A political consultant with close ties to the family of former President Donald Trump was invited and subsequently uninvited to speak at the Montana GOP’s winter convention next week, he said, an illustration of the tensions that a possible U.S. Senate primary contest between Tim Sheehy and Matt Rosendale are stoking among Montana Republicans. 

Alex Bruesewitz, a MAGA-affiliated campaign strategist with a firm based in Washington, D.C. and Florida, told Montana Free Press he was “honored” when the Montana GOP’s executive director, Danielle Tribble, invited him last month to speak at the party’s Feb. 9 winter kickoff. 

But that won’t be happening. As first reported by the Washington Examiner, Bruesewitz’s invitation was rescinded. The reason, he told Montana Free Press, was pressure from allies of Matt Rosendale who were upset about social media posts Bruesewitz made criticizing the Republican congressman, who is planning a run for U.S. Senate. 

Now, Bruesewitz and his allies are crying cancel culture. 

“I didn’t think that Matt Rosendale, who is a grown man and claims to be a member of the Freedom Caucus, would actively try to cancel the speech of someone who has sent a couple of mean tweets about him,” Bruesewitz told MTFP, calling the dis-invite a “pathetic move.”

Neither the Rosendale campaign nor a spokesperson for the state party returned multiple requests for comment from MTFP this week.

Rosendale told the Washington Examiner that he doesn’t “even know who this guy Alan is,” apparently mis-naming Bruesewitz.

 “I’ve had my hands full with productive work,” Rosendale also told the Examiner. 

The state party announced Bruesewitz as one of the winter convention’s speakers last week. He told MTFP he was planning a fairly conventional address for such an event, pushing for returning Donald Trump to the White House and for Montanans to vote out U.S. Jon Tester, a three-term incumbent Democrat up for re-election this year.

“I wasn’t going to get into the primary,” Bruesewitz said.

But the announcement of his invitation generated immediate backlash from some Montana Republicans, who perceived the decision as showing evidence of favoritism by the state party, which generally does not publicly thumb the scale in a high-profile primary election.

The Montana Freedom Caucus, a coalition of hardline Republican state lawmakers with close ties to Rosendale, issued a statement on Sunday calling for Bruesewitz to be kicked off the bill. 

“Alex has publicly attacked Congressman Matt Rosendale, and his actions should not be rewarded with a speaking opportunity,” reads the statement, signed by Freedom Caucus chair Sen. Theresa Manzella, R-Hamilton. “Congressman Matt Rosendale deserves an apology from the Montana GOP and the opportunity to speak in his place.”

When another Trump ally shared a video last week from a primary debate held during Rosendale’s 2018 Senate bid, noting Rosendale declined there to support deporting all undocumented immigrants, Bruesewitz called him a “poser” and “definitely not a MAGA-Republican.” 

And when news broke last month that Democrats were spending money on ads that seemed to imply Rosendale was the more reliably conservative option in the primary — something that could in theory help him in the primary but hurt him in a general election against Tester — Bruesewitz said Rosendale was being “funded by Democrats.”

(Rosendale, speaking to reporters at an event in Helena last week, said the “premise that any Democrat is spending money supporting me is false,” and that he tries not to pay attention to advertisements.)

Bruesewitz, who described himself as a close friend of the Trump family, particularly Donald Trump Jr., told MTFP the conflict runs deeper than just social media posts. National and local media reports have painted a picture of growing conflict between Rosendale and the political-industrial complex that surrounds the former president. For example, Rosendale was photographed declining to take a Trump phone call on the House floor during the knock-down, drag-out fight over the chamber’s speakership last year.

Bruesewitz also noted that Sheehy endorsed Trump’s presidential bid last April, long before Rosendale did in December. Sheehy also campaigned for Trump in Iowa in January. 

“Out of the congress members that we expected to be with us out of the gate, we expected Rosendale to be one of them,” Bruesewitz said, noting that Trump and his allies repeatedly came to Montana to campaign for Rosendale during his failed 2018 effort to unseat Tester.

“Matt Rosendale is a fair-weather friend of the president,” Bruesewitz said. 

Trump Jr., the president’s oldest son, got into the fray to defend Bruesewitz this week as well.

“It’s really disappointing to see some Republicans in Montana engage in leftwing cancel culture,” he said on X, formerly known as Twitter. “It’s even more disappointing that they would target one of my father’s strongest and most loyal supporters.” 

Rosendale has not officially declared a Senate bid. But statements from him and his allies indicate that it’s all-but-certain that he will. If he does, he will embark on a collision course with Sheehy, a political neophyte who has the support of the national GOP, Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte and other prominent officials as their preferred candidate for challenging Tester, who is widely seen as one of the Senate’s most vulnerable incumbents this year. 

Sheehy and Rosendale aren’t the only Montana Republicans with skin in the primary, either. Montana’s other U.S. senator, Steve Daines, chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, a party arm tasked with electing members of the GOP to Congress’ upper chamber. Axios reported the NRSC was grooming Sheehy for the candidacy as early as almost a year ago. 

Daines, another early Trump endorser, has made repeated public statements dissuading Rosendale from entering the Senate race. The two have also traded jabs in the media, with each lawmaker’s camp sharing polls that show Rosendale up over Sheehy in a hypothetical matchup or vice versa. 

Republicans are two seats away from a majority in the Senate. Former Montana Secretary of State Brad Johnson, a Republican, is also running for the seat.

Rosendale has contended that Sheehy, along with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, is a member of the “uniparty” establishment, hardly any better for the conservative cause than Tester. And he’s picked up the public support of dozens of Montana Republicans, including a litany of prominent state lawmakers. Elected officials, party activists and other candidates filled out a banquet room at an event last week with fellow Republican Matt Gaetz, a Florida congressman. Among the attendees were Rep. Lola Sheldon-Galloway, R-Great Falls, the state GOP’s vice chair. She declined to comment on the Bruesewitz matter Friday. 

Rosendale told reporters after the event that he would never discuss his private conversations with Trump with the media. As to Trump’s possible role in the Senate race, he was cryptic: “I guess we shall see.” 

A copy of the winter convention’s updated agenda shows the party tapped Trump-era acting United States Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf to replace Bruesewitz. Wolf shared the stage with Sheehy at an event hosted by a Trump-affiliated think tank last August. 

Both Rosendale and Sheehy are also scheduled to give remarks at the event. 

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