Elaine Beck 0:11
Hi, everyone. I’m Elaine Beck, and welcome to my show. It’s Not About Us, because it’s really not about us. It’s about our Heavenly Father. It’s about God the Creator. It’s about who we’re here to serve. And it’s him. Right, Joe?
Joe Mitchell 0:27
Elaine, it’s good to be here. And every time I see you’re looking fabulous, oh, I’m telling you are you look younger, every time I see you, oh,
Elaine Beck 0:36
He just wants to be my next grandchild, I have so many adopted grandchildren, really people.
Joe Mitchell 0:42
And honestly, coming to these conferences, I have like six or seven adopted moms and grandmothers. They love the young people, and they, they’re here for a reason, you’re here for a reason, right?
Elaine Beck 0:51
That’s right. And I do love these young people, and, you know, I’m gonna be gone. And you’re still gonna be here. And you’re still gonna have, I hope and pray a world and a country that you can freely do as you please, in the right way, and always preface it with that. Because you know, the freedom to do wrong, is not freedom, that is allowing people to break the law and to break God’s laws. And that isn’t what we want. We want to get back to Biblical values. And in order to do that, we need more organizations like the one that you have, and work with, which is Run Gen Z. And to be involved with all of these organizations, such as this one TPUSA, and Charlie Kirk, to be involved with many of them. And we want to talk today a little bit, Joe, about something that you shared with me. And that’s the organization that the RNC had said they had started and got you excited about right. And you thought this would be a good opportunity to do another good thing. So tell us what happened, Joe?
Joe Mitchell 2:13
Well, you know, and I’ve been on here before, and I explained my background of being a former state representative in Iowa, right, the youngest state representative ever, you know, started run Gen Z to help empower, recruit and mentor the next generation of conservative leaders across this country. And so because of that, I was asked to serve on something called the Youth Advisory Council for the RNC. Wonderful. Sounded good right from the beginning. And I had some hopes for it, that, you know, it was actually it’d be a council that did something. And that wasn’t a do nothing committee, like a lot of these committees are. And so I joined, I was asked to actually get more state representatives from my coalition from Gen Z, particularly women to be involved with it, which I was happy to do. So I got some of the best people in our coalition, the youngest women, state representatives in Missouri, Texas, and Florida to join.
Elaine Beck 3:04
Now over what period of time was that?
Joe Mitchell 3:06
It was like, in a week’s time, it was in March, they contacted me asked me on the committee, I’ll be on the committee, hey, we’re trying to, you know, grow this committee out. And that’s what I asked me to contact some of these folks. But I was almost, you know, twisting their arms to join, because a lot of my representatives in general are skeptical about the RNC. And Ronda, for good reason. You know, she’s, I think overstayed her welcome. You know, in my opinion, no other chairman, or chairwoman has stayed more than two terms. And she’s there for a third term, three, three losses in a row in 2018 2020, and 2022. But that’s beside the point, what happened was, because I’m happy to help, the movement in general, right, wherever I can help. That’s where we’re at. And what happened was, they had one meeting in March 2023 of this year, you know, via zoom, fine. It was more of an introductory meeting. And then they had a meeting in May. My zoom link didn’t even work for that meeting, I contacted them, they sent me a new link, it didn’t work again. So it was like, technical difficulties, essentially, on their side, I asked people that were in the meeting, nothing really got done. There was no strategic goals that were set. And at the same time, I had suggested to them that Turning Point USA should probably have a seat on this board, or the largest youth conservative organization in the whole entire world. You’d think it’d be invited. And they weren’t. And there’s obviously a rift between Ronda and Turning Point USA and I get that but this is a time to unite. Clearly they didn’t we want to unite. And myself and the other representatives. You know, friends of mine wanted to resign because they say we’re not going to be used as a fundraising ploy for the RNC when there’s other efforts out there that are working to you know, help, you know, ballot harvest and you know, Get out the vote efforts and get young people to run for office.
Elaine Beck 5:02
Right, they’re actually accomplishing something.
Joe Mitchell 5:05
So you know, that’s really where this came from. We were like, Hey, we’re not going to be used as shiny toy objects to, you know, make a buck off of people. We’re going to make sure that people know what is happening. And again, I think overall, when you look at the record of Ronda and the RNC, she has overstayed her welcome. And she is, you know, essentially one in three and elections. And she wasn’t even the Chairwoman.
Elaine Beck 5:27
So someone might ask you and just to play the devil’s advocate, if you felt that way, why did you go along In the first place?
Joe Mitchell 5:35
Well in the first place I had good intentions. I thought that they had good intentions. And I thought, you know, if I’m going to join this, I’ll do my little part, right? To help out. And that’s when I was like, you know, fool me once, you know, fool me twice, won’t be fooled again. So that’s where I was coming from on the matter. Anybody that knows me that, you know, you can talk to Carol about it? My, you know, behavior normally isn’t to do things public like that. I just felt like it needed to be said. And my other representatives did, too. It was more of than myself is a collective effort. From these other representatives, and we were the only people on the board that were current or former actual elected officials that were serving on this, the rest of the people are 17-18 year old Tiktok influencers, and they’re trying to, you know, come up with a strategy or guide the RNC on youth engagement. Well, how do you ask the youngest elected officials in the country that have actually earned 10s 10s of 1000s of votes and not just got 10,000 people on Tik Tok? Get what I mean? That’s where I was, you know, confused, frustrated, you know, what the whole entire process and why we let out the letter. Initially were, you know, Fox News wrote a piece about it. I was on Charlie’s shows Steve Bannon talked about it right. You know, but again, we want to make sure that, you know, it’s known that it this is happening with the Youth Advisory Council, it’s probably happening with other committees that the RNC has, right. And it’s to raise awareness, really. And then there’s places where Americafest today, tomorrow is turning point Action Day, here at the conference, and these are folks that are doing something, and you know, they’re putting their money where their mouth is. I think that’s important to make that known.
Elaine Beck 7:29
I agree. And it’s really sad to because they did have an opportunity. And you were willing, you went out of your way to bring in other people that had backgrounds have name recognition, obviously, that could have actually done something. And that was obviously their hope, and your hope. And, you know, you can’t just say we have an organization, please join, you join. And then the meetings fall apart, nothing’s done. Months go by, by the way, we’re talking this is mid December. So the last meeting that they had was in May, which fell apart, which is what you’re telling me, the only other meeting was in March, which is when they asked you in, and then you did all the legwork for him and got the other people. And yes, they have other people on it, that you need people like name recognition, like you said, also people like Charlie Kirk’s organization that has literally hundreds of 1000s of youth across this country involved. That’s what you do to put an organization together if you are sincere, about wanting to make good things happen. Not just make money, not just pander, what you think you want versus what they want. What this country needs, is people that stand together and fight for what’s right.
Joe Mitchell 9:01
And, you know, my thing, Elaine is that there’s millions of people that belong to the Republican Party, and they deserve to know the truth, and they’re good people. You know, there people that just want folks to be transparent. Right, and that’s what we should be. And that’s right, that the the exact opposite thing was happening at the RNC and what this committee and so you know, I’ve not gotten a response back from the RNC, you know, not surprising, really, you know, but I thought it was it was important to get this out there. And there’s a lot of good groups that you can donate to including Run Gen Z with Turning Point USA, CPAC. And there’s a lot of groups out there that are helping with the Get out the vote efforts are helping to get young people engaged. And there’s there’s plenty of other things that folks can get involved in. And you know, this isn’t my day job, right. Politics isn’t anymore. I’m a retired state representative. I do real estate development. I run the Developers Association for the state of Iowa. This is a hobby because it needs to be you guys We have a country to save. I’m going to make sure that I might stop that people are actually doing something, something can be done.
Elaine Beck 10:06
Well, you know, I applaud you for that. And I tell everybody the same thing that, you know, we’re supposed to stand first with God, and then stand by our country. And that’s what he wants of us. And we can’t make things better unless we do something. So to get on anything, and I feel the same way. Oftentimes, I’ve been asked in to do different things with different organizations, but they’re not going anywhere. They’re not producing, they’re collecting money. And and they’re talking about what they’re going to do. But I want to be part of the people that stand together and make enough noise to make a difference, and, and make enough progress with their actions. You know, we can all sit around and talk like we’re doing right now, about what’s right, what’s wrong and stuff, but does that really fix anything? No, what fixes it is when you get out there and you do the work together, And you stand together, And you say no more, which is one of the things that I try to do with? It’s not about us, is to say, No, you’re not stealing our children. No, you’re not taking our country. No, you’re not going to make us change our language. No, you’re not going to make us change genders. You know what I mean? This is this is actually doing something. It’s not just talking about it. It’s standing up and doing a show, or being a representative or working with youth to teach them the truth. You know, I interviewed a couple young ladies earlier. And I thought to myself, back when my kids were young, they never even heard about this transgender stuff. So, you know, I mean, I have a daughter, my youngest daughter was such a tomboy. And she she said to me one day, she said, Mom, thank God, they didn’t have this craziness going around in schools back then. She said, I can’t even imagine if somebody would have said to me, because I liked jeans and sloppy sweatshirts, that I should transition and be a boy.
Joe Mitchell 12:22
That’s exactly what’s happening. And that’s a legitimate reality that there’s a lot of Democrats that do believe in because when I was in the House of Representatives in Iowa, I remember having a conversation one time with one of the middle of the road Democrats, right, one of these democrats was was from a purple district, you call it? And I said to her, I said, Amy, I said, How young Do you think a child can choose to be the opposite opposite gender? I said, Do you think a three year old can choose that? Well, she said, Well, potentially, as it were, potentially, I said, That’s lewd, I said, I don’t even have words for that. That’s completely crazy. And that’s where we’re at now is like, there’s no middle ground. And a lot of these issues are just like, if you’re dealing dealing with children in life altering gender, drugs, gender affirming drugs, whether that’s, you know, through a medical procedure, or through pills, that should be totally off the table. And everyone should be able to say that. And the fact that we have people that are elected in your state legislature, and Congress, the President of the United States that thinks that we should allow toddlers to be able to choose their gender is absolutely crazy.
Elaine Beck 13:32
They can’t even choose what they want to either wear.
Joe Mitchell 13:35
The craziest thing is we passed a bill last year to say that 14 year olds could work extra hours at a grocery store or, you know, at a pharmacy or at a you know, McDonald’s if they wanted to, right, because they’re capped at so many hours a week, right? And the Democrats in the left, they freaked out. And they said, how can you allow a 14 year old to be able to work over 32 hours a week, and that’s child labor laws are being broken this sort of thing? I’m like, okay, so you don’t think a 14 year old can choose how much time they work, but they can choose what gender they are? And you actually think that people the ages of 6,7,8 years old, it means that their logic makes absolutely no sense. And really, when you break it down to actual voters, a lot of them are on our side on that issue. But they’re able to message things and communicate things really a lot better because of the corporate media. Because it’s like 90/10 on their side, a majority of the time. You know, but this is something that is getting more mainstream that I mean, Republicans are breaking through on that issue.
Elaine Beck 14:44
And it’s not just Republicans, it’s the people and we are of the people and by the people is what we’re supposed to be. And so the people are getting tired of being told what they should think By the minority, the minority of people who believe that it’s okay to do all of this LGBTQ and transgender and stuff they want to run our world and tell us what to do. I say stop.
Joe Mitchell 15:19
And that’s where, you know, I’ve had several reporters asked me in the last few weeks, they said, Do you think that the young Republicans, the folks elected in my coalition, do you think they’re more? You know, they’re more driven to talk about the culture wars, or less than the older generation, I said, Well, they’re more driven to because they’re the ones actually experiencing it. And if you’re a young person, that’s my age that’s running for office, it’s because you’re pissed as hell.
Elaine Beck 15:44
Well, that’s because the media is telling you, all of things that aren’t true. They’re telling you falsehoods about our history, that we’ve got proof of, but they still can say a lie. The the the Democrats lie every day on all these other stations to people, they’ve been brainwashed. And, and it’s just sad. And so yes, I forgive my enemies, God asks us to forgive them. But we’re to pray for them and ask for God to bring them into the fold, to take the blinders off of them, to help them to see the truth. And they can only do that if we speak the truth, and we get it out. So thank you for being on my show. Thank you for sharing what you have with us today. And keep up the good work with Gen Z, and all the other things that you’re doing. And I think it’s great that you’ve chosen to speak out about this issue that you dealt with, with the RNC. And I hope you guys can work it out in a way that will help our country and particularly the young people that are being called to do this stuff,
Joe Mitchell 16:53
Elaine, happy to be here. We’ll come back anytime.
Elaine Beck 16:56
Okay, thank you. And thank you all for being with us today on our show. Remember, we’re on CPAC now, as well as you can go to Elaine beck.com and see all of my shows, and we love you and we pray for you every day. God bless you