarrassment. “That was a big moment where it clicked. Us Iraq, Afghanistan veterans have a sense of the betrayal. People are anxious to get everything back in order. There’s much more work we’ve got to get done.”