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Tim Sheehy: “Unfortunately, very few people of government are business…”

Featuring: Tim Sheehy, Republican | U.S. Senate from Montana

Dollars, Defense, and Reform: A Conversation with Senator Tim Sheehy

Published April 15, 2026 | Video Starts at 25:21

And I'm a former business guy, so I'm all about the balance sheet and the P and L statement and making sure that they line up. Unfortunately, very few people of government are business folks. And at the same time, we're an expression of the Priorities of what the American people want. (25:21–25:25)

CLAIM

Asserts that few government officials have business backgrounds.

This is an excerpt from a raw transcript. The assertions have not been audited or verified. Tap the video to view the source footage and understand the context.

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Tim Sheehy

“Ripley was awarded as Medal of Honor after he was dead three weeks ago. Fifty years, 60 years after he carried out one of the most heroic…”
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“China is not Japan. It's a continental power... five times our population, roughly equal to us in economic might, and build ships 232 times…”
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“75 cents of every dollar spent in the state of Montana in 1901 went to one man.”
Dollars, Defense, and Reform: A Conversation with Senator Tim Sheehy | Uploaded April 15, 2026 | 27:10-27:16
“The military has been under rewarding our warriors for far too long, especially during GWAD era.”
Dollars, Defense, and Reform: A Conversation with Senator Tim Sheehy | Uploaded April 15, 2026 | 03:58-04:03
“The failure of the last Iranian rescue of Americans, the complete tragedy of that mission is what led to the creation of modern day special…”
Dollars, Defense, and Reform: A Conversation with Senator Tim Sheehy | Uploaded April 15, 2026 | 05:38-05:50
“Our merchant sealift capability is just as important as our combat naval capability.”
Dollars, Defense, and Reform: A Conversation with Senator Tim Sheehy | Uploaded April 15, 2026 | 07:43-07:49
“Our ability... to have economic growth has been very much rooted in the freedom of navigation that the American taxpayer has underwritten…”
Dollars, Defense, and Reform: A Conversation with Senator Tim Sheehy | Uploaded April 15, 2026 | 08:28-41:24
“We need to reform the process for how we specify pay for buy field and support systems.”
Dollars, Defense, and Reform: A Conversation with Senator Tim Sheehy | Uploaded April 15, 2026 | 08:53-09:00
“We have not passed a budget on time. Anybody know when the last time we passed a budget out of Congress on time was on time? 1997.”
Dollars, Defense, and Reform: A Conversation with Senator Tim Sheehy | Uploaded April 15, 2026 | 11:11-11:20
“There's bipartisan focus on defense acquisition reform.”
Dollars, Defense, and Reform: A Conversation with Senator Tim Sheehy | Uploaded April 15, 2026 | 12:31-12:35
“Our magazine depth is getting low and our magazine depth was, was already struggling in many respects.”
Dollars, Defense, and Reform: A Conversation with Senator Tim Sheehy | Uploaded April 15, 2026 | 13:41-13:47
“Lead times for systems have become obscenely long, and we're talking years.”
Dollars, Defense, and Reform: A Conversation with Senator Tim Sheehy | Uploaded April 15, 2026 | 14:51-14:58
“It's got a 14 month lead time because my, my, you know, crystal supplier has to grow the crystal in a kiln.”
Dollars, Defense, and Reform: A Conversation with Senator Tim Sheehy | Uploaded April 15, 2026 | 15:09-15:17
“The supply chain reinvigoration is happening now because of the orders refilling these Magaz.”
Dollars, Defense, and Reform: A Conversation with Senator Tim Sheehy | Uploaded April 15, 2026 | 15:22-15:29
“I have a piece of legislation going into this NDA specifically that will give priority to contracting systems that are focused on quantity.”
Dollars, Defense, and Reform: A Conversation with Senator Tim Sheehy | Uploaded April 15, 2026 | 16:03-16:12
“Our defense industrial base...looks eerily like what the German military industrial complex looked like in 1938, 39, 40, 41.”
Dollars, Defense, and Reform: A Conversation with Senator Tim Sheehy | Uploaded April 15, 2026 | 16:17-16:30
“We ended up having better technology by the end of the war because that iteration, quantity, and iteration actually creates quality.”
Dollars, Defense, and Reform: A Conversation with Senator Tim Sheehy | Uploaded April 15, 2026 | 16:55-17:02
“We're trying to insert a lot of that mindset into our defense acquisition process to encourage quantity in addition to quality.”
Dollars, Defense, and Reform: A Conversation with Senator Tim Sheehy | Uploaded April 15, 2026 | 17:20-17:28
“It's not 37, it's 38.6 now, I think. So, unfortunately, it's worse than you described.”
Dollars, Defense, and Reform: A Conversation with Senator Tim Sheehy | Uploaded April 15, 2026 | 24:38-24:45
“The greatest threat is actually our debt. That's our greatest threat.”
Dollars, Defense, and Reform: A Conversation with Senator Tim Sheehy | Uploaded April 15, 2026 | 24:55-24:58
“The 17th Amendment, which most people don't know what that is, changed the direct election of senators.”
Dollars, Defense, and Reform: A Conversation with Senator Tim Sheehy | Uploaded April 15, 2026 | 26:13-26:20
“Senators were not elected for the first hundred and fifty years of our country.”
Dollars, Defense, and Reform: A Conversation with Senator Tim Sheehy | Uploaded April 15, 2026 | 26:20-26:24
“The rescissions package went in to remove... it was going to be hundreds of billions of dollars. It ended up being 9 billion.”
Dollars, Defense, and Reform: A Conversation with Senator Tim Sheehy | Uploaded April 15, 2026 | 28:18-28:27
“We add 4 1/2 billion a day to the national debt.”
Dollars, Defense, and Reform: A Conversation with Senator Tim Sheehy | Uploaded April 15, 2026 | 28:29-28:34
“Republicans couldn't even get our way to a nine billion dollar resistance back is equivalent of two days of national debts.”
Dollars, Defense, and Reform: A Conversation with Senator Tim Sheehy | Uploaded April 15, 2026 | 28:37-28:45
“We've greatly expanded [the direct report managers].”
Dollars, Defense, and Reform: A Conversation with Senator Tim Sheehy | Uploaded April 15, 2026 | 30:27-30:29
“Leasing vessels has long been a practice, various nations, various navies, throughout centuries.”
Dollars, Defense, and Reform: A Conversation with Senator Tim Sheehy | Uploaded April 15, 2026 | 31:17-31:26
“The Congressional Budget Office and Government Accounting Office... force us to calculate the entire lifetime impact of a lease at the…”
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“Having multi year appropriations so that those shipbuilders, those sub builders can plan... they know that there's going to be a multi year…”
Dollars, Defense, and Reform: A Conversation with Senator Tim Sheehy | Uploaded April 15, 2026 | 32:27-32:41
“There really is not much allied naval infrastructure left under the NATO banner.”
Dollars, Defense, and Reform: A Conversation with Senator Tim Sheehy | Uploaded April 15, 2026 | 38:01-38:08
“The Royal Navy for decades was [a major naval force], but... has let itself atrophied to the point where it's largely non-functional.”
Dollars, Defense, and Reform: A Conversation with Senator Tim Sheehy | Uploaded April 15, 2026 | 38:33-38:44
“The Aukus program is on life support.”
Dollars, Defense, and Reform: A Conversation with Senator Tim Sheehy | Uploaded April 15, 2026 | 38:48-38:51
“UAE, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, they are 100% behind this [naval blockade].”
Dollars, Defense, and Reform: A Conversation with Senator Tim Sheehy | Uploaded April 15, 2026 | 39:06-39:13
“The Western European economy and the free Asian economies have really enjoyed tremendous growth on the backs of our navy that the American…”
Dollars, Defense, and Reform: A Conversation with Senator Tim Sheehy | Uploaded April 15, 2026 | 40:37-40:47
“We've essentially subsidized Western Europeans' existence for the last 75 years.”
Dollars, Defense, and Reform: A Conversation with Senator Tim Sheehy | Uploaded April 15, 2026 | 40:46-40:57
“That's come for a $38 trillion, you know, debt that we're now running.”
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“We can spend 1.5 trillion, we can do whatever we want. But if we don't have places to iterate and refine our gear, tactics, techniques…”
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“The coin of the realm of the 21st century battlefield is spectrum.”
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“We have almost no test areas nationally where we can reliably field systems and people with those systems to test electronic warfare…”
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“To get on those ranges is literally a two year wait list.”
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“We've never had an innovation problem. We had an innovation adoption problem.”
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