MTPR is airing interviews with candidates running for federal office in 2026. MTPR's Shaylee Ragar spoke with Alani Bankhead, a Democrat running for U.S. Senate.
Shaylee Ragar: Why are you the best person for this job?
Alani Bankhead: Why I chose to run is actually because of my past experience over the last 22 years. I'm a retired lieutenant colonel, special agent. I was a senior Pentagon bodyguard. And I have a network of amazing people in DC that actually have the community's best interests at heart that get things done. What I bring is proven experience in DC. I understand the system. I know what needs to be changed. I understand that budget. And Montana needs relief now, not in two years after a new candidate kind of figures out how DC operates.
Shaylee Ragar: What motivates you to be in public service?
Alani Bankhead: Well, I'm third generation military, so my family has served this country going back as far as World War II. Even my dog is a police member, so she's a retired police canine. She finds digital media evidence in child exploitation cases. But I was raised to believe that if you have something to offer your community, you do it. Since I was a little girl, I really hated bullies. And so I'm always just kind of drawn to those spaces where if there's a bully present, I wanna be the impediment that prevents them from exercising abusive power over our communities. So yeah, it's always been about loving on our community and protecting the vulnerable. And that's just what I was taught.
Shaylee Ragar: I'd like to talk about some issues. How should Congress address the cost of health care in the US?
Alani Bankhead: The health care conversation is very layered, right? First and foremost, we have to get venture capital out of our healthcare system. They're running it like a profit-first business when it should be people-first.
The second thing is, is I understand how military budgets work. We get a budget every year. If you don't spend all of your budget by the end of the fiscal year, they take what you didn't spend and then you get less the next year. And so there's a rush at the end of every fiscal year to spend on whatever, whether it's flat screen TVs or whatnot. And we can return that money back to the federal government and the taxpayers. We can steward it differently. And we would be talking about literally hundreds of billions of dollars. So we can do that with no impact to the national security mission. So that's one really easy way that we could reallocate taxpayer funds. To serving the community better through healthcare, which we desperately need an overhaul on.
Shaylee Ragar: Where do you stand on the Trump administration's approach to immigration enforcement and what role should Congress have in immigration enforcement?
Alani Bankhead: I am opposed to the current immigration policy. We are a country of immigrants, first and foremost. So unless you're Native American, you or your ancestors immigrated here at some point and there was a process to get in. And unfortunately, right now, the immigration process for years has just been bogged down in bureaucracy and red tape. And so even people who are trying to do it the right way, it takes years and a lot of money for them to get approvals. So, we need to revamp that system.
But I also think that the administration is capitalizing on some language and some rhetoric that mischaracterizes the nature of the majority of the immigrant stories coming in, right? So listen, at the end of the day, everybody agrees that you cannot violate the laws of the country, right. I'm a retired federal law enforcement agent. I've worked with Homeland Security, 100% agree, it should be done legal and above board. At the same time, they are human beings who are just trying to do the very best that they can. And so. We need to find a better balance on maintaining the laws, but also being the beacon of light and hope that America is for the world.
Shaylee Ragar: What do you make of President Trump engaging the U.S. In war with Iran?
Alani Bankhead: I, as a retired lieutenant colonel counterintelligence agent, absolutely do not support this war in Iran. A little bit of my background in terms of my military service. So I was a human intelligence operator with special operations. So the people in the movies with the briefcases full of money and they're meeting with their informants in secret is what I used to do, targeting senior al Qaeda leaders. I just rewrote last year the counterintelligence policy for the entire Air Force on how we train to fight wars. So I have a little bit of understanding of this entire process.
And ultimately the administration violated the law in two ways. First is they did not seek congressional approval. And second, international law dictates that each country is sovereign and we cannot go in to another country unless there's a potential attack or if we're attacked first. And even the administration itself has said there was no imminent threat. So all around this war is very illegal. And I really don't veterans that disagree with that.
Shaylee Ragar: What do you believe is a top priority for constituents in Montana?
Alani Bankhead: Without a doubt the number one thing we've heard is housing and a very close second is healthcare.
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