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

That’s all Tiffany Andrews, mother of Abbey Gate survivor Marine Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews, says she received from the Biden-Harris administration in the three years since her son was severely wounded in the Kabul terrorist attack.

A single mother of three and California business owner, Andrews uprooted her life to be by her son’s side as he fought for his at Walter Reed Hospital. Her situation inspired her to create and push legislation for caretakers left without a livelihood as they cared for their wounded soldiers.

Despite visits, a personal phone call with First Lady Jill Biden and meetings with her aides, Andrews told the Daily Caller she was ultimately ignored by the administration.

“My naivety, right? I’m thinking the government’s going to swoop in and take care of us. Oh, God, was I so wrong,” Andrews said.

The Daily Caller recently sat down with Vargas-Andrews, who was severely wounded when a suicide bomber detonated himself outside Abbey Gate during the U.S. evacuation from Kabul, Afghanistan. He recounted his experience meeting President Joe Biden, being shunned by Vice President Kamala Harris, and coming face-to-face with death. The interview can be seen in full here.

This week, the Daily Caller sat with Andrews for an hour-long interview to hear her story as a caretaker for her son and how the Biden-Harris administration forgot about her family.

Watch the full interview by clicking here. 

On Aug. 26, 2021, Vargas-Andrews was hit with more than 100 steel ball bearings, leaving him catastrophically injured. His stomach was ripped open, his left testicle exploded and his liver, bladder and spleen were lacerated and punctured. He eventually had his right arm and left leg amputated. Nearly 200 people were killed, including 13 American service members.

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

“I’ve just left my kids on the other side of the U.S. And I have an entire company where I’m taking care of 150 to 200 clients, 17 different employees, so 17 different families, and I’m a single mom, 100% with no other support to take care of my kids. I need to have a business to come back to,” Andrews told the Caller.

“I needed to know how I was going to still have a livelihood and come back, because I’m not leaving my son, who quite literally might die, and I needed to then come back to get my younger children and move them across the U.S. to stay with me. We were put in an apartment out there by the Yellow Ribbon fund, and that was incredibly grateful. But we didn’t have an income. You just cut the head of my company off. I was the highest biller. I was the one that managed everybody,” Andrews said, adding that while she was caring for Tyler she still had nearly $150,000 in monthly bills to pay on the west coast.

President Joe Biden and his wife Jill paid a visit to Vargas-Andrews his first week in Walter Reed. In anticipation of the president’s visit, Vargas-Andrews told his mom that he wanted to hold off all medication that day until the president came so he could be fully present.

“Tyler stopped all his medication because he wanted to be cognitive. He wanted to be present. He wanted to have a present conversation with the president, and so he stopped his medicine, and he asked the doctors to hold what they could,” Andrews said, noting that her son was in unbearable pain because of the double amputations and numerous surgeries he had undergone.

“It’s understandable as a professional, and given his nature of his position in society, that [Biden] would not necessarily be there on time. However, we waited for hours upon hours upon hours,” Andrews told the Caller. “What the president may not even know, is that that blown up marine sat there wanting to be able to have a decent conversation with him, and sat there all day without his pain meds after being catastrophically blown up.”

“Nobody said, ‘hey, maybe we need to give him more meds because he’s not going to be here for three hours… to help take the pain off.’ Nobody cared. Nobody. So there, my son sat for hours upon hours until the president did finally get there,” Andrews continued.

Though President Biden never visited or reached out to Vargas-Andrews or his mother again after that meeting, the first lady paid another visit to the wounded soldier in the middle of September 2021. At the time, she asked Andrews how she could help her. But just a few weeks after her son was bombed and was still in ICU, Andrews told the Caller she was still in a state of crisis and not prepared to answer the question.

Eventually, after being able to sort out where she needed help, Andrews expressed interest in creating legislation for caretakers of wounded soldiers that would allow them to receive funding from the government. After reaching out to Jill Biden’s office about it, the first lady called Andrews personally to discuss.

“I remember her saying, that’s how people actually make change in legislation that happens. It happens from somebody with life experience happen to them and they become very passionate and just kind of keep pushing. And we had a discussion about that,” Andrews said in an earlier phone call with the Caller. “She had said that she was going to connect me with her senior military advisor and with somebody legislatively.”

Soon, Rory Brosius, executive director of Joining Forces, reached out to Andrews. Then-Vice President Joe Biden teamed up with first lady Michelle Obama in 2011 to create Joining Forces, an initiative aimed at supporting “military and veteran families, caregivers and survivors.”

Over the span of a few months, Andrews told the Caller that she communicated with Brosius through text and a long phone call about her where she saw gaps in current legislation for caregivers in situations such as her own.

“We had a very lengthy phone call where I took some notes, and I still have those notes. And I went over all of this with her, and she had shared with me at that time that she had been involved in the prior caregiver legislation, and [that] she was involved in writing it, she said, ‘you’re right.’ She goes ‘we never contemplated a business owner being a caregiver, or somebody in your unique shoes,’” Andrews told the Caller.

“I appreciated the acknowledgement, and I was hopeful. And I was hopeful that maybe I’d been funneled in a direction with somebody that might be able to help,” she continued, adding that she had told her the country needed something equivalent to the PPP loans handed out during the coronavirus pandemic to small businesses.

After corresponding several times in the beginning of 2022, Andrews told the Caller she and Brosius met for dinner in Maryland on Aug. 5, 2022, to discuss how to push legislation for caregivers forward.

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

“How would I approach the President or First lady about possibly considering my student loan debt as a way to offset some of the fiscal injury my two minor kids and myself have suffered due to my relocation for 10 months to care for Sgt. Vargas Andrews?” a text from Andrews to Brosius, reviewed by the Caller, read. Andrews recalled that she had just seen news reports about the Biden administration’s widespread student loan forgiveness program, which she herself wasn’t eligible for, spawning the idea.

“How can I get caregiver legislation to consider modifying legislation for business owners and single parents – or who can I contact to assist me in making it better for future wounded warrior families in similarly situated shoes? I want caregiver legislation to look at this issue, I want to help those into the future. I will not be the first. am probably not the first and definitely won’t be the last,” the text continued before asking Brosius for her ideas and feedback.

Brosius marked the text read and Andrews said she never received any answer.

The First Lady’s office responded to Andrews’ story in a statement to the Caller, adding that in 2023 the president had signed an executive order to help military families, spouses and caregivers.

“There was engagement between our office and Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews’ family,” Vanessa Valdivia, a press secretary in the First Lady’s Office, told the Caller.  “Joining Forces is informed by the lived experiences of military families, and brings their stories to policymakers at the White House and across the Administration.  The experiences of military and veteran caregivers and their families informed President Biden’s executive order on increasing access to high-quality care and supporting caregivers for families.”

“The President’s executive order specifically directed actions to expand options for veterans with disabilities, and better support military and veteran caregiving families,” she continued.

Biden’s executive order primarily focused on expanding the availability and quality of child care and long-term care services via a series of executive branch programs. It did briefly touch on VA benefits for family caregivers for wounded troops, such as situations like the one that happened to Andrews: ” the Secretary of Veterans Affairs shall consider issuing a notice of proposed rulemaking by the end of this fiscal year that would make any appropriate modifications to eligibility criteria for the Program of Comprehensive Assistance for Family Caregivers, which provides services and benefits, including a monthly stipend, for eligible caregivers of veterans who sustained a serious injury or illness in the line of duty.”

“The Biden administration just blew [my mom off when she reached out]. They just wrote her off. They didn’t care,” Vargas-Andrews told the Caller. “At the end of the day, they didn’t care. It’s disappointing, honestly, it’s very disappointing.”

Andrews told the Caller she never received any financial support from the Biden administration. Her children did receive a counselor provided by the regiment commander at Walter Reed in 2021. Andrews added that she was compensated for some travel and meals when she was visiting her son as he was healing from his injuries. While meeting with Brosius, Andrews told the Caller she was told she would reach out to the Dole Foundation to see if they could help provide for her in her situation. In Andrews’ last text to Brosius that she said went unanswered, she asked if such communication had been successful.

The White House cannot provide individual financial assistance, but can recommend resources within the federal government and through outside organizations, a White House official told the Caller.

But when it came to funds, taking care of her business and bills, non-profits Yellow Ribbon Fund and Semper Fi America’s Fund stepped in place of the government to support Andrews. In large part, funds raised in a GoFundMe for Tyler have helped keep Andrews and her family on their feet.

“Tell you what, that’s the hardest thing as a parent, is to accept help from your kid that is so catastrophically injured, and that’s the person that wants to help you. I remember him looking at me and him saying, ‘This didn’t just happen to me. It happened to our whole family, mom. And as a thank you to him, I will spend every day putting that money back because he shouldn’t have to. He’s given enough,” Andrews told the Caller.

Andrews is still interested in pushing legislation, both on caregiving and regarding child abuse cases – an area she has advocated for due to her professional experience.

“Somebody can benefit from my story. Different ways, different people can benefit. But I’m going to spend the next 45 years, God willing, that I’m here, 45 years doing the things that I’m setting out to do. I probably, I’ll land some, I may not land them all,” she added.

“I’ve learned as a leader that sometimes you have to navigate your direction. It will probably change at different points, but I have a list right now, and every day I work a little bit on that list, and I look forward to seeing where some of this goes,” Andrews finished.

Editor’s Note: This article has been updated to accurately reflect which Biden administration executive order the first lady’s office referred the Caller to. 

AUTHOR

Reagan Reese

White House correspondent. Follow Reagan on Twitter.

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.