Jeff, good to be on this morning.
How are you?
I'm quite well, but I didn't have to do a debate last night on television.
You did.
And we should point out to folks, this is an open seat because the incumbent Republican is seeking the U.S.
Senate.
You've got a voter registration advantage, Republicans over independence over Democrats.
You've got a libertarian, a Democrat, a Republican and an independent for on the ballot.
You and the Democrat debated last night.
How was that for you?
It was good.
I could have debated three more hours, Jeff.
I was having a good time by the end, and we'll have another debate next week, actually.
But it was an hour long.
KGAN out of Cedar Rapids, the CBS affiliate, they're the ones that hosted it.
They did a nice job.
They were very fair.
We got over a lot of topics, agriculture, tariffs, immigration, the economy.
So I thought it went good.
We tweeted out and posted probably 20 different clips from the debate.
And so we were, you know, clipping stuff, nonstop sending it out.
And our opponent said, I think one clip, her answering the Iran war question.
So I think that tells you maybe who won the debate, you know.
If you go to Twitter X and you can follow Joe Mitchell, Iowa.
That's where you find this stuff.
JoeMitchell.com is his website.
I know that you brought up a few things that your opponent, the Democrat, did not have an answer for, in particular, showing up for work.
Yeah, that was crazy.
And, you know, Ray, who was one of the moderators, Ray Bakari, KGAN, he had to ask her three times and she had the same
can answer every time avoiding the question, talking about this word salad of, you know, she's there for her community and her neighbors.
And he had asked her three separate times point blank, but Lindsay, did you miss over half of your votes in the legislature?
And she would not answer it.
And that's where I said she did in fact miss over 50% of her votes.
And now she's asking the voters of this district to give her a job promotion and a pay raise when she can't show up to the
job that she's elected for right now.
And I said, imagine anybody listening.
If you did not show up to your job over half the time, you would be fired on the spot.
And I said, we must fire Lindsay James come November 3rd.
And I mean, I think she wasn't very happy after I said that, but it's true.
It's like, it's ridiculous to these people, whether it be her or Josh Turrick, or anybody else in the legislature.
They can't show for the job they're currently elected for.
And they think they're going to then get a job promotion and go to DC and get this huge pay raise.
It's absolutely absurd.
That's what they think.
But that's a lot of these candidates on the Democrat side of the aisle now is they're totally out of touch with everyday Iowa.
Joe Mitchell is our guest.
He's the Republican running for Congress from Northeast Iowa.
JoeMitchell.com.
If you like what you hear, there's a nice subtle donate button to help get him across the finish line.
He's joining us on the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker line on the Todd Starnes program.
That debate you referenced was put on by our friends at the Sinclair Broadcast Group, their local affiliates in Cedar Rapids.
You served in the state legislature.
I'm going to take a wild stab that your attendance rate, your voting record, was better than your opponent.
Well, you know, Jeff, to be honest, I thought I had missed maybe two or three votes.
I knew I didn't think I had made 100% of the votes.
And I probably shouldn't admit that on this broadcast.
But one of my supporters the other day, they said they looked it up and it said I had 100% voting record, I guess.
But I said, that's pretty good.
I thought it was 99% and they said it was 100%.
But either way, it's like I showed up to work each and every day unless there was an absolute emergency.
And these people couldn't show up to work over half the time.
But the interesting thing is, Jeff, I don't feel it's more concerning.
The votes that they missed are the things that they were actually voting for when they were there.
Because when they were there,
Like Lindsay James, she was voting to give illegal immigrants state-funded Medicaid benefits, food stamps, housing assistance.
She was voting to allow kids to have sex changes.
She was voting for higher taxes.
She voted against almost every single bill to cut taxes where I was in the legislature where there was property tax or income tax.
So, I mean, her position on issues are totally out of line with islands.
And, you know, we say she's from Portland, Oregon.
And I say, I don't hold that against her.
We don't hold where you're born against you.
But she brought her values from Portland, Oregon to Iowa.
That's what we hold against her.
And so that's where she's voting for these out of control immigration policies.
She stopped on crime.
She went high taxes.
I mean, the list goes on and on and on.
And this is what islands are going to reject on November 3rd.
Joe Mitchell, Republican running for Congress from Northeast Iowa.
It is the seat currently held by Ashley Hinson, who's running for the U.S.
Senate.
JoeMitchell.com is the website.
And if folks want to learn a little more, you are kind enough to come on my television program, all four candidates in this race, where folks can see that at iowatalkingpoints.com.
You've built things, not just your own business.
You're a home builder by trade.
You're not a career politician, as I understand it.
Right.
So, you know, I've had a business for the last six years.
Jeff, I've been building development, primarily workforce housing development around Eastern Iowa.
So I've built stuff in Dyersville and Clear Lake and Grinnell.
And I built typically duplexes or townhomes.
And they're typically for seniors.
for working families.
I lived in one of my duplexes that I built and to live amongst all the folks that I built houses for.
These are people that are veterans.
These are working people.
These are really just tough Iowans that I love.
They're the same people I grew up with because I grew up in small town Iowa and I still live in small town Iowa.
What I noticed a number of years ago is that
We don't have the appropriate amount of housing, the quality of housing that we deserve in rural America and rural Iowa.
And so that's where I set out to put together sort of a partnership and an investment group to go out and invest tens of millions of dollars in rural Iowa.
And that's right, Don.
And that's where we built these homes.
And it's just been a blessing to be able to put a roof above people's heads.
Um, you know, one of my neighbors, Dick, uh, you know, he's a Vietnam war veteran and he's an awesome guy and he couldn't find a zero rent free two bedroom, uh, condo anywhere in clear light.
And we built these new units and he moved in probably six months ago and he talks to me every day about the blessing it is to have something that he could downsize to.
It doesn't have stairs.
There's nothing else like that in town that he could, he could rent.
So.
You know, the VA helps them with his housing and everything.
And so, you know, these are the stories I get to hear and I get to work with my contractors.
And you know, these guys are some of the best people.
They're so hardworking and the good thing is done and they have pride in their work.
And I just love going through the process to get these things done.
We want progress.
And that's what frustrates me about government.
It's what frustrates me about Washington is they want to stop.
progress.
Every single place you go, whether that be the state government, whether it be the federal government, it seems like they're putting up more hopes to jump through.
And I think we actually need to make it easier to do business, to build things.
We need less bureaucrats.
I think we need to fire several million more bureaucrats in DC that exist there.
And that's what I did.
I worked for the president, as you know, last year, and I fired a lot of bureaucrats because we have too many of them on the government.
uh you know payroll uh taking your taxpayer dollars and do we need people that want to get things done.
I don't think you understand how this works isn't government supposed to do all of this and do bailouts for people?
You're talking about having the private sector see a need and fill it.
I didn't think that's how it worked Mr. Mitchell.
Right well and that's where my opponent thinks and if you listened to the debate yesterday this is somebody who every single answer it was about spending more money.
It was about spending more of your money.
It was about spending money that we don't have as a country.
You know, even if you seize every single asset from every single billionaire in this country, you could not pay for the program that my opponent is talking about.
And so that is the answer to all these radical left Democrats and what they want to do.
They want to seize assets.
They want to have higher taxes.
They want new programs.
And they don't understand
how to balance a checkbook.
And they don't understand what it means to run a business.
They certainly don't know how to run government because we had just 15 years ago before Governor Branstad came back to save this state from the deficit crisis we were in.
We had a Democrat-controlled trifecta that ran this state into the ground thanks to Chek Bulber.
And so this is the type of governing they want to bring back again.
And I tell people this,
You know, it wasn't 20 years ago that these people were in charge.
It was less than two years ago on the federal level that they were in charge.
And you saw what they did.
They spent like drunken sailors.
They had more regulation than ever before.
You know, they made it hard to do business.
They made it hard for workers.
I mean, life was tough between 2021 and 2025.
And, you know, thank God the president came in and they passed the working families tax cut.
no tax on social security, no tax on tips, no tax on overtime.
And so we're letting people have more of their hard earned money.
And I always say, the solution is ever more government.
It's actually less government.
Let's get government out of your life.
32 days until election day, Joe Mitchell, the Republican running for Congress, open seat Northeast Iowa, joemichael.com on the Twitter X machine where they've clipped some of that debate from last night.
Joe Mitchell, Iowa, is the handle on TwitterX.
Mr. Mitchell, thanks so much for taking the time, continued success on the campaign trail, and thanks for joining us on the national show on this Friday.
Thank you, Jeff.
Take care.