HUNTSVILLE — Congressman Mo Brooks (AL-05) on Monday evening announced his Republican candidacy for the United States Senate.

Brooks will vie for the seat currently held by U.S. Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL); Shelby last month announced he will not seek reelection to a seventh term.

Making his announcement at Bullet and Barrel, a well-known indoor shooting range in the Rocket City, Brooks was joined by a full crowd of family, friends and other supporters.

Stephen Miller was a featured guest and addressed the crowd before Brooks spoke. Miller served in the White House throughout President Donald J. Trump’s administration, including as the lead speech writer and a senior advisor to the president. Miller was formerly communications director for then-U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL).

After declaring his endorsement of Brooks, Miller said, “I can tell you that nobody over the last four years has had President Trump’s back more than Mo Brooks. But now, I need you to have his back. Your vote for Mo Brooks will allow him to carry on the ‘America First’ agenda.”

“I truly believe that tonight will be remembered by history,” he remarked, “as the night that we began to take back our country.”

Miller is well-known nationally as a key architect of Trump’s immigration and border security policies, and that topic was highlighted in his Monday remarks.

“Right now we are in the middle of an unprecedented border crisis,” Miller commented. “Every single day thousands of people are illegally coming into this country and being illegally released into this country. At the same time, our brave ICE officers have been ordered to stand down. That means in your state, right now in Alabama, criminal illegal immigrants — who just a few weeks ago were being sent home [by the Trump administration] — are now being set free to reoffend against law abiding Americans.”

“If you care about having a secure border, if you care about having a sovereign country, if you care about immigration policies that put American workers first, that put American families first, that put American children first, there’s only one candidate in this race — and you know it and it’s Mo Brooks,” he told the crowd.

Miller subsequently advised, “One of the most important things I’ve learned working in politics… is that you judge someone in politics by who opposes them. Ask yourself this question: who are all the people trying to stop Mo Brooks? It’s the communists, the socialists, the America haters, the open border radicals, the abortionists — weak-kneed Republicans, too — radical Democrats, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer. They would love, all of those forces, would love nothing more than for Alabama to choose a different candidate. So the fundamental question is: who decides Alabama’s future, them or you?”

He underscored that his endorsement and remarks were coming from a place of “profound hope.”

“Because I know for a fact that when you send Mo Brooks to the U.S. Senate, everything will begin to change,” Miller said. “Principle matters. Courage matters. Heart matters.”

Before Brooks took the stage to speak, an introductory campaign video was played.

Watch:

During remarks that lasted about 30 minutes, Brooks touted his lengthy record of holding public office, which stretches back to being elected to the state legislature in 1982. He underscored that he has won 14 general elections between state legislative, county commission and congressional campaigns.

The North Alabama congressman outlined some of the top reasons why he is running for the Senate.

“One: because America’s status as the greatest nation in world history is at risk,” Brooks said. “And it’s at risk from those within our country. For adopting policies that, in the long haul, will hurt America and reduce us to a second-rate country.”

Brooks decried that America’s “foundational principles” are “under attack on a daily basis.”

The first issue Brooks raised pertained to the November presidential election.

“Our republic’s elections system, which is the underpinning of every republic, is under attack,” he stated. “In 2020, America suffered the worst voter fraud and election theft in history. And all of America would know that if the news media was not suppressing the truth.”

Brooks lamented that Democrats, who he consistently referred to as “the socialists,” support “cancel culture” and “big tech censorship,” two issues he explained infringe on the First Amendment rights of Alabamians. Brooks also said that Democrats do not support the Second Amendment. He warned Democrats want to “render us powerless against criminals and dictatorial socialism.”

“Socialists even let men pretend to be women to complete in women sports … you know, not knowing the difference between males and females, now that’s science denial,” Brooks remarked.

He also listed the deficit and the ballooning national debt as core priorities for him.

Brooks subsequently stressed something he finds especially “repugnant” in the recently enacted $1.9 trillion Democratic spending bill.

“This same bill doles out $5 billion to all American farmer races except whites,” he said. “How many of y’all heard of that? The socialist Democrat message: whites need not apply.”

“Now, look, all racism is repugnant,” Brooks continued. “We should never judge people by their skin pigmentation at birth — that’s something they have no control over. We should be judging people based on their character. That’s not what these socialists believe. They believe they can use racial divisions to their advantage; they seek to exploit it, regardless of the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. And we need to fight against racism, and we need to fight for the 14th Amendment and equal protection. And that means we need to stop this racial division that the Democrats so frequently use as they try to cultivate votes.”

Immigration, of course, was also a focus of the speech.

“America is nothing without borders,” Brooks explained. “Rather than secure America’s borders, socialist Democrats dismantle them with deadly effect. Remember these numbers. Each year, according to federal government crime data, roughly… 2,000 Americans are dead at the hands of illegal aliens each year. Killed on American soil. Where is the fake news media talking about that? That’s a national scandal. But it doesn’t end there. Each year, over 30,000 dead Americans from overdoses on deadly narcotics smuggled across our porous southern border. That’s a national scandal. … Each year, struggling American families suffer from depressed wages and lost jobs caused by tsunami after tsunami of illegal aliens crossing our southern border. … And each year American taxpayers suffer an estimated net tax loss of roughly $200 billion per year at the city, county, state and federal level as result of the services given to illegal aliens and their families that taxpayers wouldn’t be burdened with but for our porous southern border.”

He concluded — and summarized — his pitch by saying that he is “a fearless fighter who will not submit to the demands of socialist Democrats, to weak-kneed ‘RINOS’ or to the fake news media.”

“I fight for America. I don’t cower in the face of their dishonest tactics,” Brooks emphasized. “And they know it, and it just bugs the heck out of them.”

Brooks’ campaign website can be accessed here.

You can watch Brooks’ full announcement event here or below:

Sean Ross is the editor of Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @sean_yhn