Moms Know Best: Kids, Health & the Future

Today's podcast is brought to you by the Herzog Foundation. Moms, we know that our children are the future. How can we protect them, but also allow them to experience some of the new technology like AI? Well, today, Texas State Senator Angela Paxton weighs in, plus a mom who cured herself and her children, tells her story of food, health, and healing. That's all coming up next. This is the Moms for America podcast. Each week, leaders and everyday champions tell personal stories, share advice, and tackle the issues most important to moms. Hi moms, I'm Debbie Carlitis, your host, and welcome to the Moms for America podcast. So glad that you, mama, that you're joining us again this week. Every episode, we get together to inspire, encourage, and educate moms in their journey through motherhood. All right, well, let me tell you about today's program. We have more compelling interviews from CPAC. Texas State Senator Angela Paxton is my first guest. We're a fan of hers for many reasons. She's been in office since 2019. Her issues are border security, public safety, taxes, the economy, parental rights, and education. Our conversation today was wide ranging from everything from AI to parenting. So take a listen. Let's talk about today. You were on a panel talking about AI, which is, wow, you wanna talk about something that all of us are so extremely interested in. In fact, actually, our team was just at the White House with the first lady. She just did a whole, you know, fostering the future, and AI technology is a big initiative of hers, because now we've gotta figure it out. What are we gonna do with this? What are we gonna do? You know what, that is the question, and, you know, whatever the answer it is, we are the generation that will decide, right? It's in its infancy, and in broad ways, I think. It's obviously been evolving for a long time, and there have been people working on machine learning, the predecessor to actual AI, for many decades. But, you know, I'll say this, first of all. AI is a tool. Sure. It's a tool, and a tool isn't good or bad. It's how the tool is used, right, that makes it good or bad. And so, you know, I think most people that I'm working with and other legislators, we all want to really make the most of the upside of AI to create more freedom, to help people do work faster and better. And more efficient. And those sorts of things. We don't want the dark side of it. Now, you know, in one of those dark sides, you know, people are talking about it's gonna take our jobs. So, I'll tell you a story. One of my daughters sent me a reel the other day from, I don't know, Instagram or whatever. Okay. And it was a young mom sitting on the floor, and she's got kids running around her, and she's trying to fold some laundry, and there's toys everywhere and everything, and she looks at the camera and she says, they say AI is gonna take our jobs. When? Oh. Which I thought was hilarious. So it's probably the only job that it can take. But you know what? There are certain things that can't be, that you've got to have a human being to do it. Sure, sure. But I do think it's a legitimate. It's changing technology, it's changing the workforce, it's changing the creative development. I mean, I used, I just planned a big old party, and I used AI. I said, boy, would I have been dangerous with this in my 20s and my 30s when I was really doing all these, you know, planning and young kids and birthday parties. I mean, you just were able to come up with, they write a whole script for you, and would you like me to make this into a post and a picture, and you're just like, wow. Yeah, and what you're talking about, you know, we've had something called generative AI, which is sort of like a really fancy search engine, okay? And we're all used to using search engines. Our search engines now are using that type of AI, generative AI, generating things, right? But what you're talking about is getting more into the field of kind of this next wave, which is agentic AI, where it actually, you can create an agent, and you can task it. Like, imagine, like an employee or something like that, you task this to go plan the party, and let me know when you've gone and you've looked at all the venues and you've found the top three, you know, best venues, lowest price, whatever, come back to me. And then you go and you can send these agentic AI, you can task agentic AI to do things for you. So it's getting very sophisticated very fast, and we can all see the upside and the power, right, of doing creative things like what you're talking about. But at the same time, you know, we also have to think about national security, right? And that's been a lot of the conversation. And your thoughts on that? Well, I think maybe we should stop selling chips to China. That's kind of what I think. So that's one part. I mean, if we're gonna stay in front of China, because that really is who we're in competition with, then I think, then we keep, we don't give them our hardware, and that would be important. Security is a huge problem. So national security is very important. But I also think the idea of the United States having AI dominance is something that we do want. But you know what? Not all AI is productive and good and helpful, right? So I don't want to be the global leader in AI-generated child porn, right? And I do want us to be able to pass laws in as fast a way as we can. Agile is not a great word to use with most governmental entities, right? But I do think it's important as we're moving forward for the states to be able to continue to pass the laws. I'm very supportive of the concept of federal framework. Okay. But it's just ideas right now. It's not actually law. Until there's law, I think we really need to make sure states can pass laws around AI. Sure, and don't you think, Senator Hsu, that it's progressing so quickly that I think a year ago, no one could, well, I mean, some people can forecast it, but you really don't know where it's going, and then do you want your children to have bots every day that open up the computer, that becomes their friend, that can manipulate, that can suggest, that can find information that no parent would want them over to? So what was your panel discussion about? What would you say the takeaways were for our moms? I think the takeaways were that we can have AI dominance in the United States, but we don't have to do it at the expense of our children. Yes. And so, you know, that's something that I think I'll continue to work on in our next session, which will start in January in Texas. Yes, please. I think it's really important for parents to share with us the things they're seeing with their kids. I would love- From the ground, yeah, the ground game. Right, because, you know, in any one person, you only have your own experiences to work with, right, and your own knowledge. You have to have other people help you understand other things that are happening. You don't know everything that's happening in the world. I don't have little kids at home. I don't have teenagers at home now. So what is it that people are experiencing that they see red flags, yellow flags? We need to do something about this before, right? Sadly, a lot of legislation that I've been involved with and that comes before the Senate and the House in Texas and other states as well, it's sadly after something's gone terribly wrong. Right, when I'm ahead of it. I've said in way too many hearings- That's a good point. That the reason we're having the hearing is because there is a dead child. Yeah. Or a child that has been irreparably harmed in some way, right, whether it's emotionally or mentally. And the emotional aspect of engagement with AI is something that I think it has no place for children. That should be, that should just not be allowed because, you know, do you remember when your kids were little, right? And I had conversations with other moms with kids the same age, and we would talk about certain fantasy literature that was popular with kids. Sure. And I remember having conversations with some of my friends about, you know, I think this kid, I think is a little too young to read those stories because they can't, they don't know the difference between- Reality and fiction. And truth, right. They can't distinguish those kinds of things. This child, this child's older, and maybe they're a little more mature or whatever. But I think, you know, those kinds of things are even more the case with AI. Yes, so true. And so much usage of technology with our kids, it's not monitored, right? No one's watching them. Well, they're technology dominant now. Their world is technology. Yeah, yeah. You know, baseball, running, you know, playing outside. I mean, bikes, all these things, lemonade stands. I mean, you just think about it. I mean, I've had, wait till my grandkids come, we're gonna do lemonade stands and bike trips. There you go. And camping. But all those things, we as parents, we've gotta be back in the game of like, hey, no, this is what it used to be. This is what it is now. Virtual reality games. I had a mom call me that said, my child will much rather play all of the virtual reality games than ever go outside and sweat and run and put any exhaustion, because, right, everything takes, you know, effort. Absolutely. He just wants to sit there and play it like this. And so we've lost it, even fishing. They can't get the kids to get out. Right. So we've gotta protect them. And I don't know how we're doing this in every home across America, but we do need the government to come in at some level. Right, there are safeguards that really only the government can put on companies. Yeah. And we need to do that. You know, I do think that one of the paradigm shifts that's necessary for us to do well with our children. Okay. And I say this all the time, you know, I wanna keep our future free. When I say future, I don't think anything embodies the future like children. They literally are our future, right? So if we're gonna keep our future free, we do have to protect and equip our kids. We can't only protect. Right. Right, we can't only protect. We're not with them all the time. We have to be teaching them how to go. We have to be coaching them so that they can make good decisions when we're not with them, right? So that's really, really important. But I think that one of the things we've got to make kind of a paradigm shift for us is, you know, we live in a society of immediate gratification. Right. And you and I- Oh yeah, 60 second clips. Absolutely. And, you know, microwave meals, drive through. I mean, everything, you know, people used to have to go to the river and wash their clothes and they had to, used to have to bury a pig in a pit to cook it for two days. You know, all of this kind of stuff. We don't, we get- Churn our own butter. Exactly. Come on. So, you know, I grew up in a world of, I was born in 1963. My whole life really has been convenient. Yes. Right? Right. My mom's life got more and more and more and more convenient as she got older. My grandmother's life wasn't very convenient. Right. But we're, you know, two or three generations into, we don't know anything other than convenience. And you can get food delivered to your home. Oh, you don't even have to go to the grocery store, right? Yeah, just think about, when you're saying about convenience, it's gotten to the point, your remote control and it can walk to the door. Probably it can even drop through your window if you wanted to. And everything comes to us. It is so convenient. That's right. And we've lost homemade recipes. We've lost all those moments in the kitchen. These are so many things that this generation, that we as parents and grandparents, we have to, you know, we have to renew. We have to help reverse this mentality of immediate gratification. And it starts with us. Sure does. This is my advice in general to parents and grandparents. It starts with us. We need to get our house in order. We need to get our own life in order. We need to get our own relationship with God in order before we worry about other people's, right? We've got to do those things ourselves so that we're equipped to do things. And, you know, it goes to the point, like think about how many times you've checked a box. I've done it. Agree, consent. What are we agreeing to? And you don't even know, but you know that that's what you have to do to have access, right? And so you just do it. And so I think those are the kinds of things we need to understand that those things that are quick right now, they have a long-term impact. And so I think we need to start thinking more along the lines of what is the long-term impact of this thing that I'm inclined to do the shortcut. Is that the best choice for me to model for my kids so that they can have a healthy future and make good choices? Yeah, good words of encouragement. And I think that's what we help with here at Moms, having these kinds of discussions, talking about a biblical worldview, talking about schooling and education and AI and trying to provide some answers for them to consider. I mean, there are so many issues. And again, you've been such an advocate for parental rights. Moms and dads, I'd love for you to just share some closing words of encouragement to them that they are their greatest influences in their kids' lives. You know, we are the ones that raise our children in church or not church. We are the ones that raise them with the 10 commandments. We're the ones that raise them to love America, right? These all come back to mama. They really do. So just your words of advice in this culture today. You know, I'm gonna misquote this. And if I had my phone on me, well, we'll say you're close. Okay, let's just be close to this. But I saw a scripture that someone sent me, I don't know, maybe in the last year. But it said, the Lord spoke his word and the mighty women brought it to pass. Oh. And I'll find it and send it to you guys. And maybe you can share it on your social media. This might have been around Deborah. But it's, well, Deborah is a great example of that, right? And you know, women have historically not been the ones making the headlines. But we've been the ones filling the heads, right? We've been the ones who have been teaching and training the next generation to know that they're loved, right? To know that they matter. To know that someone's paying attention to them. This is a whole other story, which I won't go into, but I'm adopted. Oh. And right around, right before. I mean, I've talked to this girl a couple of times on the podcast, I never knew that. Well. That's so awesome. I'm the result of an unexpected pregnancy and my birth mother chose adoption for me. Wow, that is so amazing. Right around, and I have wonderful parents, wonderful parents. Right before my 40th birthday, I met my birth mother. Oh, that's a story. I'm just, you know, I got to know this woman who also had a tremendous influence in my life for all kinds of reasons, and now is a presence in my life, right? But one of the, she's got lots of words of wisdom. One of them I love is Jesus Strikes Again. But one thing I remember her telling me, because my kids were little when she came into our life, and she said, you know, children spell love, T-I-M-E. Oh, that's so true. Yeah, and I think, you know, there are certain things only we can do. Right. And we can outsource them. We have lots of ability to outsource things in this day. And it's the easy part, yeah. But I just want to encourage all the moms out there, there is no one who knows your kid like you do. Right. And so there's no one that can love your child the way you do. That's right. Love them now, you know, help keep them safe, pay attention, give them your attention, but also always be remembering there's a long game. Yeah. There's a long game and they're going to grow up and they're going to be a mom or a dad someday. They're going to be a state senator someday. They're going to be the person at the bank deciding if someone gets a loan or not. They're our leaders. They're going to be our pastors. They're going to be our teachers. And they need you now to build those things into them. And you have everything you need. You have everything. That's one of my favorite promises from scripture is that he has given us everything we need for life and godliness. Amen. And that is something we can give our children. Amen. Oh, what a great discussion. Thank you so much, Senator. Thank you. Anytime, anytime. And you know, we're here at CPAC, right? I live like right next door. I'm like 40 minutes away. So I love when CPAC comes to me. Super easy. Well, thank you so much. Thank you. God bless you. Thanks again, Senator Paxton, for joining us. And what words of wisdom. As a mama and a grandma, there is nothing else that is more important than time with our kids. And we understand that here at Moms for America. Thank you for reminding us. And again, the unique role that we have as moms. No one, no one will love our children like we do. All right, coming up, a mom heals herself and her children through food. This is gonna be really interesting. We'll be right back. Hi moms. I'm excited to share some news about our new sponsor, the Herzog Foundation. We know you're passionate about raising patriots and empowering your children with the best education possible. And the Herzog Foundation shares that passion. They're dedicated to promoting liberty through education freedom and helping parents like you choose the best educational path. They offer a powerhouse of resources designed to support families and schools alike. Whether you're ready to dive in headfirst to the world of education, or simply looking for more ways to empower your child's learning. From free training events to their must read online publication, The Lion, they're committed to keeping you informed about what's happening in education. Also, if you've ever thought moms about starting your own Christian school or co-op, their Schoolbox online course will give you everything you need to get started on the right foot. Again, we are so proud to partner with the Herzog Foundation, and we encourage you to explore all their amazing tools and the insights that they offer. So go ahead, visit Herzogfoundation.com to learn more. You won't wanna miss these incredible resources. Again, find it all out at Herzogfoundation.com. All right, well, welcome back moms. Before we continue with our interview, I do remind everyone to please like, subscribe, and share this podcast with your mom friends. Actually, if you even wanna go on Spotify or Apple and do a rating, that also helps us. We would appreciate that. And if you have any ideas or topics for our podcast, would you please email me at podcast at momsforamerica.net. I would love to hear from you. And lastly, I wanna invite all of our moms that are listening always to join the movement here at Moms for America. I surely hope that you're a part of our tribe. There's moms like us all across this country, about a half a million moms all across this country uniting together to fight for faith, family, freedom, and the constitution. How do you find us? You go to momsforamerica.us and take advantage of all of our incredible resources there. Sign up for our newsletter. You also get our podcast, webinars, seminars. We do some incredible trainings and education pieces for you moms to help you in your journey through motherhood. Alrighty, well, my next guest is Angel Oakley. She is currently running for the United States Congress from Illinois' third district. Now, Angel is a successful entrepreneur who has learned through personal experience how food either contributes or detracts from our health and our wellbeing. Take a listen. Another interesting mom stopped by the booth here at CPAC, and she has an incredible testimony, really, of working to heal herself and to also then take this message out. And one of the things that are so important to moms, as we know, is the health of us and the health of our children and our families. So welcome, Angel Oakley, to the Moms for America podcast. Thank you so much. Great to be here. All right, so you are a mom of how many? Tell me a little bit about your family. I have three kids that are all adults now. My youngest just turned 18, so I'm excited about that. It's a new stage. Yes, it is. And my oldest is 22. We had a really rough go, though, at the beginning because they had a lot of health challenges. And so did you, if I understand this correctly. And I did, too, growing up. So let's talk about that. I mean, all of us seem to have, there's more diseases than we know that we can even list now. Everybody has a thyroid, Hashimoto's. There's all kinds of chronic illness, and obviously, Secretary Kennedy said we have the sickest generation of children, and why. So your family, personally, probably your story is similar to other folks, except you took it one step further and were able to heal yourself. You had some vaccine injury. You had some chronic illness. Tell us about you, and then we'll go into your kids. Yeah, I mean, the chronic disease epidemic in this country is just a tsunami that I don't think most people really understand, and we have to get it under control. I thought I was the canary in the coal mine. You know, I was this really sensitive kid growing up, and I was vaccine injured very early with my MMR, and the doctors told my mom not to give me any more. I had a heart arrhythmia, and then was. So did you have a seizure? What happened with your? No, I just had irregular heart rhythms after, and I was then allergic to everything. Oh, wow. So I started bleeding when dairy would touch my skin, and I couldn't have, yeah, so egg and dairy. So it's just intense. Egg is in, egg protein is in the MMR. Wow. So egg allergy is often triggered by vaccines. And eggs are in everything. Yes. Wow. A lot of things, anyway. Yeah, seems like everything, I should say. So growing up, I had a lot of ear infections. I would get bronchitis and respiratory illnesses, and then I had a lot of problems with my cycle when I became a teenager. Wow. Had endometriosis, PCOS, was miserable every month, and then was on constant medications. Right, so this was, right, you were set up for a lifetime of illness. And usually, too, when we see some of these illnesses, they don't just run in singles, they run in threes. So you were kind of on this journey, then, to figure this out. And your kids had allergies, and when you had them, so you kind of looked at your whole collective situation, you said, I gotta figure this out? Well, you know, when I was younger, I made excuses for it. When I started having arthritis at 20, I'm like, oh, it runs in my family. Do you ever find people that say that? Oh, this runs in my family. It's hereditary. It's hereditary, there's nothing I can do about it. Right, and we just sort of assign ourselves this plight. I have to carry this cross, right? Like, this is unfortunate, but it is the way it is. And it wasn't until my kids were born that I took on this warrior mom. Like, it's not okay to tell me that my kid's gonna be like this and be in pain and suffer. And what were they having? So, one of my children had a really hard time going to the bathroom, actually, and it was extremely painful. And I know they don't like me to talk about this publicly very much, so I'll keep it basic, but we had to, you know, give enemas, and it was a really extreme. So, it was a whole gut issue. It was a whole gut dysbiosis problem, and they would get skin rashes that would break out really bad. Wow. And we did have some anaphylaxis, so it was really hard to feed them. And we find- Was it an allergy, or what would they say that would be? They had IgG reactions, which is your immunoglobulin G. When people talk about anaphylaxis, it's usually an IgE reaction. So, we had some tests done to show us all the things that they were allergic to, and then we had food rotation diets that we would put them on. So, everybody was eating different things, and we had this rotation, and we had bins. It was really complicated and difficult. It was hard to get a babysitter, so we had to have nannies. You couldn't eat out. No. And we had lived in nannies for eight years because of that, because we basically had to train someone how to help. Oh my gosh. And feed our kids. This is debilitating, right? And it was through that process of taking them to the doctor. My daughter would eat something, and it would come out whole, because she just couldn't process it. And we went to gastro after gastro, and they had no answers for us. And in the meantime, you're still dealing with autoimmune issues. I was dealing with all my health, and I was working. So, I have my kids. We're going through all this. I'm working. I'm sick. They're sick. It was a lot. And what was the light that went on? So, I just started researching. I started reading PubMed. I was going into all the medical archives and really just trying to figure out how to heal the gut, because the doctors had no answers for us, and we were spending a lot of money going to the doctors. And we started using Restore, which is a product. Do you know Zach Bush? So, Zach Bush started a company where he was providing something that helped offset the damage that glyphosate does. So, glyphosate, you're familiar with that, the pesticide. So, it separates the junctions in the gut, and then you get leaky gut. And then leaky gut exacerbates the allergies. So, we were taking that. We started doing elimination diets, and then digestive enzymes, probiotic. Right. And we felt like we were making incremental changes, but we were chasing things all the time. Okay. So, then I... Because all those are good. Yes. Yes, and necessary, but you actually then went to your kitchen and your home next level, too. Well, I got a cancer scare for ovarian cancer, and I was so scared of my kids being without a mother that I went a little neurotic. I started reading everything about cancer and every different holistic treatment, all the alternatives, and everything pointed to sugar. Sugar was really the driver. So, I decided I had to get sugar out of my diet. I realized I was a sugarholic. Okay. You know, the processed foods have sugar in them. You have your... Well, they create an addiction. Your fruits. Yeah, so that probably took us a couple of years to really get rid of the sugar, and then all of a sudden after that was out of my diet, my endometriosis went away, PCOS went away, everything healed. Wow. I got rid of the plastics in our kitchen, changed out the pots and pans. So, all the plastic utensils. Yep. All the plastics that you drink out of or you eat out of, you out. Went to all glass. We went to glass, yep. What about your pots and pans? We went to stainless steel. Stainless steel. And cast iron. Yep. And then we started eating whole foods. So, we were doing a lot of vegetables. We were juicing and doing smoothies, and we started feeling so much better. It was great. And the kids are doing better now? And they were doing better, and then after six years of doing that, I got an autoimmune condition, I think because of the anti-nutrients in the vegetables. So, actually, then we switched to carnivore. Oh, really? Yeah, so my husband's been on the carnivore diet for seven years now. And you too? I'm carnivore-ish, right? I would say it's more keto. So, carnivore means what? Is that literally just meat? Yeah, well, it's animal products. Okay. So, meat, eggs, butter, and he does have dairy. And what's the difference between that and? Keto? Yeah. So, keto, you can have things like avocado, coconut oil. You know, you can have other vegetable-related fats. And I'm a little carnivore, omnivore, somewhere in the middle. Interesting. When I'm out, I will have vegetables, but we don't have vegetables at home very often. And tell me the negative of the vegetables. What if it's an organic vegetable? So, some vegetables have really high levels of oxalates. Okay. And lectins. Like beans and all that, right? Well, beans have really high lectins. Right. And that can be hard on your gut. Yeah, I've heard of that. So, an instant pot will often help reduce the lectins. And so, we did purchase an instant pot to be able to pressure cook the rice and the beans. Okay. But the oxalates, I'm not aware of anything that you can really take that out. And those are really high in your green, leafy vegetables. And that can give you joint pain. So, you have a lot of vegetarians that sometimes have joint pain or arthritis. And that could very much be because of the oxalates. I look at this angel and I go, what the heck are we supposed to eat then? You know, you just really don't know. That's why it's interesting to hear your story. You know, you went the gamut. You know, you always hear fruits and vegetables. If you do organic, you're gonna be okay. Everyone needs that. And then you have to find out what really works for maybe even your blood type. There's all kinds of philosophies of all this. And so, it's really interesting. And your husband feels good on the carnivore? Yes, it absolutely changed things for him. Yeah, it was a game changer. And so, the kids you do carnivore at home now are carnivore-ish? Yeah, actually my boys do a lot of the meats. But they do have rice because they're also growing. They have a high carb need. So, they have rice and beef a lot. And then what do you do as far as your meat? What type of meat? Where do you get your meat? Is it organic? We made a commitment to buy local. And so, we buy about 90% of our food direct from farms that are in Illinois. Okay. And I love supporting our local farmers. Absolutely. When I go to Whole Foods, you see stuff from New Zealand and all these other countries. And you think, how is that good when we have local producers here and we should be supporting our local infrastructure? Fish? You do fish? I do sardines. No way, my daughter just bought sardines and she said, this is it, Mom. They're doing it everywhere. They're all having sardines. I'm like, you get some sardines down. I wanna be in the house when you do it. Wow, but they're so good for you. They're really good with your omega-3s, right? And your EPA, DHEA. Yeah, so it's good for you. And you put something on them? Sometimes. You just do it? I mean, you know it's actually really convenient to just throw a can in your bag if you're going somewhere and then you have food. But, you know, then you need some gum. Right. Something. Wow, so those are some of the tricks that you have. What about? When we travel, we bring our own food. Like I have grass-fed beef sticks in my bag. Right. And so I don't get convenience foods when I'm out. I just have things with me. Yeah, I do. I love the grass-fed like chomps or everything like that. Yeah, well, I mean, these are things that I guess everybody, at least we're having the conversation. Yeah, and I'm not suggesting that everybody has to do that. People have to find what works for them. But the point is when you're miserable and you're chronically ill and you're not getting answers or it's an answer that you have to live with it for the rest of your life, I would say that's not true. You have to figure out what works for your body to keep your body healthy. And we need better science that helps people understand that and understand what their options are rather than just saying you have to be on a pill for the rest of your life. Yeah. Wow, thank you for sharing your story here. So the whole medical and healthy foods and Maha and being a mom, this also now has projected you into the political arena. Is that what I'm hearing? You're actually gonna run for Congress in Illinois? Yes. Tell us about how that came about. Well, I have really been called to help our kids. I see our kids getting sicker and sicker. I sat on the wellness committee for our school district where they give them pizza in a plastic bag and then call that their fruit and vegetable, yeah, fruit and vegetable because you know ketchup would be considered a fruit. Yeah, and French fries are your vegetable, right. So then you have all these kids with the anxiety and depression. And we had three kids that went to school with my kids that committed suicide and it broke my heart. Like, there are no words for where we are there. And it's all the mental health and it really is a chemical and a food exposure. I love what we're doing with Maha and the fact that we're paying attention. We're bringing it to the forefront. We're having conversations on the national stage about the importance of teaching our kids to care about what goes in their mouth. What's the connection to running for office? Because it's a big leap. Well, so Bobby getting appointed to house secretary. I'm noticing that he's not getting a lot of support by certain people that don't understand those issues. And I think that it would be very beneficial to have someone who's lived that and understands what he's trying to do that can communicate that to other members of Congress, whip those votes and champion those bills to get things codified into law. Have you run for office before? So fun fact, in the 90s, I was actually a US ambassador to Germany on a congressional program through the State Department for citizen diplomacy. And then when I came back to the US after going to college and everything, I got involved in my local government. So I was on the commissions and then a trustee and ran for village president. So I was very active civically. And then two years ago, I was one of Bobby's electors and then ran as an independent for Congress. Good for you. I believe that we have lost our way. George Washington told us we need to declare our independence from regionalism, partisanship and foreign entanglements. And we have become so partisan that we've lost the sight of our union. We are one people, we are Americans, right? We the people. We the people, American. And Americans first, right? And so I wanted to champion that message of reminding people that we need to have hard conversations. And that's how iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another, right? So you put your hat in the ring. So I put my hat in the ring. And obviously in the state of Illinois, they actually last round, they made it harder to get on the ballot. And I have conservative values. I mean, personally, that's where I stand. But I understand that when you're serving the electorate at large, you have to be the person that represents all the people. So that's what I'm doing is just going around the district, talking to people, listening to what their concerns are and trying to be a voice of reason. I love it. This is what happens, right? As moms, if we get sick, our family gets sick, if there's a crisis that we have to figure it out. And then oftentimes, when moms get empowered and educated, they then want to make a difference in their community. And so you are running for Congress. I love it. Good luck, Angel. Thank you. My kids are adults, so it's a different stage, right? It allows me to do something like this. Yeah, well, good for you. I mean, this is it. So, you know, why not? Exactly. You know, especially if you feel like God's calling you to do that, step into that role and we wish you the very best. We love that moms are running for office. So all the best. And thanks for sharing your story. It was a pretty powerful testimony. Thanks for having me. Well, that was such an interesting story. Once this mom became determined to heal her children, she ended up healing her entire family and that's how moms work, right? All right, well, coming up, we're zooming out for a wider look at some of the problems in healthcare. Let's hear from Kimberly Fletcher, who spoke with Amir Mortazavi, a venture capitalist who has holdings in the healthcare arena. He explains how the health insurance industry has changed and how currently they're putting profits over patients. Well, here we are another day at CPAC and it is amazing the incredible people that we meet while we're here. I'm filling in for Debbie. She's taking a break, Kimberly Fletcher here. And I had just met this amazing gentleman. We just had to have come on the podcast, Amir Mortazavi. So he's a fighter like me. I love to talk about fighters. So Amir, I'm just gonna go right in there and start. He's got a hard stop. You are going out, you faced the DOJ, they came after you and you won and now you're facing insurance companies. So that's like the gist of it, but tell me how this all started and how you won. Sure, well, it's the short answer to that question is that since 2013, my businesses in healthcare have been tied around physician partnerships. I owned businesses with physicians, labs, pharmacies, physician groups, you name it. That's brilliant for the patient. And thank you. And in 2020, you were the first physician United Healthcare, the largest insurer in the United States, sued me civilly for $100 million for owning a small piece of a company that I worked at from 2014 to 2017. And when the civil suit wasn't going anywhere, they started sharing fragmented information to the Department of Justice. Whoa, whoa, whoa, isn't that like illegal? Yeah. Some kind of collusion. And I've seen the emails where they're kind of stating like, we're not colluding with you, the judge rules on that. I'm just making sure that we're not colluding with you, even though they're exchanging information and giving each other presentations. While they're colluding. I think that the government, while I don't think they're completely innocent, I think they're just following a lead that a very large company is giving them. But they began investigating me in 2019. And that was obviously under Trump's first term. The DOJ started investigating you? And in 2024, the last year of Biden's administration, they indicted me on two counts of healthcare fraud. Based on what? Based on the information that they had accumulated for the last six years. And I was ready to fight it. I had been preparing to fight it. I had spent millions and millions of dollars on legal fees and lawyers and investigators and things to help exonerate me. And I was ready to go to trial in May of this year. And on February 13th, my lawyer got a call and said, the Department of Justice is dropping all the charges in the interest of justice. So that was a big win for me. I'm very thankful for the Northern District of Texas for coming to the right conclusion to this matter. But I know who was behind it, and it was UnitedHealthcare. So they didn't go away? You're still dealing with them? No, they're still suing me civilly, and I'm going to beat them in open court. I love it. Later this year. So the business, when you were talking to me about the business, a lot of people don't understand what PBMs are or how the healthcare insurance works. So just tell me a little bit about that so the listeners can understand. So I'm actually writing a book about how far we've fallen in terms of what health insurers are supposed to do for consumers and the American people. And the title of the book is called United We Fall. And it's all about the greediness of insurers, vertically integrated insurers, and how they're putting profits over patients, getting rid of competition like me. I was a little guy. I owned pharmacies in partnership with doctors and increasing their profits while increasing the cost of care for consumers. And it's no coincidence. Over the course of the last, I'd say 13 and a half years, insurance companies, which is who you pay your premiums to, right? You pay them every other week, like as part of your benefits, your paycheck, and then those are the insurance premiums. Then, so that's health insurance. Then you have PBMs, pharmacy benefit managers. And historically, PBMs were created to mitigate and reduce costs to consumers. It was a zero profit or very minimal profit business. 13 and a half years ago, health insurers started buying PBMs and consolidating them under their health insurance companies. That sounds like a conflict of interest. Then they started building out and buying their own pharmacies. Then they started buying physician groups. For example, UnitedHealthcare now employs 100,000 physicians that they own, practices that they have acquired over the last 10 years. So when I talk about vertically integrated health insurance companies, I'm saying you pay them a premium for the health insurance that you're gonna get. Then you go to one of their in-network doctors that works for them, and you pay your copay to them. Then they send you to one of their pharmacies, and then their PBM processes your prescription. And they make, it's called corporate capture. I call it corporate capture. So in a scenario where let's say you pay $650 a month for your health insurance, one doctor's visit, and one prescription, 80% of that is going to UnitedHealth group. 80%. So that's 80% we could have been saving before 13 years ago. I'm not saying that that's the margin. I'm saying that 80% of the dollars that you're spending on your- Is going to one entity. Going to one entity. And this all started happening in 2013, 2014 when the PBMs started consolidating, and then the health insurers started buying the PBMs. I'll give you another perfect example of it. CVS Health, which we all know is kind of the pharmacies that are on every corner, sometimes two on every corner. Historically they were a pharmacy, but sometime in the last 20 years they also created one of the nation's largest PBMs. It's called Caremark. So CVS and Caremark were one company around 2017. Then they merged with Aetna, which was one of the largest health insurers in the country, probably the second or third largest health insurer to become CVS Health. At the time I owned pharmacies. Right after the merger got approved by the DOJ and antitrust, they canceled all my in-network contracts and gave me new contracts at 50 cents on the dollar. Oh my gosh. Where I was getting reimbursed, I'm just using this as a round number because it's relative. Let's say I was getting reimbursed $100 for a medication. They said, we're only going to pay you 50. Well, my cost on the drug is somewhere between 50 and 60. So I was losing money before I paid my staff, paid my rent, paid my compliance officer, legal expenses, all that. So basically bankrupted my business at the time. Oh my gosh. And now four health insurers control 85% of all commercial lives in the United States. Because they have the health insurance, they have the PBMs and they have the doctors. And the pharmacies. So it's interesting to me because you're saying that the DOJ came after you for something that they're already doing. I mean, I know numerous doctors, they're getting these conglomerate clinics. It's really, really hard to find just one doctor in an office anymore. And I think the last time I had one was like 15 years ago. I don't even know they exist anymore. And so they keep getting into these conglomerates because they can't afford the cases that are going against them for malpractice, which are phony or whatever, for multiple reasons. They say it just makes more sense. Well, then these clinics start to push heavy on the doctors that they need to be pushing drugs and vaccines because they're getting a bunch of money from those four entities to do it. Exactly. So a perfect example of why this vertical integration isn't working is the price of insulin. In the last 30 years, diabetes, which is what insulin treats, the rate of diabetes in terms of populace in the American people has gone up 300% in the last 30 years. That's a very high number. But the cost of insulin hasn't changed. How is that possible? If I make more of something, if I make more of something, the price should go down, the cost should go down. And the way that they extract revenue from that is PBMs get rebates from drug manufacturers. Whereas before they used to be a few dollars, now they're 25 or $50. So that's why the cost of medication is going up or staying the same. Wait, wait, wait, wait. So what you're saying is the PBMs are- Are profit centers now. Supposedly saving money for you, but they're keeping it because they now own everything. Yeah, they're profit centers now for all the big health insurers. And if you go look at- No wonder the drugs are- Okay, I had a drug that I had to go get and I didn't realize, for whatever reason, I didn't realize that Walmart wasn't in my health plan. And so I go to Walmart and I go to get the prescription and the lady's like, oh, this can't be right. It's like two pills, okay? And I'm like, what's the matter? And she goes, it says it's $5,000. I'm like, what? That's insanity. So then I go and I'm like, we have a military healthcare because my husband's in the military. Tricare. Yep, and so I go into the Walgreens because I do have a, they are in my plan. And so I pick it up, it's $15. And I'm like, I need to do a video about this, but I think I just did because you just explained why it is a mess. So I have been convinced that the insurance companies are, first of all, they won't show you the prices. A friend of mine, Foster Freese, before he passed away, one of his big things was- Transparency. Yes, just tell us how much it costs, but they don't want to. What's the cash price? They won't tell you because then they have to tell the insurance company that that's what the cash price is and then they can't lose. But then there's the issue of the government doesn't pay their bills, okay? So you've got the Medicare, Medicaid, you have Tricare. And I know for a fact, I was in the military, my husband was in the military for almost 30 years. We know they don't pay their bills and it was really hard to find a doctor or a clinic that would take our kids outside of the military. And so I know that that's a thing, but now what's happening is everything that we're trying to do things to help offset the costs, they've now used that to make the costs go higher and they're like living in millions and millions of dollars while we're dealing with these high costs of medicine. Yeah, it's not so much a problem with the federal plans like Tricare, Medicare, and Medicaid because they're not profit centers. Like the government doesn't make money on- No, they don't. But the fact is- But the commercial insurance do. Right. Because they are publicly traded companies and they have a fiduciary duty to maximize profits. So they make decisions quarter to quarter based on stock value and earnings per share. And the whole thesis of my book, United We Fall, which highlights this, calling out bad actors like United Healthcare, Anthem, Blue Cross Blue Shield, CVS Health, is that they put profits over patients. The cost of care is going up and at the same time that all this consolidation has happened, their enterprise values have gone up five X. Well, that's why I really think you should include this whole show the prices thing. Because my point with the government is that because they don't pay, the insurance companies say, well, we have to pad the prices for those, because like the military, their bill is- But the insurance company does pay. Remember, the insurance company owns the PBM. So part of the fee they pay the PBM is internal. See what I'm saying? It's not, it's- But we wanna untether that. We wanna untether that. And my plan, this in January, all the CEOs of the five top health insurance companies, four of which I just named and another one, they sat before the Ways and Means Committee. I'm a conservative, I'm a Republican, and I have conservative values, but this transcends politics. And both sides of the aisle were aligned in exploiting and showing these CEOs of these companies how what they're doing isn't working. Wait, wait, wait, you're saying- AOC? AOC said something that I agree with. I never thought those words would come out of my mouth. You have to watch it. I think I sent it to you earlier. It is a four hour and 20 minute assault on health insurers. I'm gonna post that on our podcast links because everybody needs to see that. And their responses were, yeah, we could do better. Yeah, we could do better. The area that I didn't address in any of this is that they are also creating an antitrust environment. If four companies control 80 plus percent- Everything, that is antitrust. That is antitrust worthy. And Department of Justice or FCC needs to look into that. They need to split these companies up. They need to pick what they wanna do. Be a health insurance company, be a health insurance company. Because right now, all they're trying to do is corporate capture and keep as much of the money as possible. One of these large health insurers is now building outpatient surgery centers. So they're finding another way to funnel money into their pockets. Well, whoever's behind this game is a brilliant marketer and- And look, at the end of the day, it's a business. I think the CEO of United said this. What were your revenues in 2025 or, like $560 billion? Yeah, but our profit margin is only two or 3%. What? No. What? Oh, quarterly. Oh, yeah. So they're making 50 billion on 500 plus million. And a lot of that pays the machine. I think they have, I don't know, 200 and something thousand employees. Well, and the lobbyists. Yeah. They got tons of lobbyists. And they are, health insurers and Big Pharma are probably the largest employers of high-ranking government officials in terms of board, compliance committee, high-ranking roles within their organizations. Google it. How many, in the last 15 years, how many members of UnitedHealthcare, CVS Health, Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shields, board members or employees were former governors, head of Health and Human Services, head of the FDA, head of Medicare. That's a definite conflict of interest. Department of Justice, Deputy Attorney General. It is rampant. And so it's not just the lobby. It's also their hiring from within. You know, they're like, hey, let's do this. Let me, let these companies integrate. Let these companies integrate and vertically integrate. And then I'll give you a million dollar job when you come out of your $120,000 DOJ job. You know, the military had a standard that they set up. I think it was 12 years before you could, I mean, I think there needs to be some kind of standard. Cooling off period. Yes. Yeah. And so I used to be an auditor. I worked for a big four accounting firm. That was my, what I went to school for. I worked for Ernst & Young out of college. If I worked on a public company audit, and I was a peon, I was a staff, staff two and senior accountant. I was there for three years. I couldn't work for, say I wanted to leave E&Y. I couldn't go work for that public company for one year. So an accountant, an auditor had a cooling off period, but the federal government doesn't. But the federal government doesn't. Federal government gets away with a lot. Maybe they do have a cooling off period, but it's one of those like, yeah, we'll hire you as a consultant. I'm speculating, but they're going to find a way. Actually, there's always a loophole for that kind of thing. So you're writing a book. When do you think this book is going to come out? So I've been writing it for the last six and a half years. So we're close? We're very close. It's getting the I's dotted and T's crossed because I wrote it very emotionally. And to say that I wrote it is a long shot. I spoke it into a microphone just like this. And so I'm getting my words out on paper and organizing it. I have some people who can help you with that to make it go faster. I will connect you. And it would be a very good thing to get this done sooner than later. And when you do, you need an audio book because hardly anybody reads anymore. And this is something everybody needs to know. I'm so glad we ran into each other. Absolutely, same, thank you Kimberly. I meet the best people here, but the people that are out there fighting the good fight in all these different arenas, it's just good to be able to connect and realize that we aren't alone and that we are having wins. And the fact that you won against the DOJ and you're going to win against this health insurance company too. God willing. You're going to take them down. God willing. Expose them. God willing. Thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. All right, well, thank you to everyone that joined today's program. What a wide variety of influential people making a difference in their home and in their country. All right, moms, for information about Moms4America and all our amazing programs again, I just want to have you stop by our website, which is moms4america.us. We have resources here to support you on a journey through motherhood. I say this every week, from parental rights to public policy, from the kitchen table to Congress, Moms4America has it all. We are the ultimate support group. All right, moms, thanks for joining us. And as always, let's keep changing our country one home at a time. And I hope to see you next week. Make sure you share, like, and subscribe to this podcast. Thanks so much. A special thank you to our sponsor, the Herzog Foundation. The views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of the Herzog Foundation.