Haley McKnight, a Helena city commission candidate, admitted she left a voicemail for Sen. Tim Sheehy that wished him serious illness and even death, then defended the message as “justified rage.” The recording surfaced ahead of a local election and shows a tone and content no public official should tolerate. The episode raises questions about political rhetoric, personal responsibility, and how the left responds when its own cross the line. This article lays out the facts, includes the candidate’s own words, and explains why the response matters.
A Helena city commission candidate left a phone message for Montana Republican U.S. Sen. Tim Sheehy in July, wishing that he contract pancreatic cancer and “die in the street like a dog,” according to a national news outlet’s coverage Monday. Haley McKnight, in an interview with Montana Free Press Monday, acknowledged leaving the message but maintained she was speaking out in a ”justified rage,” in response to the senator’s politics. McKnight is one of four candidates vying for two seats on the Helena City Commission, and the nonpartisan election is being conducted largely by mail.
On Monday, the National Review published a story recounting the voice message left at the senator’s Helena office by McKnight. The story, which didn’t reveal how the Review learned of the message, was brought to the attention of Montana newsrooms through a press release sent Monday from Sheehy’s office. The voice message, which was left July 1, was in response to Congress advancing the Trump administration-backed One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
The audio recording is disturbing and blunt. It shows how extreme rhetoric from some on the left has shifted from heated policy debate into personal, violent wishcasting. When public figures hear threats framed as anger, they and their constituents have a right to call it out and demand accountability.
Sheehy’s Helena district office phone logs show that McKnight left her voicemail at 1:10 pm MT on July 1. “Hi, this is Haley McKnight. I’m a constituent in Helena Montana, and I just wanted to let you know that you are the most insufferable kind of coward and thief. You just stripped away health care for 17 million Americans. And I hope you’re really proud of that,” McKnight said in an apparent reference to the GOP-passed reconciliation bill’s Medicaid reforms.
“I hope that one day you get pancreatic cancer and it spreads throughout your body so fast that they can’t even treat you for it. I hope that you die in the street like a dog. I…oooooohh. One day you’re gonna live to regret this.” Those words were not a rhetorical flourish; they were a sustained, explicit wish for a man to suffer and die. That’s beyond standard political heat and into territory that chills civic life.
She then expressed hope that Sheehy, a married father of four, would become infertile, get pancreatic cancer, and die. “I hope that your children never forgive you,” the voicemail continues. “I hope that you are infertile. I hope you never manage to get a boner ever again. You are the worst piece of s**t I’ve ever, ever, ever had the misfortune of looking at. And you don’t serve Montanans. You serve your own private interests. All that you have done since you’ve gotten into power is do shit for yourself. God forbid that you ever meet me on the streets, because I will make you regret it. F**k you. I hope you die.”
When asked about the voicemail, McKnight didn’t apologize. She said she did not regret what she said, but that she “probably shouldn’t have used so many cuss words.” The candidate claimed she was “speaking out of a justified rage for what our senator has done to erode our Constitution and erode the benefits of Montana’s people through his actions.” Those defenses do not erase the cruelty of her language or the threat implied in saying she would make him regret a street encounter.
She also insisted she did not wish Sen. Sheehy any actual harm and that her comments were not meant to be threatening, a claim that strains belief given the explicit content and the line about running into her on the street. McKnight added personal branding to the defense: “ I’m a firebrand. I’m gonna say what I think. It might not always be polished, but it’s always gonna come from the heart. I’m running because I wanna fight for what I believe in, and I wanna fight for our people.” That rhetoric is meant to sound bold, but it crosses into reckless conduct when it endorses violence or severe harm.
This episode follows a predictable pattern: make violent or vindictive comments, then portray oneself as the victim when there is a backlash. Whether McKnight intended to carry out any threat is less important than the fact that she chose to broadcast wishes of cancer and death as a form of political expression. Elected officials and candidates should be held to a higher standard, and voters deserve to know which candidates resort to threats rather than reasoned disagreement.
