Latest / Breaking The Meta / Nurse Running for Congress in Iowa Speaks Out | Stephanie Steiner Interview
Transcript
- Breaking The Meta: you you Hello everyone and welcome to Breaking the Meta. Today's special guest is Stephanie Steiner, who is running for Iowa's fourth congressional district. Hello Stephanie, thank you for being here. Thank you so much for having me, I appreciate it. Absolutely. So I always start, if you wouldn't mind, for anyone who is not part of Iowa, ⁓ would you mind letting all of us know what encompasses Iowa's fourth district? Well, Iowa's fourth district is land-wise the largest district in the state and it encompasses 36 of the 99 total counties. We're mostly a very rural district with a few urban centers like Sioux City. We've got Ames, we have Council Bluffs, but those are our three largest ones. It actually spans the entire western border. of Iowa starting up where it meets South Dakota, Nebraska, goes all the way to the Missouri border, and then does this kind of up and over and up and over, right over the top of Des Moines, goes as far west as Marshall and Franklin counties, and then spans pretty much the entire northern border, half of the northern border. So it's a very, very large district. Wow, you must be having a fun time driving around that. It's a yeah, absolutely from the northern most northwest border all the way over to the farthest east border. ⁓ It takes close to five hours. One way to build that span. So it's a lot of driving, you know, which I don't mind. You know, last thing I did, I'm a retired women's health nurse, actually was a travel nurse. So I a lot of driving. So it's not something new to me. And it's good to get out in the communities and be able to talk with the people of the 4th district. think ⁓ that's the most important thing for anybody, really running it. So you mentioned it a little bit, but if you wouldn't mind going a little bit more into just a little bit about you so we can learn about who you are and then why you decided to run for Congress in the first place. All right. Yeah. So a little bit about me. So I moved to Iowa ⁓ in 1996. I was ⁓ a big part of why I'm running. was 15 pregnant in a high school dropout. ⁓ And my dad built ⁓ hog confinement units. So we kind of like army brats. We were constantly moving all across the U S. ⁓ but when I moved to Iowa and I was having my first child and especially being young, There was something about Iowa that everywhere I'd been, I'd never seen before. And it really was the sense of community. ⁓ Very early on, one of our farmers, unfortunately, in his mid thirties, some of his wife had just had a child. Of course, me at that point, I was a new mom myself and he passed away during harvest. ⁓ And it wasn't just his direct community, but the entire community from around the counties, they just showed up. Right? They brought their equipment in, they harvested his fields, they brought his ⁓ widow, you know, food, they were there to support her. And that's something you don't see everywhere. So that's why I chose to stay in Iowa. It's why I chose to raise my family here. Ultimately, because of the great community and the support, I was able to go on and get my GED when I was 17. I went to nursing school when I was 23. I had a couple more kids while I was in nursing school, went on to take my first job in women's health at Mercy Medical Center in Sioux City. I was there for six years. And then from there, I became a travel nurse for seven years, went all over the country. Mother of seven, I'm a small livestock producer. raise goats. My husband has a small welding business on top of working, you know, anywhere from 55 to 65 hours a week ⁓ doing metal fabrication and welding. ⁓ And we struggle to get by, right? And so, so many in our communities are facing those same struggles. ⁓ Being in healthcare, ⁓ watching the cuts to our social programs like Medicaid, to, you know, Medicare reimbursements, the, you know, decimation of the ACA subsidies. Here in our rural area, ⁓ it is going to cause the closure of our hospitals, ⁓ our clinics, our pharmacies, and being from healthcare. That's something that I don't want to see happen. So a little bit about me, a little bit about why I jumped in to run for Congress, because I'm not a career politician. I'm just an everyday Iowan, like so many people in our history. Yeah. So when you've driven around your very large district, I think you mentioned a lot of it, but Would you mind talking about what the common pain points the common problems that people are coming to you with that? ⁓ The struggles of the fourth district of Iowa. Well, you know, yeah, there's a lot of them It's a lot of the same things we're seeing nationwide, but right here in the fourth district One we don't have a lot of job opportunities So a lot of ⁓ our community members are already working two and three jobs and they're still qualifying for things like SNAP and Medicaid. ⁓ So our wages haven't kept up. ⁓ We are a right to work state, so our workers don't have a lot of job protections. We have a childcare desert, so even if you do have jobs, it is difficult to keep those jobs ⁓ because you don't have anybody to watch your kids. We used to be number one really in the nation for education. We're now down like number 48, our economy. We lost I 6.1 % to Iowa's economy in the first quarter. And we've only regained 5 % of that. So our economy is failing, our wages are stagnant. People are having a hard time finding jobs. ⁓ Our healthcare system is under tremendous strain and on brink of collapse. ⁓ You know, have OBGYN care deserts, ⁓ you know, and cancer rates. ⁓ Iowa is number two in leading numbers of cancers in the nation and we're the only state where cancer rates are still rising. ⁓ Our air quality is an issue. have a very large agriculture base being a rural area. ⁓ Agriculture huge, huge heart of Iowa's economy. But we're losing our small farmers and our small clubs and, you know, having kind of a corporate capture. And, you know, that's a problem. Our water is being polluted by chemicals that are being put out in massive quantities, manure from a lot of the CAFOs, whether it's hog confinement, dairy confinement, feedlot has to go somewhere. And so we are struggling with everyday people getting cancer. It goes back to when you don't have insurance. Since I've been through this district, I've ⁓ met two women who are in their early 30s. Both were diagnosed with breast cancer. Both were denied PET scans early on because they were told, you're too young, it's not going to be aggressive. ⁓ Both of these women, luckily in one sense, but unluckily in another. ⁓ had to take out a loan at the bank and one of them mortgaged their home to come up with the $32,000 that it costs for the PET scan. ⁓ And had they not have done that, their cancer, which turned out to be very aggressive, ⁓ would have killed them. ⁓ Luckily they're, but so these are the same issues, healthcare, ⁓ the economy, jobs, how they're gonna put food on the table, right? how they're going to take care of their elderly parents or family members that need skilled care. We don't have skilled care facilities ⁓ because they're closing down. The money and the reimbursements just aren't there for it. So people are just trying to figure out how they're going to survive day to day. ⁓ So you mentioned the far farmers and the stuff that you're the agriculture that Iowa is dealing with as a whole. Obviously. the tariffs, et cetera, have been a massive pain on the agriculture business in Iowa. What do you hope to do if you get into Congress to help? Because there's obviously been a lot of conversation about the fact that just America as a whole has used soy and corn and And we, and most places only do that. And we've, we've hurt ourselves in that respect as well. What kind of things do you hope to put in place if and when you get into Congress that would help Iowans who are struggling with the agriculture side of things? Right. So a big portion of I do is talking to those farmers first and foremost, cause they're the ones that know what they need. Right. ⁓ one of those things would be giving them right to repair. right now with the high cost to run a farm, right? You have to have a lot of very expensive equipment and they're dealing with a lot of those manufacturers not even allowing them to repair their own equipment. They have lockouts, they are being required to take those into implements and paying very high prices to take care of their own equipment, right? We've got ⁓ only a handful of input. ⁓ cost suppliers, places that provide like fertilizer, the seed, the materials that farmers need to do farming in the first place, right? And the antitrust and monopoly laws are not being enforced. And because of that, you have this very small group of people that control that. And so they set the price. ⁓ Yeah, a lot of people think, well, the farmers are getting all this subsidy. Well, they really don't. Yeah, Congress. appropriates the money in the farm bills, it passes right through our farmers' hands and right into the hands of the input cost companies. They set that price. And so the farmers have no negotiating ability to that. ⁓ Right along with that, we talk about free and fair markets, right? And what does that really mean? Well, there's only a handful, a couple, ⁓ two main ⁓ grain buyers, right? So if you're a farmer and you have soybean, if you have corn, if you have any other grain product, And you need to sell it. You get one or two options and you, a lot of times, a lot of our farmers, they're being paid less than what it costs them to put it in and then take it out. So they're taking a loss on that. Right. Like I said, then you walk in with these subsidies, which is basically being laundered right through their hands and to input. So we need to ⁓ enforce our ⁓ monopoly antitrust laws. We need to break up these input cost companies to make farming more competitive. we need to give free and fair market so our farmers can negotiate with buyers both in and out of the United States. We need to be looking for more markets for our products. ⁓ One of the most recent things, soybean, right? So tariff war really ⁓ has skyrocketed total loss bankruptcies for farmers nationwide, especially true right here in Iowa. ⁓ But one of the new areas that they're looking at is a product manufactured from soy that is a fire suppressor. So right now, if you go to put out a fire, right, a lot of times if it's not water, it's chemicals, some of those are forever chemicals, it's not real good to have in our environments. But there is a product they're looking at now that's made from soybean, and it is biodegradable and it's safe for the environment. So allowing our farmers really to work in the state, across the nation, and with other countries as well as other industries ⁓ to create new markets, right? So that we are not held in a sense hostage by one country. That's just, in one sense, that's not good for our nation. It's kind of a security issue right there too. When you look at it, so many people, again, goes back to our economy, right? You bankrupt our farmers. When that money in our rural areas isn't brought into the community by those farmers, that money is not disseminated to our banks. It's not disseminated in our gas stations or our implement dealers, our grocery stores. And then those businesses, they fail. And then our small town communities, they die. We're seeing that. We've been seeing that because of big ad corporate capture of our land. think Bill Gates is the number three landowner. ⁓ in Iowa, and I guarantee you're not going to see Bill Gates out here on a tractor farming, right? But all the land that is under his name that he leased farms, right? When those crops come out or that livestock sold, that money that would have stayed in the community had our small farmers been the ones farming it, now gets whisked away to boardrooms in New York and California, and it's Iowa's rural community that suffers for that. So one of the other issues that I think all of the country is dealing with is a lack of accountability, especially from our politicians, regardless of the side of the aisle you're dealing with right now. So my question is, how do you see accountability? How do you see being held accountable by the 4th District? And how do you see accountability going forward for Congress as a whole? Right. Well, I, you know, recently I became certified with the oath of office the politicians create something I voluntarily did. This is an organization that's out there hoping to get anybody that's running for office, whether it's in your city council or your school board, all the way up to the presidency to be able to stand up and say, I'm going to be held accountable by my constituents. Right? I am the voice. I would be the voice for 800,000 approximately people. Right? They need to know what I, as their elected official, doing, why I'm doing that. ⁓ If I'm going against what this district wants, they need to have a right to recall. ⁓ You know, we elect representatives, we elect senators, we elect presidents. And when we do that, we are doing it in a good faith effort to say, you are going to go and be our voice. You're going to do the will of the people, not the will of yourself. And right now what we're seeing is not that. ⁓ We have people in Congress ⁓ on both sides of the aisle, honestly. Right? I'm not afraid to step out there and say, it's not just this or that. It's people on both sides. For far too long, that have been more accountable to their donors and corporations ⁓ than they are to the people. And the people need a way to hold their elected officials accountable. ⁓ Anybody that wants to sit in a public service role should understand that they're there to serve the people, not to be served by the people. ⁓ If you're not doing your job, the people should have a right and a way to recall you, kick you out and put somebody there that's gonna do. what it is they're electing that person to do. I think we need to see that across the nation. ⁓ If you're not willing to do that, you really should just go and resign your seat. ⁓ We're seeing that, like I said, in Congress right now. ⁓ So many things, tariffs, mean, the power of the purse and instead of ⁓ doing what they're elected to do, just letting Trump throw tariffs on whoever he wants because he's mad at them. Right. I mean, a hundred percent tariff on Canada because they have said, well, you know, we're not, we're not going to play this game with you. We're going to move forward while you sit where you're sitting and figure out what the heck's going on. Like while you're destroying your country, your economy, while you are embarrassing yourself and, the great people of the United States on the world stage, we're not going to partake in that. We're not going to participate in that. We are going to continue to be a democracy. We're going to continue to negotiate on the world stage and we're going to do it. got to do for the people of our nation. Can you blame, you know, Mark Carney for that? No, I cannot. I respect him for doing his job. And a president decided, well, you're getting a thousand, you're getting a hundred percent tariff. That's another chance on the American people who are already struggling to put food on the table or pay for medication for their kids. So obviously we live in a nation that Regardless of whether we actually agree on more things than we realize, there is a strong issue of identity politics and division because of potentially even just a few issues that are arguably ones that we shouldn't be focusing on as much as we are. What has it been like going around and interacting with people that are that have voted for Trump or Republicans in general that see ⁓ a D next to your name when they talk with you. Right. And believe it or not, I get that. And I just look and I'm going say, hey, let's talk about the issues here. ⁓ Number one, you see that, but you don't know me. Number one. So how about you tell me what your issues are? And then they'll start telling me. And I try to find common ground because the truth of it is, like you said, most people in this nation have more in common than we have. I'm not someone who is going to engage in culture wars. ⁓ We are supposed to be a free nation. ⁓ Whether you agree with someone's identity or someone's lifestyle, that person has a right to that identity and that lifestyle, just like you have a right to not participate in it. That's part of being free. ⁓ Respect that. you want that that same courtesy, you want that same respect, then be willing to give it. I'm not saying that you know you've got to go out there and all of a sudden, right, be someone that is rallying behind say the LGBTQ plus community. But at the same time, you know, go back to what your Grammy told you, you know, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. So if you don't like that community, keep it to yourself. Don't participate in it, okay? You have that right, just like they have a right to be that way. ⁓ I think we need to get away from the culture politics and these culture wars. ⁓ First and foremost, people have right to be free. You know, we have a bill of rights, we have a constitution, we need to be following that. ⁓ Government doesn't need to be involved in the privacy issues of a person's life, rather that's the privacy a person has between them and their care team. Whether that's the privacy between what goes on with them and a partner or a lover or a spouse in their own home, in their own bedroom. You don't want somebody in your bedroom, don't be in theirs. But let's get back to the issues. Let's get back to good paying jobs. Let's get back to economic growth. Let's get back to raising our children and providing them with an education. so that when they become adults that, hey, they've got a job where they can buy a home, get married and have a reasonable expectation to safely and ⁓ securely raise a family and be contributors to our economy. You know, that's what made America great. What we see now. This is not making us great. It's not making us better. And if anything, the death of Rene Good and Alex Preti ⁓ should tell everybody it sure as hell isn't making us safer. Yeah. You brought up the idea of, or you brought up Canada and what they, and their, the trade deal they made with China just recently and the response of Trump to that. I want to go a little bit. broader in the respect of, you know, for the last 80 years, the United States has been kind of the king of the castle when it's come to being at the seat on the world stage. And in one year, this administration has has practically destroyed that. Whether you're talking the tariffs, whether you're talking Venezuela, whether you're talking Greenland, everything, the back and forth that's happening with the EU right now, regardless of what this administration thinks and his his utmost ardent supporters, our place at the table has changed. Right. That's it. Completely. So where do you see us going forward from from this? Where do we go from here? Right. How do we begin to scale this back and fix it? Well, first thing you're going to have to do is fix it right here at home. All right. I'm not saying I agree with everything, but you know, here's the thing. We need to first look at our domestic policy. We need to start focusing on Americans, right? Goes back to that, right? Once we do that, we also also understand to do that, we have to have a seat at the table on the world stage. We have to be able to negotiate. know, compromise and negotiation isn't a dirty word. Right? That's how we got to that position on the world stage to begin with. Right? ⁓ Strong arming these countries, it's not the way it's going to hurt us. But part of that is it's going take us generations to undo what's been done. But it's going to end with good intentions ⁓ and with an openness to negotiate, coming back to the table. with world leaders, whether that is Xi Jinping in China, whether that is with the EU, ⁓ whether that is with Venezuela ⁓ or leaders in Africa, you've got to come back to the table and start negotiations over. And that's unfortunate, right? What we spent 80 years building up has been destroyed in a year. ⁓ And it's going to take a lot longer than a year to fix that. But you've got to have people that are willing to say, I'm not going to tow a party line. And I'm going to say that straight out. I got a D by my name. But first and foremost, my responsibility is to the people of this district. After that, to the state, to this nation. And we need to do what's right across the board, which is negotiation. We have to start doing that. And you mentioned local as well as as on the world stage. And I think that's an important ⁓ thing to talk about. And I only say that because specifically the most recent incident with Greenland has, I think, shown a very, I think one of the biggest difficulties that we will have in interacting in the world stage, because he created the tariffs and then he created a trade deal with the EU. And then he threatened more tariffs because they weren't going to let him have Greenland like he wanted. And the thing that always comes to my mind is how could anyone trust any deal with us knowing that even if a Democrat goes into power, even if we own all three branches of government, assuming they're all good people in there and they want to do good. Who says the next presidential election, doesn't go back to the exactly the way it was. So there needs to be more protections in there for things like that. This administration is constantly moving the goalpost, right? Authoritarian regimes, that's what they do. They tell you one thing and then when you try to comply with that, then all of sudden they move that goalpost. First it was, well, it's got to be this. Outright lies. The trade deals, right? the willer and diller of the world here, Donald Trump, right? I've yet to actually see a true trade deal. What was that going to take on our end? Right? We need to make sure that we ⁓ look at an overhaul of our system. ⁓ If there's a silver lining to all of this, right? It has shown us where our cracks are, where we had weaknesses, where, you know, things worked because everybody that came to the table was playing by the rules. And we now see that that's not the case. So ⁓ we have to change some of the structure of our government. ⁓ We, you know, in the way that we make appointments, right, to your other state, the Department of Homeland Security, right, when we have special envoys to other countries. There were, have to start now. We now know we're going to have to put safeguards in place, right? We can't just expect that somebody is going to play by the rules, right? And, you know, it's, and that's it. We right here at home are grappling with that. Now think about, and that's what I encourage, think about what other nations must be thinking. If we, the people of the United States can't trust our government. We can't trust a lot of our local leaders, right? We sometimes can't even trust our family or our neighbors. How in the world can another nation then trust us? Again, know, trust is, like that, trust is not easy to get, you know, it takes a while to get it, but it can be gone overnight and that's gone. It's gone. We can't go back to what was. Doesn't matter if we get a Democratic president and a great Congress and the best of everything. Just because we have that, it is not just going to go back to the way that it was. It can't. And it shouldn't. And it shouldn't. Right? I mean, like I said, we know where those cracks are. We're going to have to address those. ⁓ I do it all the time and I'll say it here. I am still calling on... members of Congress and House and the Senate, the Republicans, the Democrats, everybody, please start doing the right thing because that's where it's going to start. At any moment, they could fix this. That's the sample. Any moment, any day of the week, if Congress did their job, we could begin to rein this back in and start doing the right thing. But right now we can't. So I want to do a little future casting and You get through the primaries, you get through the general election, you're elected, January 2nd comes, you're sworn into office. What's the first thing you do? What's the first thing I'm going to do? Well, I'm going to sit down with other members of the House and take a look at where we're at at that point ⁓ and look at where we need to go to and then start negotiation, right? Start compromising. How can we... start making life for the people of this nation better? How can we start to restore our position on the world stage? ⁓ Because that's gonna take everybody in Congress getting together and working on that. I'd love to see a blue tsunami, right? But even more than that, what I hope is that we see the right people stepping up for the right reasons. to start doing the right thing. So that's the first thing, know, let me say, well, you're going to do articles of impeachment against Trump. Are you going to start? What I'm going to do is start asking for accountability. I'm going to start demanding accountability from every, you know, administration that are every member of the cabinet, every member of the administration, Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, right? Getting together with members from both sides of the aisle. and start doing the work that Congress is supposed to be doing. Can't agree more. Hallelujah. For anyone that has gotten this far, listened this far, as we get near the end, what is one or two things that no matter what they have heard up until this point that you hope that they remember about you and your campaign? You know, I want to bring empathy and compassion back to Washington. First and foremost, everything that you do should stem from that. You make good decisions doing that. Right? ⁓ I want people to know I'm not a career politician. I don't want to be. think career politicians are the biggest problem that we have that's gotten us to where we're at right now. ⁓ So I want people to I'm just an everyday person. ⁓ I'm somebody that, you know, wakes up, puts my big girl panties on one leg at a time in the morning. Um, that I'm out here fighting for my family and fighting for theirs. Um, that I don't care if you're a Republican or a Democrat or independent. I, what I care is that you're a human being here in the fourth district, that you are an Iowan. Um, and that I want them to know that I will be here to answer any questions they have. I'm here to work with them. I'm not here to work against them or to fight with them. I, um, My campaign is a people powered and a people focused campaign. I think everybody's should be that way, but that's what mine is. ⁓ I'm someone who has been a advocate, especially for the most vulnerable populations, the vulnerable communities, my whole life. ⁓ Right. I've needed hand ups and not hand outs to get me where I was. Right. I am here to work with this community and with this district to make our lives better. That's what I want them to know. I'm here fighting for you and I'm going to do that by working with you. If anyone wants to learn more about you or help your campaign, whether it's volunteering or contributing, where can they find you? Well, we've got the website, is SteinerForIowa.com. It's just all spelled out. ⁓ You know, can follow me on Facebook, TikTok, Instagram. I'm there and look me up through ActBlue. They're kind of old school and like doing checker money orders. The address where they make those out to and where they can send them to is on the website, SteinerForIowa.com. Always, you know, like I said, I'm not a career politician. I don't have big donors. Contribution right now, I think my average contribution is about $32. But I have people that give a dollar and it helps, right? I hate asking for money. It's not the way I was raised. ⁓ But I'm asking for people if they're able to contribute to this campaign. It helps me reach our communities, gets me out to talk to the farmers and to our teachers and to our nurses and the people in the community that are the heart of this. Yeah, you can go to the website. They can look me up on ActBlue. They can follow me. on social media, all of that helps. And volunteer, volunteer, volunteer. Big district, lot of land mass. I'm always looking for volunteers to help knock on doors, make phone calls, send postcards. So please, if you're able, ⁓ there's a place for every person in this campaign. Yep. Stephanie, thank you so much for being here and letting us learn about you and your campaign and what you hope to do for the 4th District. For everyone that has listened this far, thank you so much. really do appreciate it. Please hit all those buttons down below. makes it possible for me to keep doing what I'm doing, which is interviewing some amazing people who are running for office. This is ⁓ really an honor to meet so many amazing people around the country that really love this country and want it to become something amazing for everyone. For anyone that's new to breaking the meta, we are about having hard conversations when necessary about breaking that status quo and fighting for the idea that all people, matter your race, religion, gender, or identity, get rights, respect, dignity, and safety. ⁓ And please, please watch and share this out as Stephanie was talking about. Everyone who's running, everyone that you're seeing is not taking big pack money, is not taking big corporate money. They're really trying to do this because they care about their districts. And that means visibility, that means name recognition, And that means people in this country helping do that for them. And ⁓ so many want to make this country better and it just takes a little help. And sometimes that means at minimum watching these videos, whether it's their own social media or this video right here. ⁓ please help out. again, thank you, Stephanie. And we'll see everyone next time on Breaking the Meta. Bye guys. Thank you.