Latest / Breaking The Meta / Autism Mom Runs for Congress After Indiana Cuts ABA Therapy | Tabitha Zeigler
Transcript
- Breaking The Meta: Hello everyone and welcome to Breaking the Meta. My name is Mike Winson. Today we are sitting down with Tabatha Zeglu who is running for US Congress District 8 in the state of Indiana. Hello Tabatha, how are you doing today? I'm doing so good, so good. ⁓ So the way that we usually start all these things ⁓ is to give you a chance to just let us get to know you a little bit. So if you wouldn't mind just giving us a little background on who you are and why you decided to run. Tabitha: I'm great. How are you? Breaking The Meta: for Congress in the first place. Tabitha: Well, first I'll say I'm starting to lose my voice, so I'll apologize for that. Well, I am the mom of three little kids with autism. I am a late diagnosed, high masking, autistic female, as they call it. I've been an autism advocate and activist for a long time. There are a lot of bad things happening in this country. When RFK started with his nonsense, I was like actively on social media trying to educate people, inform people. I started a podcast right after Trump was elected because I was trying to find a way that I could educate, inform, raise awareness for autism. I was really hoping that I would see candidates step forward that were very clear, you know, autism disability advocates. And I just did not see that. So I was at a meeting with a bunch of other ladies one day and I said, listen, it seems to me for all of us that have nonprofits and all of this sort of thing. It doesn't matter how much advocacy we do, how much fundraising we do. Ultimately, all roads to act like advocacy and activism lead to Washington because these are the people that are ⁓ creating the legislation. They're the ones holding the purse. So we literally are handicapping ourselves at the knees of these people and they don't give a shit about us. And whenever I started hearing conversations about institutionalization, ⁓ Indiana right now, Breaking The Meta: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Tabitha: has capped ABA to a three year lifetime maximum. My kids participate in ABA. There's so many things going on right now that I was just like, hell no, somebody has to say something. Then I had to talk with these ladies that I very much respect that are in the autism spaces and they're like, you do it. And I was like, oh, right. I wasn't expecting that. And so then I just jumped in head first, like normal. And I was like, right, somebody needs to do something about this. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. you Tabitha: ⁓ Somebody needs to be speaking from lived experience from within the community to combat this nonsense. And that's essentially why I decided to run for Congress. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. I think that's one of the great things that I've noticed is the variety of people across the country that are running in a way that there hasn't really been before. In general, you look at the people in now and the people over, it's lawyers. It's a bunch of lawyers. Everyone's a lawyer. Where now you're getting, you ⁓ know, child advocacy, especially for things like autism, you've got Tabitha: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Breaking The Meta: You've got veterans, you've got doctors, you've got union workers, you've got everything. So it's great. And as someone who has like, no, not going to run for Congress, thank you for being willing to put yourself out there and do something like that. Tabitha: say this too, I think this is an important part of the story. Now, like, my family's been in Indiana for a long time. ⁓ I just recently put in my application for the Daughters of the American Revolution because my niece seems interested in genealogy. And I can trace my roots back to a soldier that fought for the winning side, thank God, right, and the American Revolution. And I'm, I've had a lot of family that was in the military. One of my favorite people in my life was my grandfather, he was a Marine, ⁓ he took absolutely no shit. And this is sort of my opportunity to serve my country because everybody that I know, especially from my area, like they're rough neck, they're working people, like I'm a unionist and all that too. And these people need representation, like you said, like we have to get all these suits out of there because they don't care about us. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. So as you've gone around and talked with people in your district, what have been the common pain points? What are the things that most people come and talk to you about that they could use your help in Congress? Tabitha: I get phone calls all the time about disability advocacy, especially autism. They're like, right, ⁓ I have a grandchild that has autism. This is what we're doing. Is this what we should be doing? ⁓ Who do we contact? All that sort of thing. And I'm finding out along the way that very few people actually know what they can qualify for. And especially in rural areas like mine, people are just suffering in mass and they're barely using anything that's available anyway. Breaking The Meta: Mm. Tabitha: Once they find out about it, it's gone or it's reduced or there are these very long wait lists. But these are also people that are holding up the economy, right? Like these are people like myself that worked my whole life. I was happy to pay taxes and all of that to go for whatever people needed. And it just so happens that now my family needs something. And you have all of these type of people, these working people that they don't wanna take advantage. They're not trying to take money away from anybody else, but you know, they've worked hard their whole life and now their family needs something. So I've just very much stepped into this advocacy role because I think it's the humanist thing to do. Breaking The Meta: ⁓ Is there other other things that people are talking to you about or has been most of the stuff that you're interacting with people having to do with the health advocacy? Tabitha: I think all the pain points of everybody across the US right now. Housing is unavailable or too expensive. Grocery prices, gas prices, basically all of the costs to just live. People are terrified that, if they get sick. Right now we're kind of in like a food desert, healthcare desert. They're pulling more and more funding away from rural areas and people have to travel an hour, hour and a half to the doctor most times. If you need a specialist, Breaking The Meta: Hmm. Tabitha: All the specialists are generally in Indianapolis. It depends on which side of the state you're on. My kids' doctors are in Indianapolis. It's an one hour and a half drive for me, so it's three hours round trip. And besides standing underneath your stove to fill out all the paperwork and jump through all the loopholes, then you're having to drive an hour and a half just to see a doctor. When you can see a doctor, right? ⁓ I think health care, education, Indiana is sort of in the toilet. I would imagine with a lot of other states of lack of resources, they don't know what's out there. ⁓ Happy to work for it. A lot of union people, a lot of hardworking people, ⁓ but it's just not there. And whatever is there is shrinking. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. So another thing I think a lot of people are struggling with, especially when it comes to our politicians, one second, they're doing construction. I think one thing that I think a lot of people, especially in this country are dealing with when it comes to politicians is this idea of accountability or the lack thereof. And I think there's a lot of people that are looking for us to start for our politicians to be held accountable again. So what does accountability mean to you? What does it look like to you? What does it look like being held accountable by your constituents? Tabitha: want people to call me. Like I'm supposed to be a representative of the people, right? Like, I'm supposed to be speaking for them. If you put enough faith and trust in me to speak for you, I need to hear from you. I need to hear your pain points. If there's something that I said maybe that was incorrect, or you know, I misspoke, call me out on it. I think right now, that's another reason why I entered the race. I was on one of those ⁓ virtual town halls that Mark Mesmer did early on. And I wanted to know about autism. I wanted to know where he stood. And he was just essentially getting softballs. He wasn't answering anything. I don't even know if any of my questions were even asked. And I stepped back from that conversation and I thought, this is the guy. This is how he's supposed to represent me. And these people just clearly don't care. This was an evolution. I didn't just wake up one day and say, hey, I think it might be fun to run for Congress. I was pissed off and I think there's so many normals. Like I call us the normies. I would love to see Congress just be saturated by the normies because that's when I think change will happen. You know, all these union workers, these educators, medical professionals that will call them out on their shit essentially and say, listen, you don't speak for the American people. Like you're so detached from reality. When was the last time that you changed a diaper? Do you know how much milk costs? Do you know how much formula costs? Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Tabitha: Are you worried about losing your house because of a medical bill? No. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. How has your district been affected by things like the big beautiful bill or the tariffs or even the recent Iran war? Tabitha: Well, I know they come to get most of their soldiers from Indiana. I'm not saying alone, but pretty much the only way you're getting out of any of these rural communities in Indiana is if you make very, very good grades and happen to get a full ride scholarship somewhere or you join the military and that's how you pay for college. I'm not saying that everybody that joins the military is exclusively joining just for those benefits, but they do join for things like that. You have multi-generational military families. that normally will encourage their kids to join. I had several cousins, aunts and uncles, like I was that kid at the family reunion that everybody's like, no, I was in the army. I was in the Marines. I was in the Navy. Like everybody was fighting over who was better, right? ⁓ It was sort of a testament to someone's manhood by entering the armed forces. But part of that also was they expected that they would be taken care of for that service. ⁓ I've really been hammering away with veterans rights and stuff because my aunt was a nurse at the VA. People are seeing all of their costs across the board skyrocket and they just don't really know what they're doing any of it for anymore. They don't understand why they have all of these politicians on either side, right? Telling them, this is what the truth is. This is what we should believe. We're here to speak for you. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Tabitha: and they just, can't, they're finding it difficult to find the truth. Breaking The Meta: as a whole, while it is not 100 % red, it's least been considered a very red state, been run by Republicans for a while itself. What has been your experience in going around and interacting with people who have been historically conservative after everything that has been going on over the last year in states like Indiana. Has there been more of an openness to talk to you even though you have a D next to your name in a way that maybe they wouldn't have two or three years ago? Tabitha: Well, I think it helps whenever I tell them that my parents are MAGA. I'm like, look, I come from that. Like it doesn't get any deeper red than my family, for example. ⁓ My own parents, like I've struggled to have political conversations with them. Like I'm still holding out hope for people. I don't believe in throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I think that people are very religious in the Midwest, especially in Indiana. Breaking The Meta: You Tabitha: And these politicians have weaponized their religion against them, which is awful. ⁓ They're just exploiting every entry they can to say these people are bad because of XYZ. So when they see someone like me that looks like them and speaks like them and my family's been here forever, and then I tell them, hey, you know what? Like it probably drives my parents crazy that I'm a Democrat, but you know, I'm gay and I have autism. So if they're going to be shipping people off to the camps, I'm going first. So I'm just. doing my civic duty, my patriotic duty to ring the bell as loud as I possibly can. And let's talk about it. And anytime anybody wants to fight with me about something, I'm like, let's sit down for coffee. Let's hash it out. The instant that I'm willing to show up in person, they're like, ⁓ this person, like, she's about the business. And I totally am. I'm nothing but authentic. I tell the truth. ⁓ I'm not here to argue with people, but I am here to spread good information, right? Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Tabitha: And I think one of the worst things that I've seen happen in these red areas is just ⁓ the blatant inaccuracies. Like they're just lying to these people and that's just not right. Breaking The Meta: So another thing that has been ⁓ pretty constant is, you know, since World War Two, America has put themselves kind of at the head of the table, especially because we had oceans between us and the rest of the world. It's allowed us to kind of ⁓ become the superpower that we that we became in the last year and a few months. This president threw Tabitha: Well, yeah. Breaking The Meta: many multiple actions has summarily destroyed our place at the table ⁓ with some of our closest allies. How do you see the United States and our foreign policy going forward, knowing that many of our closest allies don't trust us anymore? Tabitha: Well, I might be a little different than some other people. I spent a lot of time outside of the US. I was a flight attendant for 17 years. ⁓ The majority of the time I was a French speaker and I was going to Paris, Geneva, and Brussels. I've lived in South Africa. I've lived in Ireland. I've lived in France. So I've had an opportunity to see how public transport works, the public education system, the health care system. So I know firsthand that we can actually implement these things. And I'm also a normal person, right? So I can very effectively paint that real picture for people and explain to them, ⁓ hey, when I lived here, this is how that works. This is how we can replicate that. ⁓ I think we should fill those seats with people that have international experience because then it's harder to make that argument of like, ⁓ well, why can't we have universal healthcare? Why can't we have universal childcare? And then when you actively use models that are that have been working for a long time with our allies, for example, you can very clearly break down those barriers to why we can't putting someone like me in Congress would be extremely dangerous for the 1 % because I know better and I'm not afraid of them. And people like Elon Musk can essentially suck it because they're about as anti-American as it gets. Breaking The Meta: So let's do a little bit of future casting. So let's assume that ⁓ May ⁓ I think, comes around and ⁓ win your primaries. Congratulations. November 3rd comes around. You win the general election too. Awesome. January 2nd hits and you are sworn in as representative of Indiana's 8th district. What are the first things that you do? Tabitha: ⁓ I would say that in May, I would have made as many calls as I could to as many people that had the experience that I needed to build my team and build policies that I could implement January 2nd. So I would have all that paperwork written. I would have done the research. I would have talked to the people and I could present a plan and say, hey, ⁓ This is my plan for universal healthcare. This is how that would work. This is how we're gonna fund it. Here's my plan for universal childcare, which we desperately need. This is how we're gonna fund ⁓ it. I come from a very rural area. Like I said, we have a data center problem here. I think we need a moratorium on those data centers. And I would explain exactly the risks, why it works the way that it does, where the money comes from. ⁓ I'm essentially the candidate of the American people. I'm for farmers, I'm for the disabled community, I'm for autism especially. So I would be hammering away on any bill that I possibly could either write myself or add to, to try and make this a better place for the average American citizen. Breaking The Meta: So how do you see your ability to get some of these things done with the known realities of our Congress, which is it doesn't work right now. That's not to say that we hope that Congress doesn't get a ton of people that know how to work together and know how to communicate, but there is just as much of a reality that there could be a struggle going forward, especially if, unless the Senate magically gets 60 people from one ⁓ party passing things as a whole, and there's still Trump in office. So how do you see yourself going forward and working in a Congress? with those realities and how are you communicating with with people in your district about those realities? Tabitha: Well, I could never do this if I wasn't going to be truthful. So when I made the decision to run for Congress, I decided, right, they are going to dig up whatever nasty stuff I have in my closet. And I have to be prepared to walk through any of that. ⁓ I really think I've got a backbone of steel. I've had over, I've overcome some serious adversities in my life. And I think I'm a really good, I'm an effective communicator. I listen well. So even for people that I think initially meet me and think, ⁓ here's this gay liberal, never going to get along with her. Normally by the end of it, they're drinking a beer with me because I know how to talk to people. I know how to talk to people from the country. And I think I would bring all of those real life skills, that lived experience, that grittiness to Congress, which we need. Breaking The Meta: So for everyone that has listened this far and heard everything that we've talked about so far, what are one or two things that no matter what you'd want to make sure that anyone listening would come away with knowing about you and your campaign? Tabitha: You know, I'm people over profit. I'm for the American people. ⁓ I think it's very, very important to have ⁓ effective communicators that speak from lived experience in the autism and disability communities. ⁓ I'm for veterans. We need to make sure that we take care of our people. ⁓ And we really can't effectively do that if we don't start to break down the systems that don't work and rebuild them. ⁓ But most of all, we just need to be honest with people. ⁓ It took them 40 or 50 years to break down the systems that we already had. It's going to take us at least probably another 20 to build it up to make it work for people again. And that's going to be a lot of like hard grinding work. So you can't put people in there that aren't willing to do the hard work. You know, I would say pick the grittiest person that you can. If you find someone in a race that you're like, that person looks like they've been through the gauntlet. vote for them because those are the type of people that will make change. Breaking The Meta: He Yeah. For anyone that wants to learn more about you and support you, whether it's through volunteering or donations, where can they find you? Tabitha: You can pretty much find me everywhere at Tap the Ziegler for Congress. ⁓ I have a website, tapthezieglerforcongress.com. They can email me, info at tapthezieglerforcongress.com. Yeah, and I would encourage anybody to reach out, especially if they're from the 8th district and they want to know what I'm about. I'm happy to sit down with you, have a coffee with you, chat it out, especially if you disagree with me on something because I would represent everybody in my district. And I think that's the whole point, right? Things aren't meant to be easy. This situation is going to be hard. And we're going to have to have these active conversations to get to where we want to be. Breaking The Meta: Tabitha, thank you for spending some time and sitting down with us. I appreciate it. ⁓ For everyone else listening that's gotten this far, thank you so much as well. ⁓ Please like, subscribe, hit all the buttons below. It makes it possible for me to keep doing what I'm doing, which is interview amazing people like Tabitha and so many others, excuse me, that are running for Congress and ⁓ want to do it the right way. They aren't taking corporate PAC money. They want to be held accountable. They want to fix change in a way that we've been talking about for decades. ⁓ And for those of you that may be new to this podcast, just so you know, Breaking the Meta is about having hard conversations when necessary, fighting to break the status quo and the idea that all people, no matter your race, religion, gender or identity, deserve rights, respect, dignity and safety. Again, please watch, share, subscribe, all of this stuff, help these people get the kind of visibility they need to get over the finish line and make all these changes. Again, Tabatha, thank you for being here and for everyone else. We'll see you next time on Breaking the Meta. Bye guys. Tabitha: Thank you for having me.