Montana Republican Senate candidate Tim Sheehy struggled in a new interview to offer a clear explanation of the circumstances surrounding the 2015 incident at a national park that led to him receiving treatment for a gunshot wound and a fine.

inside report In a conversation with radio host and former Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly posted online Thursday, Sheehy confused Kelly and warned her that voters in Montana were unclear about what happened. “I want to give you a chance to explain yourself because this is their closing message. It’s all about this event; Voters are confused. … This is very confusing,” he told her.

The debate looms over a key Senate race in Montana that both sides see as crucial to capturing a majority in the final days of a hotly contested election.

The questions stem from different statements Sheehy gave about the bullet that lodged in his right arm.

All accounts admit this, because first reported As reported by the Washington Post this spring, Sheehy went to the hospital after his gun went off in Glacier National Park in 2015 (it is illegal to fire a gun in a national park).

That day, Sheehy was approached by a park ranger responding to a call of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, the ranger wrote in a quote at the time. since it was said publicly. The ranger said Sheehy told him he accidentally shot himself in the arm, and Sheehy later went to the hospital for treatment.

Sheehy says he was never shot at on that day in 2015. Instead, he says he was injured when he fell while hiking and sought treatment for a bullet he already had in his arm during his time serving in Afghanistan. A story the Navy SEAL was told during the campaign.

Sheehy said he sought treatment the day he went hiking in Glacier National Park because he was worried the bullet he still had in his arm had become dislodged. More importantly, he said he did not report an in-fighting injury either during the service or after his injury at Glacier because it resulted from a friendly fire incident and because he did not want his unit to endure a lengthy investigation of what amounted to a minor wound. He repeated this claim in his interview with Kelly.

He told the Post in April that he was issued a $525 ticket for a gunshot discharge in Glacier National Park, which he paid to avoid an investigation of his unit.

Kelly pressed Sheehy this week for any medical records that would help corroborate his version of what happened; Sheehy said those records were not available.

“No – I mean, that’s the point,” Sheehy said. “You go, you check and you go. “There is no comprehensive medical record on any of this.”

Kelly responded: “This is very confusing.”

Kelly asked Sheehy directly about the injury in the park: “To be clear, did you shoot yourself in the arm?”

“No, that was never an allegation; the point was, you know, that friendly fire, which was not reported at the time, was ricocheting downrange,” Sheehy said.

Democrats fighting to help Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., win a fourth term against long odds in deep-red Montana have accused Sheehy of being dishonest about both incidents and called on him to release medical and military records. To verify his story. They also said he lied about his injury to military command during his service, or to park rangers and local law enforcement after the Glacier National Park incident.

During a conversation with Kelly, one of several media interviews Sheehy gave as a candidate, Kelly asked the candidate if he had been injured during a walk in the park.

“Yes, I fell and injured my arm while walking,” he said. “That’s why I went because when I fell and I landed on my arm I could feel the bullet dislodge, you could feel the bullet dislodge. And then I went to the emergency room to say, “Hey, look, you know, I’ve got internal bleeding here.” I was injured in my arm. Can you take a look at this? Make sure there’s nothing serious going on here.”

A spokesman for Sheehy called questions about the gunshot wound “an attempt to destroy a combat veteran’s record.”

“The bullet in Tim’s arm was a result of his service in Afghanistan,” said Sheehy’s spokesman. “Tim never reported it because he did not want to initiate an investigation into his team, withdraw from the battlefield and see an attack on his teammate punished. This is always the case.” “It was about protecting a teammate in his unit who he thought might be responsible because friendly fire was ricocheting off him in the heat of combat with the enemy.”

Republicans see the Sheehy race as one of their biggest bullish opportunities at a time when the Senate map is tilted in their party’s favor. Although the Republican candidate leads Tester in most public polls, Democrats say the race is far from over. Former President Donald Trump is expected to win the state easily.

During the interview with Kelly, Sheehy said the gunshot wound was the result of “friendly fire ricocheting downrange” and described the complexity of the conflict in Afghanistan, where “Afghan forces are with us.”

“We call these incidents, which are actually very common, where Afghans intentionally or unintentionally open fire on friendly forces, blue-on-green incidents,” he said.

Sheehy had initially said the friendly fire incident came from a fellow SEAL, and wrote in his 2023 book ‘Mud Hunters’ that he did not report the gunfire in Afghanistan because “I didn’t want to be sent home and lose my team, and I thought the teammate who took that shot was a complete man who went on to a successful career as a SEAL.” I didn’t want the stallion to be punished for an accident that was in no way his fault, officially or nominally.

In the same book, he also wrote that he was discharged from the military for medical reasons. NBC News reported last monthDischarge papers show he resigned voluntarily and do not list any medical conditions that forced him to leave the job.