A basket of muffins, a photo with the president, a few phone calls, and one dinner.

So much for Tiffany Andrews, the mother of a Marine and Abbey Gate survivor. Tyler Vargas-Andrews says she has received support from the Biden-Harris administration in the three years since her son was seriously injured in the Kabul terrorist attack.

Andrews, a single mother of three and a California business owner, uprooted her life to be by her son's side as she fought for him at Walter Reed Hospital. Her situation inspired her to create and push for a bill for caretakers who are left without their livelihoods to care for wounded soldiers.

Andrews told the Daily Caller that despite visits with First Lady Jill Biden, personal calls and meetings with aides, he was ultimately ignored by the administration.

“My naivety, right? I think the government would suddenly step in and take care of us. Oh my God, could I have been so wrong,” Andrews said.

The Daily Caller recently spoke to Vargas Andrews, who was seriously injured when a suicide bomber detonated himself outside the gates of a monastery during the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Kabul, Afghanistan. He met with President Joe Biden and shared his story of being shunned by Vice President Kamala Harris and facing death. You can read the full interview here.

This week, The Daily Caller sat down with Andrews for an hour to hear her story about caring for her son and how the Biden-Harris administration has forgotten about her family.

Click here to read the full interview.

On August 26, 2021, Vargas-Andrews was fatally struck by more than 100 steel ball bearings. His stomach was torn apart, his left testicle ruptured, and his liver, bladder, and spleen were lacerated and punctured. He ended up having his right arm and left leg amputated. Nearly 200 people were killed, including 13 American servicemen.

Forty-eight hours after learning that her son had been bombed, Andrews found herself in Germany, leaving her three children and work to be with her dying son.

“I just left my kids on the other side of America. I'm taking care of 150 to 200 customers across the company, 17 employees, 17 different families. And I… I'm a single mother, 100%, and I don't have any other support to take care of my child. I have errands to come back to,” Andrews told the caller.

“I needed to know how I was going to still make a living and come back. I wasn't going to leave my son who could literally die. And I had to come pick up my young children and bring them across the river. I had to come back and move “Please stay with me.'' We were given an apartment by the Yellow Ribbon Fund, which we were very grateful for. But we had no income. You just cut off the head of my company. I was the highest biller. I was the one managing everyone,” Andrews said, adding that she still had to pay nearly $150,000 a month in bills on the West Coast while caring for Tyler.

President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, visited Vargas Andrews during their first week at Walter Reed. In anticipation of the president's visit, Vargas-Andrews told his mother that he wanted to withhold all medications for the day until the president arrived so he could be fully present.

“Tyler wanted to improve his cognitive abilities, so we took him off all his medications. He wanted to be present.” “He wanted to talk to the president now, so he stopped his medication and asked the doctors to hold off as best they could,” she said, noting that he was suffering from pain. was experiencing.

“It makes sense given his position professionally and in society.” [Biden] They don't always arrive on time. But we waited hours and hours and hours,” Andrews told the caller. “The president may not know it, but the Marine who was blown up was sitting there wanting to have a decent conversation with him, and after he was catastrophically blown up, he sat there all day without taking any painkillers. It means that

“No one said, 'Hey, he's not going to be here for three hours, so maybe we need to give him more medication to ease the pain.'” No one cared. No one. So his son sat there for hours until the president finally got there,” Andrews continued.

President Biden did not visit or contact Vargas-Andrews or his mother again after that meeting, but the first lady visited the wounded soldier again in mid-September 2021. That's when she asked Mr. Andrews how she could help. But just weeks after her son was still in the ICU after the bombing, Andrews told the caller that he was still in critical condition and was not ready to answer questions, she said. Ta.

Finally able to sort out where help was needed, Andrews expressed interest in legislation that would allow caregivers of wounded soldiers to receive government funding. After contacting Jill Biden's office about the matter, the first lady called Andrews directly to discuss the matter.

“I remember her saying, “This is how people actually change the law. It happens from people who have lived experience. They get very passionate and… Just keep pushing. And we talked about it,” Andrews said in an earlier call with the caller. “She said she was going to connect me with a senior military advisor or someone in the legislative arena.”

Soon, Rory Brocious, executive director of Joining Forces, reached out to Andrews. In 2011, then-Vice President Joe Biden worked with First Lady Michelle Obama to join forcesan initiative aimed at supporting “military and veteran families, caregivers, and loved ones.” Hey survivors. ”

Andrews communicated with Brosius over several months by text and long phone calls, telling the caller that she saw gaps in current law for caregivers in her situation.

“We had a very long phone conversation where I took notes, which I still have to this day. I discussed all this with her and she said that at the time she had been involved in the previous carers legislation. He told me about it. [that] She was involved in writing it, and she said, “You're right.'' She says, “We never thought that business owners could be caregivers, that there could be someone in your position,'' Ms. Andrews told a telephone reporter.

“I was grateful and I had hope. And I had hope that maybe I was rallying in the direction of someone who could help me,” she continued. She added that the country told her the country needed something comparable to the PPP loans handed out to small businesses during the coronavirus pandemic.

After several correspondences in early 2022, Ms. Andrews met Ms. Brosius for dinner in Maryland on August 5, 2022, to discuss how to advance legislation for caregivers. he told the caller.

A few weeks later, the day before the one-year anniversary of the Abbey Gate terrorist attack, Andrews followed up their dinner conversation with a text message. She had some more ideas on how to help people in her situation.

“I considered my student loan debt as a way to offset some of the financial damage my two minor children and myself suffered from having to relocate for 10 months to care for Sgt. How should I approach the President or First Lady about the possibility of doing so?'' Vargas Andrews? ” A text from Andrews to Brosius was seen and read aloud by the caller. Andrews had just seen a news report about the Biden administration's widespread student loan forgiveness program, but she didn't qualify for the program herself, so she thought the idea was a no-brainer for her. It occurred to her, she recalled.

“How can we get the Long-Term Care Act to consider changing the law for business owners and single parents? Or who can we talk to to make things better for future wounded warrior families in similar situations?” I want the Care Act to consider this issue and I want to help them in the future. I probably won't be the first and I'll definitely not be the last. No,” the message continued, asking Brosius for ideas and feedback.

Ms. Brosius marked it as read, but Ms. Andrews said she received no response.

The first lady's office responded to Andrews' story in a statement to the Telephone, adding that the president signed an executive order to support military families, spouses and caregivers in 2023.

“There was a contract between our office and Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews’ family,” Vanessa Valdivia, a spokeswoman for the first lady’s office, said by phone. “Joining Forces is informed by the lived experiences of military families and tells their stories to policymakers at the White House and across government. President Biden's executive order to increase access to quality care and support family caregivers.

“The President's executive order specifically directed actions to expand options for disabled veterans and strengthen support for military and veteran caregiver families,” she continued.

meanwhile Biden Executive Order Although it included provisions for caregivers, the bulk of the order was aimed at supporting spouses, caregivers, and survivors of federal service members. There are some provisions that apply to the private sector, and provisions that apply only to spouses also apply to entrepreneurs. The contents of the EO do not appear to apply to Tiffany Andrews' situation.

“The Biden administration has just blown away.” [my mom off when she reached out]. They just fired her. They didn’t care,” Vargas Andrews told the Caller. “At the end of the day, they didn't care. It's a shame, to be honest.”

Andrews told the caller that she has not received any financial support from the Biden administration. Her children received counseling provided by Walter Reed's regimental commander in 2021. She added that Andrews was compensated for some of her travel and food costs when she visited her son as he was recovering from his injuries. While she was meeting with Brosius, Ms. Andrews told her caller that she was told she would contact the Dole Foundation to see if they could assist with her situation, she said. She said Ms. Andrews had not responded to her last email to Ms. Brosius, and she asked whether such communication had been successful.

A White House official told the Caller that the White House cannot individually provide financial assistance, but can recommend resources within the federal government or through outside organizations.

But financially, the nonprofit organizations Yellow Ribbon Fund and Semper Phi Americas Fund assisted Andrews on behalf of the government to handle her business and bills. The majority of the funds raised for Tyler on her GoFundMe are helping Andrews and her family get back on their feet.

“The hardest thing as a parent is to accept help from a child who has been mortally wounded, and who wants to help you. If he looks at me and says, 'This only happened to me. That's not the point,'' I remember saying. It happened to our whole family, Mom. And as a token of my gratitude to him, I will repay the money every day. Because he doesn't have to pay it back. He’s given enough,” Andrews told The Caller.

Andrews remains interested in advancing legislation related to both caregiving and child abuse cases, an area she has advocated for in her professional experience.

“Someone may benefit from my story, different people in different ways, but I want to spend the next 45 years doing what God wants me to do. , I'm going to spend 45 years here doing what I'm going to do. Maybe I'll land some, but I might not land all of them,” she added. Ta.

“I've learned that as a leader, sometimes you have to steer your direction. It'll probably change at different points, but I have a list now and I'm working on that list a little bit every day. , I look forward to seeing where this goes,” Andrews concluded.