UPDATE: Friday, February 4

The Zinke campaign sent an image from Ballotpedia regarding Matt Jette, who reportedly ran as a Democrat for Congress in Arizona in 2012.

image provided by the Ryan Zinke campaign
image provided by the Ryan Zinke campaign
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Congressional candidate Matt Jette appeared on KGVO’s Talk Back show on Thursday to talk about his candidacy for the newly established western Congressional district seat.

Jette called himself a moderate Republican and responded to a direct question about if he considered himself an ‘anti-vaxxer’.

“If you're listening and you are an anti-vaxxer and you want to walk with your liberty then take the other hand and walk with responsibility, okay?” asked Jette. “What I mean by that is, if you get COVID, then you pay the health care bill and if your employer has to replace you then you pay for the lost wages, so if you really want that liberty then have the responsibility that goes along with it.”

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Jette, who has an advanced degree in history and government, looked back at American history.

“I like to think that every 70 years there's a reconstitution. In 1787 there was the Constitution obviously with the founding fathers,” he said. “In 1863 with Lincoln with the Gettysburg address there was a reconstitution there, then we have another reconstitution with FDR in the 1930's. I think we're at that moment now that we get to decide as an American people if can we live up to the proposition that we are actually good, and that we are actually torchbearers of whether or not we can govern ourselves and govern ourselves well.”

Jette is running directly against conservative Republican Ryan Zinke, former Congressman and Interior Secretary. Jette called Zinke to task for resigning his office.

“When you're Secretary of the Interior and you resign, you just quit, and every veteran that's listening to this right now knows exactly what I'm talking about,” he said. “You can handle a lot of inaccuracies of your fellow comrades, but you can't handle quitters. Either you're in the fight or you're not and Zinke quit the post. I don't care if he's being sued for $18 or $30 million, you’ve got to stand the post, and he quit.”

On the subject of abortion, Jette explained why he is a Pro-Choice Republican.

“I'll be very honest, and I'm probably going to lose a lot of your listeners on my vote right now,” he said. “I'm pro-choice, but I'll be honest, my goal is to reduce the number of abortions to almost zero as best I can. And the best way I can do that is to fund Planned Parenthood and to give women more rights on reproductive and on health insurance plans. That just seems pretty darn logical to me.”

Click here to find out more about Jette’s background and contact information.

Click here to listen to the Talk Back interview and all the phone calls he received.

Ryan Zinke will be in the KGVO studio next Thursday from 8:00 a.m. to 8:30 a.m.

 

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