Dr. Annie Andrews

Hi, everyone.

It's Sophia. Welcome to Work in Progress. Welcome back to this week's Work in Progress. Friends, we have an ultimate whipsmartie on the podcast today, a woman whose medical career, whose advocacy work, and honestly, whose Instagram I am just the biggest fan of. We are joined today by none other than Dr. Annie Andrews. Annie is a pediatrician and a mom of three and a long time South Carolina doctor who spent nearly 20 years of her career caring for kids. And then she saw unequivocally that some of the biggest threats to her patients couldn't be treated in a hospital or They had to be fixed on the policy level, which meant she had to go fight for them in Washington.

Dr.

Andrews ran for Congress in 2022. The campaign became so vicious. She received threats. She was forced out of her hospital for a time because of the attacks. And after all of that, unfortunately, she lost. But even after experiencing how ugly politics can get, She's back and resilient and defiant because we all know nothing can stop a pissed off mom who refuses to back down to bullies. So Annie is back, this time running for U.S. Senate in her home state of South Carolina. We all know the Carolinas have traditionally been more Republican than anything. But in the last couple of years, I think plenty of voters are disillusioned with how those promises from the GOP were all based on lies. And Annie knows she has the expertise

to help fixed some of them. Now, there was a twist in the race. She expected to face off with longtime Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, but after his sudden death, Graham's sister Darlene has been appointed to his seat. She won the Republican nomination, and now she is Annie's opponent. Now, while Darlene doesn't want to debate, Annie is ready to chat with anyone and everyone about a future for South Carolina and a better America as a whole. I cannot wait to find out about what she learned from her first race, how the second one is going, and how all of us can band together and support her because Dr.

Annie Andrews deserves it. Let's dive in. Before we get into the race and your career and how you decided to. You know, really get into the fight, I actually want to go back because people who know you know that you are a medical professional and that you're, you know, you're running a race in South Carolina, but I'm really curious about Annie as a little kid. You know, I know you grew up in Kentucky and I'm curious if we got to run into, you know, your eight or nine year old self. Like if you and I were out for a coffee and we strolled onto the playground and there were little girl versions of us, Do you think that little girl would just be gobsmacked at what your life is right now? Do you think you would

see yourself in her and vice versa?

I love that question. No one's ever asked me that before. Um, I, Yes, my nine-year-old self would be gobsmacked. That's a great word for it. So my nine-year-old self, I was a rule follower. I am an introvert. I have social anxiety. And I don't like to walk into rooms full of people I don't know. And that was true my first day of, I don't know if it was preschool or kindergarten. I walked into the classroom and I lifted my dress over my head because.

I was just so shy.

You wanted to hide.

Yes.

And I just... I found this new path and I found this.

The power of my voice in a way I never in a million years thought I would have like my, even my college roommates are like, who are you?

How did this happen? How did you turn into this person? I love that.

Yeah.

It's also a question I really like to ask parents. You know, I think there's a different thing that happens as, especially as women, you know, we grow up and we learn and then we have to unlearn all this stuff that we were never supposed to carry. And I, I think, When we do that, we can see what younger versions of ourselves went through, but it almost becomes doubly important once you have kids and you realize you don't want them to have to spend half their life unlearning a bunch of BS. You want them just to have the tools and feel so capable. And as a mom of three, I guess I wonder if the world you want to build for your children is also has been part of what's inspired you to look back at the world you

grew up in and to want to change it all.

Yeah, you know, I was really fortunate. I was the middle child. I have two brothers.

I grew up in a family where when I said when I was four years old legitimately that I wanted to be a doctor, my parents didn't say, don't you mean nurse? None of my teachers ever said that. Like I had a very supportive environment. I was really fortunate the way that I grew up. But still, you know, growing up in the 80s and 90s is very different than the world my children are experiencing now. in a lot of really good ways and in a lot of really bad ways. I never doubted that I could get into medical school and be a doctor, but I also would have never believed I could run for the US Senate.

I would never have believed that my voice mattered in a way that it does right now. And I'm seeing that reflected specifically in.

My two daughters.

My oldest daughter is a freshman in high school. She just obviously started a new school just a.

Few weeks ago.

Within the first couple of weeks, she raised her hand and decided to run for freshman class president, which she's She's like a copy paste version version of me. She's got way better than me. But like, she also is introverted. And that's not something I ever would have done as a 14 year old. And she just has the confidence to do it.

She didn't win.

And we laughed about it the night before, because I'm like, I ran and I lost to Nancy Mace.

Of all people in 2022. It's okay to run and lose. All that matters is that you try.

And then my nine year old was on her student council last year. So I just and my son is like wildly sensitive in ways I don't think my brothers were raised to be because that's just not what the world was like back then.

Totally.

Yeah.

One of the things I feel so grateful for in the midst of the dumpster fire that is the planet right now is that I feel like so many more women are having conversations about giving our sons permission to have a full emotional spectrum, which is what they deserve and frankly will also make our daughters safer in the world.

And I I feel like that is such a, it's kind of like the lighthouse in the dark for me right now is realizing that we can still do things differently even when the system is complicated. You know, when you talk about being a doctor, you spent nearly two decades as a pediatrician. You know, you were supported in your dream. And I'm kind of curious because I think those of us who've been politically invested for such a long time understand that you know, the miracle of medicine, but also that healthcare is supposed to be a human right.

And for a long time, people didn't think that was political. And now being a doctor, advocating for healthcare, working in any of those spaces, we understand that it is a political act to say, I'd much rather my tax dollars be invested in my community hospital than in bombs, for example. And I'm really curious for you going into another election, I obviously wish the last one had had a different outcome for you and for the rest of us, but here we are. How do you think about healthcare as political, as defending other people's right to access it? Because I know you talk about how your dad was a lifelong Republican.

I wouldn't imagine that he was anti-healthcare. He raised a daughter who wanted to be a doctor. So how does the kind of present time make you look at the version of a Republican household you grew up in versus the version we have now. Yeah.

I mean, you know, when I was growing up in this Republican household, like there was civility still existed and nuance existed and you didn't define your relationships based on, you know, what political party they were. You didn't lose relationships because they're, they're a Democrat and you're a Republican.

Like it didn't used to be the defining aspect of your personhood or your personality. But now that we've gotten to a situation where, you know, one of our political parties has really been taken over by this extreme, this extreme agenda, you know, it, it does end up becoming a defining thing about you. You know, if you're still on board with where this party has gone, then, you know, to me, that says a lot about, you know, sort of the way you see the world and what you prioritize in the world. Um, You know, I never thought of health care when I decided to be a doctor.

I never thought of that as, you know, health care as a political thing, but it was working in the health care system alongside a parallel track of me being a mother in America that really, you know, that really worked.

Woke me up to.

What I needed to do politically that, you know, that the practice of pediatrics is very political. And what I see at the bedside of sick and injured children is a privilege. And it is then my duty to go out and share that with the world so they can understand the impact that of these harmful policies on our patients.

And their families. And I try to talk to future.

Pediatricians about this when I'm given the opportunity to speak to, to speak to those folks that, you know, what we see inside the four walls of a hospital, most people out there, Candy, imagine what it's like, what children and their families are struggling with, what it's like to be at the bedside of a child who's been shot.

Or whatever it is.

And if we don't share what we see, then no one's ever going to know the urgency with which we need to act to fix these problems. Right.

Was there kind of a moment, was there like a night In the hospital that just made you go, OK, I've got to.

Change it all.

I've got to lay it on the line and I've got to try to be in charge, not just of medicine for these people, but of actually making the policy decisions that control my hospital and others. Or was it kind of like a layering of incidents and then one just was the straw that broke the camel's back?

It was a layering of incidents. And I think most pediatricians would describe the same sort of evolution where you go in really starry-eyed and thinking about how excited you are to finally be a doctor. And then you really start to identify these patterns of, you know, okay, there's a problem when my sick child's parents... can't afford to get their car out of the parking garage because they're struggling so much just to make ends meet. There's a problem when the parents of my asthma patient say, well, we're here today because the mold in our apartment is so bad, but our landlord won't do anything about it and we can't afford to move. Or the dramatic but very true and not at all hyperbolic experience of taking

care of a child who's been shot. So as I sort of slowly was waking up to the idea that American policy as currently written does not prioritize what is in the.

Best interest of America's children and their families.

It was those drastic experiences of caring for children who have been shot alongside my joining and advocating within the Moms Demand Action organization that helped me see, okay, like, There's no time to calculate when it makes sense to run for office. There's no time to just politely keep my head down and do this work.

I've got to get off the sidelines now. And I ended up doing it a really bold way.

You know, that's not the only way to do it, but that's the way I chose to do it. And I carry those patient stories with me. You know, I share the story a lot of a toddler who found an unsecured firearm that was loaded on his coffee table. And as curious young children do, he picked it up. And the way children handle guns, you know, they use their thumbs to pull the trigger because it's the only way they're strong enough to pull the trigger, which means the barrel is pointed at their head.

And this young boy had shot himself in the head.

And by the time I met him, he'd had lots and lots of surgical procedures, lots of brain surgery. Part of his skull was removed. He was still in the hospital under my care, learning how to eat.

And walk and talk again.

And it was so heartbreaking because that was a clear example of a policy failure because we don't have a secure storage law, a federal secure storage law in this country. And like, I'm never going to forget that kid.

I'm never going to.

Forget trying to high five him to see if his, you know, right arm strength was improving or watch him as the, you know, the occupational therapist was feeding him his macaroni and cheese, you know? And so that's, these are, these are like bullet points to most politicians. These are, you know, position papers or policy papers to most politicians.

But to me, they're, they're real kids in South Carolina.

We'll be back in just a minute, but here's a word from our sponsors. I love that you bring up a safe storage law because it's actually something I've been lucky enough to work on with Moms Demand Action. One of the sort of perks of my job is sometimes I get asked to voice PSAs for organizations because they're nonprofits and they don't have the money to hire paid actors.

And I'm like, hell yeah, I want to do that for you. And I'll never forget when those campaigns first launched, a lot of people were like, you shouldn't why do we need a law and you shouldn't have to, you know, the typical complaints. And it reminded me some of how we talked to people about that was, you know, if you look back at when we made seatbelt laws a federal thing and people were like, you can't tell me I have to wear a seatbelt and this, that, and the other. And you watch this footage and you're like, it's insane that we ever thought you shouldn't have to require seatbelt wearing. And once we did it, we saved so many lives. And to your point, Annie, if there was just a federal safe storage law People might think

it's ridiculous, but if it's the law, you're more likely to follow it. And then we're more likely to keep kids out of harm's way. And it's the sort of stuff like that where people say you shouldn't have to legislate it. Well, we shouldn't have to legislate food safety and inspection. But gee whiz, look what happened when we took the inspection requirements away. Now everybody's being poisoned by their blueberries and their lettuce. You know, you have to make the rules so that there's actually... like a layer of protection around us. And I'm hopeful that as terrible as things have been, people will start to be able to look at messages like yours and go, you know what?

Maybe having some sanity around the rules is a good idea. And I illustrate that for our listeners because it's one of the personal ways that I make sense of what you're doing, you know, and so many other people whose elections I'm watching closely, you know, what you're doing personally and politically. And I ask because I would imagine for you, the run now feels very different than the election that you ran against Nancy Mason 2021. You know, what's actually giving you hope now and what's making you feel motivated now, even though you're running against an even worse problem?

You know what? So many things feel so hopeful about what I'm doing. The world is difficult to process every single day. There's so much bad news every day. It feels overwhelming at times. But as a current candidate, I have the privilege of spending my days most often in South Carolina talking to rooms full of excited people, people who are there because they're just been fans of mine since I launched the campaign or people who are there because their neighbor said, hey, I would like you to come hear this woman out because I believe in her and I want to see what you think. And so I get to have these conversations in South Carolina with people who just, who want to feel hopeful and optimistic about the future. You know, yesterday I was in Beaufort County,

South Carolina, which is down the coast from Charleston. And this was an event that this group of people in, you know, sort of a semi-retirement home had built for us. We did nothing to promote it. We were just, you know, happy to stop by. They expected a hundred people. When I got there, there were over 400 people there.

And yes, and.

Walking into an event like that with 400 people who are so excited to see me, to hear my vision for South Carolina, they're excited to be a part of something that gives them a sense of hope. That makes me feel amazing in spite of all of the bad news we're inundated with. And the difference between now and 2022 is people are just really feeling the pain, you know, that's gas prices. And it sounds like talking points now, but diesel is over 625 in South Carolina.

Yeah. It's grocery prices. It's these impending Medicaid budget cuts.

And people are just like feeling the pain in their personal family pocketbook.

And so they're looking for something different.

And that's why campaigns like mine and states like South Carolina have polling that shows that we're neck and neck because there's so much crossover happening between Because a lot of Republican voters feel like they were sold a bunch of lies because we have a president who ran on lowering grocery prices and no new wars.

And look where we are today.

And so I'm offering them an option, an off ramp, something different to try this election cycle.

I got to interview Timothy Snyder, who's, you know, the great historian and author who talks about freedom and tyranny and the Constitution and all the things. And I found that we share a worldview, which just really tickled me, that none of this, none of the world around us, none of those buildings behind you, none of the reality that in every single one of those windows, somewhere there's a sink, that water comes out of the tap when you turn on the faucet. That only happens because we've generationally all contributed to the community project. And I think people are finally waking up, as you said, to the fact that the community is being fleeced, not supported. And that so many people were lied to. You know, nobody

ever got a doge check and nobody's going to get these $ 5, 000 checks Donald Trump's claiming he's going to give if he wins, you know, because he spent all the money on this war that nobody asked for that, by the way, wasn't even congressionally approved. So I just feel like hopefully it's the moment that makes people realize they don't have to vote the way they always did. The way their family may have identified, much like you talk about your dad, like that reality doesn't exist anymore. And we have to fight for a better world in the reality we live in now. I'm curious about deciding to get into the Senate race in South Carolina for you, especially because you were generous enough to talk about how

when you ran against Nancy Mace, the attacks and the threats, that it was all really... Pretty horrific. It even forced you to take unpaid leave from your job as a pediatrician because your hospital was being harassed. It's a lot to put yourself in that figurative line of fire, especially when people talk about how they might make it literal.

Is it, however, because you are a medical professional and you did know what was coming based on RFK also being a person who you know, sells lies for a living? Like, is it the public health aspect that really made you want to double down? Or were you just like, it doesn't matter that I lost once, I'm going to jump right back into it?

You know, it takes me back to election night in 2022. I was so green that campaign, that election cycle. I think everyone on my team knew that there was no way I was going to win that night.

Really?

Yeah, and I still had all this hope. I mean, the polling showed there was not really a path to victory. It just was not in the cards, that cycle in that district. But I had like a big sort of emotional crash when it became official.

I had to go give a little speech.

And then I went back to the hotel room where we had been hanging out that evening. And my daughter, who's 14 now, so she was like 10 or 9 or something at the time, she looked and I was like sort of crying on my mom's shoulder. And then my daughter looked at me. She goes, well, we're not doing that again. I was like, no, we're not.

Going to do this again, Gracie. Don't worry about it. And here we are. Yeah.

So I needed a little break. It's kind of like childbirth. You know, you do it once and you're thinking, I'm never going to do this again. And then there you are doing it again.

Yeah.

Time gives you a little bit of helpful amnesia, doesn't it? Amnesia.

That's right. Exactly right.

But it really was the day RFK Jr. was nominated to lead HHS that I reevaluated what I was thinking about doing. I I had a few people who were like, Amy, you could run in the Senate race. It's going to be a Trump midterm. We need a strong Democrat.

But I was like, no, no, no, no. And then RFK Jr. was nominated.

And I was like, OK, this moment is so urgent. This is worst case scenario for public health in America. nightmare for pediatricians in America. It doesn't make a lot of sense for me to go make a pro-con list about how old my kids are and how hard this will be. I just need to do it now or there may never be an opportunity to fight back against this.

So I'm not really a pro-con list person. I'm driven by passion. And that's why a lot of the decisions I've made in life seem passion driven and maybe not objectively the smart thing to do. But that's how I ended up in this position where I might become South Carolina's first elected female senator, our nation's first pediatrician senator, because I took a chance.

And let my passion drive me to do this.

I love that so much. And now a word from our sponsors who make this show possible. What did your family say when you told them you were going to run for Senate?

Yeah.

So I told my daughters separate from my son, just because I was with them. I'm a dance mom. I was with their both hip hop dancers. I was with them at a dance competition. We were having breakfast and I said, guys, I'm really thinking about running for office again. And this time I'd be running for the Senate. And my older daughter, you know, she said something very encouraging. Mom, that's really great. I think that's really great.

Good for you.

And then Evelyn, who's hilarious and about to be 10, she didn't really say anything. And I was like, Evelyn, what do you think?

And she shrugged her shoulders. She said, good luck.

Oh, my God. It's like you live with a little Larry David.

Yeah, I mean, literally, literally.

And then, you know, I had a really frank conversations with my parents, because I think they were concerned about me, they see the volatility in politics right now, they see the political violence and You know, my parents are aging. My mom has Parkinson's and they live.

Not far from me.

And my dad came over and he actually did have like a pro con list. He had a legal pad, all of his concerns about me doing this.

And I remember him telling me, I know, I know.

And I remember him telling me, I'm worried this is going to be really hard on your mom. And I said, you know, that like really broke my heart because I didn't want to do this and make my mom's life harder or more stressful. But honestly, watching my mom watch me do this, I know my mom is just like bursting with pride that I am her daughter. She wears an Annie Andrews button when she goes to the grocery store.

So.

So that when people say, oh, we love her, she can say, oh, I do too. She's my daughter. I mean, it's just so it's been a really like.

My family is so much closer because we're sort of all in this together. And it's been really wonderful to see them be able to support me in this thing that like none of us ever expected I would be doing.

Wow, that's really, really cool. It's also I would imagine because your mom has a diagnosis like that, wanting to stand up for quality health care for Americans is doubly matters to you, you know, because yes, it's personal. You're a doctor, but also it's personal because you're a family member who needs to make sure you have evidence-based care for your family.

Right.

And I think about, you know, the really irresponsible defunding of NIH research studies at the early.

End of this administration. And, you know, they've still, you know, defunded a lot of science.

And what that we'll never know how long, how many years that will have delayed the finding of a cure for a disease like Parkinson's or the cure for a disease like Alzheimer's with both of both of my grandparents, you.

Know, had from that.

And, you know, it's the lack of, you know, ability to look forward and think about the long-term consequences of these really irresponsible decisions that are being made by this administration. And, you know, there's going to be, you know, maybe it'll be, you know, my daughter and me getting a diagnosis. And there's not a cure because it's still five years away because, you know, we had RFK Jr. leading HHS and they didn't know what they were doing because they're deeply unserious grifters running our, you know, our department of HHS.

I know it just kills me and it breaks my heart. You know, you see how we were on the precipice of vaccines for cancer and how we know how to treat people for things that now we're just pretending we don't. You see kids dying of measles unnecessarily. You see the numbers on ectopic pregnancy deaths doubling since the overturning of Roe.

And they swore up and down that abortion bans weren't going to kill women. And twice as many women have died of one one pregnancy complication that requires an abortion to save a woman's life. And it just makes me feel like we live in the upside down. And I think, I would bet, it also probably makes people struggling to figure out what their political identity is in South Carolina feel really confident in you because they know they can trust you. You're a mom, you're a doctor, you're a daughter, you're an advocate. What is it like for you I imagine it's such a surreal thing to go through. You know, you have you've been running against Lindsey Graham and then he just died. And, you know, his sister was sort

of installed and then the Republican Party committed to her. You know, Darlene Graham is now your opponent. Suddenly she doesn't want to debate you. I mean, that's a crazy thing politically. But but personally, how have you handled that? I mean, it's got to just be so shocking. And then also, make you feel a little nuts that your opponent doesn't want to have policy debates with you? Like, isn't that what running for office is supposed to be?

Right, right. Yeah, I don't think I've fully processed that.

The events of the past several months, just because I've been on this campaign.

Trail for 16 months.

It was such a shocking thing to happen in a way that was just, it was shocking for the average South Carolinian. It was doubly shocking for me who'd spent the past year talking every day about Lindsey Graham. I'm really proud of the way our team was able to sort of weather that and pivot and stay focused on the mission because, you know, to be, to be very real, like the problem South Carolinians were facing didn't change when Lindsey Graham passed away.

The reason I was running didn't change.

And so I really tried to not get caught up in that and just to focus on the mission at hand because the mission hadn't changed. And, you know, a series, the series of events that have happened since he passed away, you know, have created this This opening where there maybe was a much smaller opening before because South Carolinians recognize what happened with the appointment and now anointment of Darlene Graham as the Republican nominee and her, you know, her historically weak candidacy and. her, you know, shocking level of unpreparedness. And, you know, I'm not even going to say she's unqualified.

We don't even know because she hasn't put any policy positions on her website.

She doesn't talk to reporters. We don't really know if she's a fighter.

What we know of her is that she was deeply unprepared for that debate and it showed. And she was willing to, you know, start a Just throwing just name calling at me from the very first moment she was in this race saying the horrible, you know.

Like typical National Republican Republican talking points.

I don't think anything that she said since she became a candidate for the US Senate is actually coming from her.

I don't know who's writing her scripts or her lines for her, but she's being used as a puppet.

And as a result, South Carolina voters, particularly moderate Republicans and independents, see in me that I'm a fighter, that I'll be a voice for South Carolina. I'm not going to be beholden to any political party or any president. I'm beholden to the people of South Carolina, which is what the Senate is meant to be.

I feel such a kinship, you know, to you because of what you stand for, but also the fact that you're running in South Carolina, because when the 10 years I spent living in North Carolina, I was, you know, three hours from the border. And I always felt like I had a cousin next door kind of energy there. And, you know, even though I'm not a resident of either state anymore, it's a region in the country I really care about. And I want people to have the support that they need. And I have seen how the kinds of policies that you're running against, the GOP policies have hurt North Carolina. They've hurt South Carolina. They've hurt the people who live in those states. And whether or not we have the exact same beliefs, I want everybody to

have the same level of care. And I think that's something you speak to really well also. You know, as a pediatrician, you treat every kid, no matter how their parent votes, no matter how their parents behave. And we need that kind of professional energy in the Senate. And just personally, as a woman... you know, and as someone who is blessedly responsible in a blended family for helping to raise two little kids who I would like lay my body on a train track for at any moment if need be, it makes me feel nuts, you know, for our friends, for women in our communities who are being affected by the overturning of Dobbs and we see how women's healthcare is falling apart. It also makes me feel crazy that there are so many of us out

here who are trying to fight for laws, legislate, you know, Even the risks of AI to kids. Like, I've been campaigning on the Defiance Act since 2023. And it passed its first round vote unanimously at the beginning of 2026. And we haven't heard anything about it. Because all of Donald Trump's friends make money on the AI technology that abuses women and children.

And so.

if they're not going to do anything about it, I'm like, well, the midterms can't come fast enough because I want that law to proceed through the rest of its votes. I want it to be illegal to use that technology to harm women and children who are 98% of the victims. I want it to be something that we change. And then I want AI to go cure cancer. Like that's what we should be doing. And right now it feels like we're doing everything upside down. And so I don't know, man, it's like, Whether it's health care, whether it's your state, whether it's a big federal policy, like I just want someone with a brain and a heart like yours to be one of the people we know we can trust, you know, across the country. I can't wait for it.

And I am curious, you know, as you think about there's obviously a lot wrong at the moment. But do you do you think much like we hear from, you know, people who run for president, they talk about their first hundred days. Do you think about your first hundred days as a senator? You know, do you have kind of your big, audacious to do list and and plans for what you want to do right away? Do you have any idea what it'll feel like? I'm manifesting when I'm not saying if when you win.

Yeah.

Like what do you do on day one?

Find my office. I'm just kidding.

I'm going to have to surround myself with a lot of smart people who have spent time working in Washington to help me navigate and help me use the most of my time while I'm there on behalf of South Carolinians. There's been so much destruction over the past couple of years that there's so much... you know, damage control that needs to be done. So my number one priority is stopping the Medicaid budget cuts. And if I become a Senator, when I become a Senator, we will have a majority in the house and the Senate, and we will have the political power to stop these disastrous Medicaid budget cuts.

And I will work morning, noon and night to get that done because I, it will be, it will be awful, awful, awful for so many people. People will die in South Carolina as a So that is my number one priority. I think that, you know, one of the not symbolic, but one of the secondary effects of me winning this race is I'll have this opportunity to win over all these South Carolinians who ultimately didn't vote for me, but they're getting something different in a senator. And what they're going to get is someone, like you said, that they can trust someone who they know where they stand, someone who shows up in the community, because I've been to so many rural communities in South Carolina over the past year.

And I say, when's the last time you saw one of your senators? And they're like, are you kidding? Like, they don't come here.

I'm like, I'm going to I'm going to take so much pride in my ability to to wow South Carolinians with my governing and, you know, my like my truthfulness, my integrity, show them what real leadership looks like, because we've been missing that for so long. And, you know, just keep my head down and get the job done.

You know, when you're a doctor, you work really, really hard every day. Your days are long.

It's stressful. These are hard problems to solve. You work with whoever you need to work with.

To solve them.

And I'll take this job of being a senator, you know, the same. And we see so, you know, the Senate, they don't work very hard and they need to.

The amount of vacations. I know.

Yeah.

That's why, that's why we clearly need a new leader. I'm like, Mike Johnson, you can't, you can't keep taking paid leave. And then saying all the women and families in America can't have any, like you can't have it both ways, bro. So the idea that, you know, sane Democrats could come back into power against all this insanity and the double standard feels really, really nice.

And I think it does.

And I think there's going to be an opportunity to find some areas of agreement so that we can sort of get back into the spirit of bipartisanship. Because I got to tell you, if a Democrat wins the Senate seat in South Carolina, there's going to be motivation on the Republican side to reach across the aisle and to.

Start working with Democrats again.

And then there's going to be opportunities because there's a lot of things we agree on and it's, you know, it's social media safety and our kids, it's AI regulation, it's data centers. And we can, we can work on those things that we sort of have a lot of common ground on and then get the country moving back in the direction of having healthy two party system where bipartisanship is really like, you know, considered a positive attribute in a member of Congress.

Yeah. I mean, I think about how it used to be. We had debates on fiscal policy, not on people's, rights to exist.

Exactly.

And, you know, that was fringe. And now it's literally in the halls of government. And it scares me. And I would like us to get back to a place where our country is expanding freedoms, not taking them away, which began under our current president for the first time in history. And it's unacceptable. And I do hope, to your point, that the conversations that you've been able to have and the conversations that other great candidates that I know you work alongside are having will remind people that we can do this together. I mean, I know we talked about it at the top of the hour, but even when I think about your dad, you know, your dad was a Lindsey Graham voter. And now he's out there believing that you are absolutely the best candidate and

your mom's wearing your button to the grocery store. And, you know, I'm curious if you have any anecdotes, you know, sweet moments with your parents, especially like when was the first moment your dad went, Yeah, I'm going to vote for you and not just because you're my kid, but because I really like your policies.

Oh, that's a good question. You know, just like most families. So, you know, 2016 was stressful. We knew we sort of had a divided family. This includes my brothers and my sisters in law. And there were heated conversations about politics long before I ever even had an inkling that I might run for office someday. And then, you know, just watching these relationships and conversations evolve and it is included, you know, it's, there's forgiveness involved, there's open-mindedness, there's a willingness to admit when you got something wrong. Like very recently, I think, you know, my dad said something to me, I think he's going to be like, why did you talk about me so much on this podcast, Danny?

But, um, he, um, yeah. Um, but he said something to me, like, I owe you in a apology.

I owe you and your sisters-in-law an apology because you all were really upset when Trump was elected. And I told you, it's not going to be that bad. This is how Republicans felt when Obama was elected.

And he said, I was wrong. I was wrong. You guys were right. I was wrong.

And can you imagine if literally any member of the US Senate would admit that they were wrong about something or went on Fox News and said, we were wrong.

This guy's nuts. We need to do better. And we just like that's there's Americans at the most part are like that.

And we need to get back to, you know, displaying that level of empathy, forgiveness, humility to admit when you were wrong about something and understanding because we're not always going to agree with everything everybody believes. We just need to like find our common ground and work from there.

I really, really like that.

And I think you're right.

You I also think people need to know, you know, those voters, they were lied to. And at the end of the day, I'll never forget this. I was really fortunate to do some campaigning around reproductive rights with our former vice president, Kamala Harris. And she said something to me when I was expressing frustration that so many people had gone along with this. She said, hey, not everybody's working with the same information that you are. And I know that feels impossible. She said, but your algorithm... is 100% different than some other people's algorithms. So you are frustrated because you assume they chose harm given the same information you have. But if you can imagine that they thought they were choosing something better based on completely different information,

you might come back to those people sooner. And I thought, especially for someone like her, that it was the most generous advice possible to say like, don't turn your back on your neighbor because you think they wanted to hurt you or someone else. Like show up for those people and make sure they have more information. And you're doing that with this run. You are going to see voters who don't normally get attention. You are having hard conversations and realizing you have so much in common with people.

And I think, you know, sadly, I don't get to vote in your state, but I think it's what makes you such a tremendous candidate. It's why I look at your race as something that gives me hope when the news makes me want to rip all the hair out of my head. So I'm curious how, I mean, obviously for people in your state, but even for the rest of us, you know, voters who want to inspire their elected officials to fight for similar policy or who might not live in your state, but who sure as hell want to support your run, like where's the first place people should go to learn about your platform to support you what can we do whether we're your voters or not.

Yeah, I mean, they can follow in your footsteps. They can go to Dr. Annie Andrews.com. That's, you know, where you can read so much about why I'm running and what I'm running for and what my priorities are. You can link to all my social media accounts there. I'm very active on social media.

We have a lot of social media. Thank you. Thank you.

You know, Instagram is, you know, my bread and butter. So follow me on Instagram at Annie Andrews MD. We take donations from everyone everywhere in the country. Five dollars from Wyoming is going to help us across the finish line. We're really proud to not take corporate PAC money. But, you know, once Republicans realize this race is really on the line, the money is going to pour in and the attack ads are going to come and it's going to be difficult for me and my kids to. So the least folks can do is, you know, rather than buy that one coffee, send $ 5 my way. You can sign up to phone bank and text bank from anywhere.

And we would love to have volunteers everywhere because there are only 100 people in the U.S.

Senate.

The person who wins the Senate seat is going to impact everyone across the country. It's a really important and serious role, despite the way my opponent is treating it.

And, you know, we can do this. And it will just honestly, like, it would send such a.

political statement across the country. If we pull this off in South Carolina in a way that will reverberate through the political ecosystem and reset, you know, the system so that we can, again, get back to like remembering there's more that unites us than divides us. We can stop allowing people to profit off of our division, like you're talking about with your social media algorithms. And it'll just be, it would be an amazing moment for South Carolina, but it'll be, I believe, one of those races that can help reset the tone of political discourse in this country.

And so people wanna be a part of that. They don't wanna just listen to this podcast. They wanna help me get there so they can take some pride on election night when they see me, when they know that they were part of getting me to that point.

So obviously we're all gonna go and make sure we're following you on all of the platforms. Like I said, friends, I think something really important is if you see a candidate who's not someone in your state supporting policies that sound really smart. You have the right to say, hey, I really like this. I really like what Dr. Annie Andrews is saying she's going to do in South Carolina.

I'm going to call my senator. I'm going to call my congressperson and ask them to fight for the same things. This is how we coalition build. And when we take back the Senate, it's how we're going to get things done. You mentioned that there are opportunities if and when we do that to stop some of these budget cuts. I know the big beautiful bill, as they call it, which is the most hideous piece of policy ever, is set to cause even more funding cuts starting at the top of 2027, which is so ugly. People don't even know how bad it can get. It makes me feel really hopeful to hear you talk about how If we do reclaim political power, we can stop some of that. It doesn't have to get as bad as the Republicans want

it to. And so I think that's exactly the kind of information that empowers us to keep our foot on the gas right now and make it through the midterms. So friends, make sure you're signing up to support. Make sure you join us for phone banking for Annie or for your candidates. Make sure you're out door knocking. I promise you this kind of volunteerism is what's going to give you hope and be the antidote to the kind of apathy that people in power right now are hoping to create. Before I let you go and do the rest of your work for the night, I have to ask you my favorite question. And it can be personal, professional, political, anything you like, but I'm just curious what feels like your work in progress right now.

Oh, my 14-year-old daughter. We're at this like critical stage. You know, she just started high school. We get along really well. I know she thinks I'm cool still. And I know that that's going to be like a fleeting moment. But I'm just so proud of the woman she, I know, is going to become. And, you know, I just, I can't wait to see what her future holds. I'm just so grateful for every day she continues to like me.

Because I know we're going to enter that period where like naturally she wants to pull away a little bit.

And I'm just.

really proud of her and I'm proud of myself for raising her.

Oh that's so special and yeah that's I mean that's who we do it for right we're trying to build a better future so our kids get to enjoy it well thank you so much for coming on the podcast I'm just so geeked to have had you here today and you've got a whole coalition of people over here who are going to be supporting you from near and far

Thank you so much for having me and I look forward to chatting next time

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