Former President Donald Trump endorsed Republican Congressional Candidate Joe Kent over Republican Rep. Jamie Herrera Beutler of Washington.
“Joe Kent is a retired Green Beret and Gold Star husband running against RINO and incompetent Congresswoman Jamie Herrera Beutler in the 3rd District of the State of Washington. Joe served his country proudly for many years and understands the tremendous cost of America’s wars in the Middle East, and elsewhere,” Trump said. “In Congress, Joe will be a warrior for the America First agenda, unlike Jamie Herrera Beutler who vote, despite the facts, against the Republican Party and for the Democrats’ impeachment Scam.”
“Joe Kent is strong on Crime and the Border, loves our Military and our Vets, and will protect our Second Amendment, which is under siege. I met Joe at Dover Air Force Base on the evening his wife was being brought back from the Middle East, where she had been killed in combat. It was a very sad moment in Joe’s life, but I was incredibly impressed with him and told him that he should someday run for office-we need his voice and leadership in Washington D.C.”
“Now he is running and Joe Kent has my Complete and Total Endorsement,” the former president said. (RELATED: Trump Says He Regrets Endorsing Mitch McConnell)
Thank you very much President Trump!
I’m honored & ready to take our country back!
Join our movement – https://t.co/fD86UYnk1p pic.twitter.com/9fdqOWxN4F
— Joe Kent for WA-3 (@joekent16jan19) September 1, 2021
Kent served as an infantryman in the U.S. Army and later earned a position in the Ranger Regiment and the Special Forces, according to Kent’s campaign website. His wife, Shannon, died in Syria while fighting against ISIS on January 16, 2019 a month after the Trump administration’s attempt to withdraw U.S. troops off of Syrian grounds.
The gold star husband embraced Trump’s “America First” military policies and said he will fight for these same policies if elected into the House of Representatives.
“Seeing the Establishment’s hubris and contempt for a President that represented the country’s will and the people’s best interests, I knew I had to act. However, this time my fight was to defend America First policies. Now one asked me to do this. I sought out every opportunity and any media outlet that would give me a platform to use my twenty-year expertise physically fighting these wars to articulate how correct President Trump was,” Kent wrote on the site.
“Defending Trump’s policies gave me a taste of the savage fight we face against a hostile mainstream media and deeply entrenched political class. I eagerly sought out the opportunity to defend President Trump when The Atlantic, a well-known publication, printed slanderous accusations against the President.”
Kent referred to The Atlantic’s Sept. 3, 2020, piece titled “Trump: Americans Who Died In War Are ‘Losers’ And ‘Suckers'” after the former president refused to visit a French cemetery for American soldiers in 2018. The former president denied these claims, calling the story a “total fraud.”
If elected, Kent has also promised to build a border wall and slash federal funding for sanctuary cities and to push for concealed carry permits in all 50 states, according to the website.