“People say, wow, that’s super extreme. No, it’s not”: What Micah Beckwith is telling GOP delegates to win them over
Go inside two delegate events he held last week for the rank-and-file Republicans who can nominate him on Saturday to be Indiana’s next lieutenant governor
As I reported last week, Noblesville pastor Micah Beckwith’s unconventional campaign for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor appears to be surging. Several GOP insiders I spoke with believe he will upset Mike Braun’s hand-picked candidate Julie McGuire at the state convention this Saturday.
That’s in part due to his performance at a series of meet-and-greet events he’s been holding all across the state for the 1,814 convention delegates who will vote to select Braun’s lieutenant governor running mate.
I was in attendance at one such gathering last Tuesday in Fort Wayne. Beckwith spoke to a standing-room only crowd of around 60 individuals for over an hour. (Approximately 45 raised their hand when he asked who among them was a delegate.)
Two nights later, he was in Nappanee for a meetup hosted by former Congressman Marlin Stutzman (IN-3) — who won the GOP nomination for his old seat last month — and his wife Christy, herself once a state representative. I was sent a full video of Beckwith’s remarks from that evening, which I was able to independently confirm to be authentic.
At both events, Beckwith shared how he became involved in politics and decided to run for lieutenant governor, then took questions from the crowd. His skills as a pastor and politician were on full display, and members of the crowd responded to him multiple times with a “yes!” or applause.
It was a stark contrast with the mood at the event Braun’s campaign held for McGuire in Fort Wayne on June 1, which felt more like a chamber of commerce mixer than a political gathering to rally support for her candidacy.
“The church in America was dropping the ball”
Beckwith told the delegates in both Fort Wayne and Nappanee that it was his belief that America was straying from its Christian principles that motivated him to get into politics.
“I started recognizing something very concerning to me, that the church in America was dropping the ball on stewarding our nation,” he said in Nappanee. “When [the church] started shutting our mouths, the silent majority did a huge disservice to this nation. We became quiet. No wonder we’ve gone off the rails.”
Beckwith blamed America’s problems on a list of issues for which, according to him, the Bible has already provided guidance.
“Isn’t it interesting that all of the political things that are destroying our nation right now are things like marriage, things like abortion, things like parental rights, things like the sovereignty of our borders, things like taxes. But wouldn’t you know, God has said something about all of those issues.”
Beckwith told the delegates in Nappanee that God literally called him to step up and make sure America does not lose its Biblical values.
“It was like the Lord hit me with a ton of bricks. He said, ‘Micah, if you do not get involved in the political battle, they will warp and destroy everything that I have set up in this nation that is rooted in Judeo-Christian principles.’ Those principles go away, then our nation goes away.”
“I called out COVID”
Another key aspect of Beckwith’s political origin story — in his telling — was the COVID-19 pandemic and how it was handled by those in state government.
“It was March 15, 2020. I called out COVID exactly what it turned out to be,” he told the delegates in Nappanee. On that day, he said he broadcast a Facebook live video telling people “don’t shut down, don’t lock down, don’t mask up. And I called it out.”
(According to the Indiana Department of Health, a total of 22,450 Hoosiers died from the virus after the date he made that video, including 616 residents in his home of Hamilton County.)
As I reported last week, Beckwith said at the Fort Wayne event that Lieutenant Governor Suzanne Crouch’s unwillingness to speak out publicly against Governor Eric Holcomb’s pandemic shutdowns is what prompted Beckwith to run to replace Crouch.
“I wish we would have had a check and balance [on the governor] in 2020,” he told the delegates in Nappanee. “Because I have family members that are dead today because they took their own lives. Because they were locked in their house. And they felt that they could not go out of their house because the government was giving them an unconstitutional order.”
Beckwith later admitted to me that only one family member — a cousin — died, and she did not live in Indiana. Citing privacy concerns, he declined to provide any further details.
Since COVID vaccines became available in 2021, Beckwith told both groups he has written “over 4,500 religious exemptions for people in Indiana” who did not want to get vaccinated.
He also said he was firmly against masking. “The masks were more than just masks. There was the demonic assault trying to cover up both physically and spiritually the voice of God’s people.”
“Even Jesus submitted to authority”
Beckwith told delegates in Fort Wayne that the Indiana Republican Party “has gotten very complacent, very fat, very lazy, very slow. And the reason is because we have been told we cannot criticize fellow Republicans.”
At both events, Beckwith emphasized his willingness to call out Braun and be a “check and balance” on him if the two are elected in the fall.
“I do believe God’s given me discernment and wisdom. And I can be a voice of discernment and wisdom with Mike Braun and say, ‘Hey, I know all of your political advisors and your pollsters are telling you this, but here’s the truth.’”
In Nappanee, Beckwith acknowledged that several members of the GOP leadership are opposed to his campaign against McGuire, Braun’s preferred lieutenant governor.
“I heard this from some establishment people,” he told the delegates. “They said, ‘Well, Mike Braun doesn’t need an insurance policy or a check and balance.’ I said, ‘Even Jesus submitted to authority.’”
Beckwith positioned his campaign as more than just his own quest to be lieutenant governor. He spoke of it as an opportunity for the convention delegates to show the GOP establishment who is really in charge of the party.
”The establishment doesn’t like what I’m doing,” he told the delegates in Nappanee. “They don’t like what you’re doing, because what you’re doing is, you’re taking that power back into your hands.”
“Yes!” several members of the crowd responded.
“They don’t like it,” Beckwith continued, “and they’re going to fight you on it, but that’s okay. That just means we’re doing something right.”
“Arrest every FBI agent”
Towards the end of the question-and-answer session in Fort Wayne, a man who later identified himself as a delegate raised his hand.
“I think everybody in this room probably recognized January 6th as an FBI – [Nancy] Pelosi state operation,” he told the room.
“Yeah,” Beckwith said in response.
(There is no evidence that the FBI or then-Speaker of the House Pelosi were involved in the attack on the Capitol in any way.)
“And [Black Lives Matter] and some of the other Antifa-type people were there,” the delegate continued. “I know people in Fort Wayne that said, ‘Those weren’t our people that came and started damaging things. Those weren’t Trump supporters.’ And Mike Pence got up there and acted like he thought Donald Trump had done something terrible,” he said, referring to Pence’s accurate assertion that the vice president did not have the constitutional authority to stop the counting of the 2020 electoral votes for president.
“How many Hoosiers,” the delegate asked rhetorically, “are sitting in federal prison, falsely accused of trying to overthrow the government when all they were doing is standing up for the running of our rights?”
Beckwith agreed. “Eighty year-old grandmothers thrown in prison,” he said, “rotting in jail because we have a corrupt FBI, a corrupt [Department of Justice] and we as a state have let them do this.”
Beckwith went on to claim that the state of Indiana has the power to tell the federal government “you shall not come into our state and do what you want to do.”
If that happened while he was lieutenant governor, he told the delegates, he would attempt to force a standoff between the FBI and the Indiana State Police.
“If there was an FBI raid,” Beckwith said, “what I would do as lieutenant governor, I would get as fast as I could to the governor. ‘Governor, send your state troopers right at that border, [or] right at that home that [the FBI is] getting ready to raid. And you arrest every FBI agent with your state troopers.’”
(State police officers are not permitted to arrest anyone, including FBI agents, if they are not in violation of an Indiana law. It is a federal crime to assault, impede, or interfere with an FBI agent performing his or her official duties.)
Beckwith said telling the state police to arrest the FBI agents to prevent a raid would give the FBI “two choices: either leave, or go to war with the Indiana State Police.”
Several delegates in the room responded to that statement with applause.
“Some people will say, wow, that’s super extreme,” Beckwith continued. “No, it’s not. That’s the American story. That’s who we’ve been.”
Holy smokes, this guy is terrifying.
Good to see Indiana is still producing lunatics like this.