Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 403: Healthcare, SNAP Funding, and the BBB with Congresswoman Kimberly Morrison

Episode Date: July 22, 2025

In this episode, I sit down with representative Kimberly Morrison of the U.S. congress to discuss health and recent legislation.Join my app based training teams, free for 7 days! HERE! Interested in Working With Coach Danny and His One-On-One Coaching Team? Click HERE! Help the show (and enter for a chance to win some swag) by leaving a review on: - APPLE PODCASTS - SPOTIFYOUR PARTNERS:HERELegion Supplements (protein, creatine, + more!), Shop (DANNY) !The best hydration and pre-workout on the planet! Get your  LMNT Electrolytes HERE!   SISU Sauna: The best build it yourself outdoor home sauna on the market. Save hundreds of dollars by clicking HERE! (CODE: DANNYMATRANGA)RESOURCES/COACHING:    Train with Danny on His Training App HEREGrab your FREE GUIDES (8 guides and 4 programs) by clicking the link: https://mailchi.mp/coachdannymatranga.com/free-guide-giveaway----SOCIAL LINKS:Follow Coach Danny on YOUTUBEFollow Coach Danny on INSTAGRAMFollow Coach Danny on TwitterFollow Coach Danny on FacebookGet More In-Depth Articles Written By Yours’ Truly HERE! Sign up for the trainer mentorship HERESupport the show

Hey guys, welcome into another episode of the Dynamic Dialogue Podcast. As always, I'm your host Danny Matrenga, and in this episode, I'm excited to be joined by Representative Kimberly Morrison of Minnesota's congressional district, 4th district in Eden Prairie. She represents that district in DC as one of America's elected congresspeople. And like myself, she's pretty interested in how it is we're going to go about making America healthy again. But we're going to talk about this through a primarily legislative framework, talking about the big beautiful bill. Some of the recent passings of legislation in DC things that will affect us. It's about 20 minutes

She's interviewing me This is something more politicians are doing since they look to build outreach networks through influencers that you guys trust. I Was actually pretty excited about it I'm whispering a little bit because my son's asleep, but I'm really excited for you guys to hear it So please be encouraged if politics are not your thing. I totally understand it I'm whispering a little bit because my son's asleep, but I'm really excited for you guys to hear it. So please be encouraged. If politics are not your thing, I totally understand it. But you know, I think everything's a little bit political

now and generally with the podcast, I want to talk about what I want to talk about. And I hope you'll stay with me through that. So enjoy. This episode is brought to you in part thanks to some of our amazing partners like Elementee. So enjoy. hydrated and make sure that I'm getting ahead on my water intake throughout the day and not reliant on stimulants but instead being somebody who's reliant on hydration and the proper balance of minerals and Electrolytes if you want to feel your best all day mentally and physically it's imperative that you stay hydrated

Elementi provides a balanced ratio of sodium potassium and magnesium a balanced ratio of sodium, potassium, and magnesium to support brain and body hydration. This combination of electrolytes improves health, performance, body and brain performance, mind you, helps to reduce cramps and soreness and gets you more hydrated. There's no sugar. Elementia sweetened with Stevia. It's perfect for exercise and perfect for the sauna because the flavors are natural, tasty, delicious, and not overpowering. And if you're like me, you'll use them multiple times a day across your training sessions to get hydrated early to replenish after sauna use. And again, it's not just me. Elemente is the official sports drink of Team USA weightlifting, and it's used by athletes in the NBA, NFL, Major League Baseball, as well as athletes like you and I looking to take your fitness to the next level.

My favorite flavors are definitely the raspberry and citrus. When I put a box together, I try to load up on raspberry and citrus. And when you put your box together, you can get a free sample pack containing all of Elements amazing flavors like mango, chili, citrus, raspberry, orange, and more. To get access to this free gift with purchase, scroll down to the show notes and check out using the special link for Dynamic Dialogue listeners. Hello. Hi, Danny. Hi, Congresswoman. Can you hear me? I can hear you. Can you hear me? I can. I'm

really excited to talk to you today. I'm so glad to meet you. Thanks for taking some time. Oh, it's a pleasure. I'm quite a fan of you and your work. I think this is the most important thing I could possibly be doing with my time. That's generous. You know, we're living in a really complicated and troubling world in some ways right now, and we all have to find different ways to engage and make a difference. So you're doing it in your way and I'm trying to do it in mine and collaborating is great, I think, and really exciting. So thank you.

Absolutely. So I'm going to dive right in if that's okay, because I'm so excited to talk to you. I have a million questions. It's too bad we can't talk for an hour. But first of all, I understand you're a new parent. Congratulations. I am. Yes. Thank you. That's so exciting. I'll never forget after my first child was born, standing on the stoop of the hospital, turning around as the nurses walked away and saying, where are you guys going? I need you. What do I do now? So it's a super exciting time, that first baby. And it's exhausting and complicated and

exhilarating and scary and all those things. So I have some sense of what you guys are going through. But congrats. It's a thrilling adventure ahead. Yeah, it's been a ton of fun. It has been very tiring, but it's definitely been like one of the most encouraging and hopeful things to see somebody who is completely new to the world like my dad, who's only sees the positive and that's actually one of the biggest and most compelling reasons to like be hopeful, work on big things, try to make progress on things that really matter. And like my wife and I feel so fortunate

that we could bring a child into the world and support him. But we're aware of how hard that is for other young people. And especially young Americans right now are struggling not only to form families, but to support families, to ensure their families. And we see the privilege we have. But we live in a community that is mostly Latino. There's lots of families on Medicaid.

There's lots of families who need assistance. And watching that social safety net become increasingly wobbly, even though we're fortunate, it gives me a lot of fear and disappointment because I look at my son and I think someone else has a child like that. And that child didn't choose their parents. And this feels so much different

than it would have before I had my son. Yeah, yeah, it really connects you to everyone else and the future in a lot of ways. Well, I'm an OB-GYN by training, as I think you know. And so I'm passionate about women's health and maternal health. And I spend a lot of time worrying about the maternal health crisis that we have in our country

that you've sort of intimated at. And these huge cuts to Medicaid that were just signed into law by the president really terrify me if I'm being just really brutally honest. We already are an outlier in terms of maternal and infant morbidity and mortality compared to our peer nations. And this is going to make that worse. We also have unacceptable racial disparities in those bad numbers that are already high for everyone,

but that is only going to get worse with these cuts. And I think a lot about public health, but I also think about individual health. Cause you know, when I'm talking to one patient, I'm thinking about what's on her mind and what she can be doing to be the healthiest. And some of that has to do with personal choices and educating people about what those are. But when you think about public health writ large, that's about all of us. We live in

community and how when we all do better, we all do better. I don't know if you remember Senator Paul Wellstone, he's a beloved former senator from Minnesota. And he always said, when we all do better, we all do better. And I just, it's such a simple, but such a true expression because there, we all overlap and when more people are thriving in society, that's better for everyone. And the law that was just, the bill that was just signed into law really does the opposite of that. It really discounts the least fortunate among us for the benefit of the wealthiest among us,

which is just something that's really tough for me to reconcile. So I'm just curious how you think, because I know you do a lot of you spend a lot of time thinking about health and nutrition and wellness and fitness. How do you think about in terms of maternal health? I bet you're spending maybe more time thinking about that now maybe than you did before. Totally well like just hitting on the when we all do better, we all do better thing. I love that and I do feel that culturally one of our biggest challenges is we are very competitive, very status driven, and we look at so many things as zero sum.

The president is somebody who I think really plays into this, but health is infinite sum. We can all have it. We can all work towards it. If somebody else has it, it's not a reflection of me not having it. We can all participate from almost any access point in the improvement of our health. We have a mental health crisis going on and we have a sedentary crisis going on. And I think those things dovetail. They affect how we treat ourselves, how we treat each other.

And I'm huge on the personal responsibility and the initiative and kind of taking that bull by the horns, finding an exercise modality you like and you'll enjoy. And I do believe that if we all did that, we'd be healthier. But to your point, having a child, having to take, you move a little bit out of my health and my responsibility you know, having a child, having to take, you know, you move a little bit out of my health and my responsibility to my family's health.

We now have to talk about the system of how are we gonna have this baby, the hospital, how are we gonna pay for it, and you realize very quickly, we cannot stop the conversation on health with our own health. It definitely is like a systemic thing and what scares the hell out of me, what I'm seeing as somebody who again

we're very fortunate to be in the position we're in. But I see my government cutting SNAP funding, cutting SNAP-Ed funding, and especially cutting WIC funding. And WIC is something that I know about because a lot of the people that my family is friends with, their families are in a position where they receive WIC. And so part of their grocery bill is covered. And I think that's really reasonable for the richest country on earth to do for women and babies. I actually think it's really hypocritical for us to say we're going to make America healthy again when we strip away the financial, basically, lifeline for women and children to feed their infants, or women to feed their

infants and children. And the worst part is a lot of these cuts are specifically on the best their infants and children. And the worst part is a lot of these cuts are specifically on the best kind of food, like the fruits and the vegetables. And so I love personal responsibility. I've pushed it my whole life, my career as a strength and conditioning coach, but it's not enough. And it's honestly irresponsible of the richest country on earth to leave it up to us to have to figure it out. And I think we owe it to women and mothers more than anyone who make that investment because we know when you invest in a child early, you will have better returns, metaphorically speaking. And I just, I hate, I have a strong distaste for the lack of investment our government will make in young people and children and women and our well-being, but they'll always make it for a billionaire. I know, I know. You just hit on two things that really resonate with me. One kind of

the hypocrisy of Todd, there's been a lot of conversation about, we want women to have more babies in the United States while making it nearly impossible by cutting access to healthcare, by cutting access to nutrition as you brought up. And then of course, also cutting access to reproductive healthcare. So with putting people in this catch-22

while also making life more expensive, of health care. So with putting people in this catch 22, while also making life more expensive, there's been no way to address the affordability crisis. And many most economists argue that these tariffs that the president keeps putting on and off will only drive up inflation and make the cost of living higher. And I think about when I'm talking to one of my patients, who's just had a baby, and all of the barriers that exist toward being able to, for her to recover, both physically and emotionally, and for her child

to get off to the best possible start. When we don't, I have so many patients, Danny, who have had to go back to work, sometimes within a week or two after giving birth, because we can't afford not to. Now we have we have unpaid leave in the United States, which is great if you don't need a paycheck, I guess. But most of us are going to need to be paid in order to do that. So that's one big barrier. And then if you don't have access to health care, that's just cutting you off at the knees because our health care system, that's a whole other conversation,

but it's very, very fragmented. We have a huge medical debt problem. So I think about, and when I'm thinking about, you know, getting back into shape after having a baby, well, you have to be able to make time for that. And if you're working two or three jobs and you don't have any access to childcare, it becomes nearly impossible. Same thing with nutrition. If you can't access healthy food,

how are you supposed to make those things happen? So personal responsibility, of course, comes into all of our lives. But there are huge systemic issues that prevent people from reaching their health potential. The other thing you brought up that I think is so important and so topical right now is this whole Make America Healthy Again movement that I guess is being spearheaded by this Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert Kennedy Jr.

They just put out a list of wins. And frankly, none of them really have very much to do with health. And often he seems to be working with people who are profiting off of selling supplements and quick fixes to health that are not evidence based. And that there's just there's no data to suggest that they're going to make a huge difference. There really aren't shortcuts the way I think he would lead a lot of people to believe. So I'd just be curious if you could talk more about sort of that whole make America healthy again and some of your thoughts on what does it take to be healthy? Sure.

Well, you know, you have to be healthy. I think you need to be somewhat at peace in your life, and you need to have some foundational needs met. We just talked about like, personal responsibilities, not enough. And if like so many American families, you don't have a lot of time, 17% of your income every month goes to your health insurance bill that you hope to never have to use. The cost of your food is extremely high, especially things like fresh fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, whole grains, the stuff we want to eat. You're correct. It is very likely that these tariffs will make the cost of those things go up. And as somebody who lives in California and grew up around the Silicon or San Joaquin Valley, I can tell you deporting millions of people will also make the cost of healthy food go up. And these are things we have not yet seen, but I'm very confident we will see soon. And so what

we need to create a system that makes it easier for people to afford the right foods, to have the time to exercise, to not have to spend 20, almost 20 percent of their money every month on health care. If people had that time back, they had that money back, they had those basic needs met, it would see people more willing to engage with a fitness coach like myself or going to the gym or going to the park. When I was 20 and very calloused and frankly very much in the right wing media ecosystem, I was deeply judgmental of people who didn't work out. I thought it was completely a choice and they were just lazy. Yeah. And as I've matured and taken on more responsibility, I realized America is one of the hardest places to be healthy. And we're not going to fix that with what I believe are essentially

backroom handshake deals that are supposed to look nice. And we're going to remove a food dye that won't impact obesity whatsoever or we're going to swap a cooking oil that is a nebulous change at best it could actually be worse and we're going to we're going to use messaging surrogates who sell things that don't do anything other than make them money. Yeah. And we're gonna promise the least healthy people, some of the least healthy people in the world, the people who are living in crisis, that we're gonna make them healthy again, healthier than they've ever been. And what I feel so badly about is we're gonna wake up from this fever dream in three and a half years and our health is still going to be in a collectively bad place. 17 million fewer people will have health care and we will probably have substantial more misinformation to combat. And I think

the way we make people healthier is we invest in making the system better. We educate them so that they have the time and the desire to go and take on the responsibility. I just think it's harder here than it should be. Yeah, I totally agree with you. And I'm glad you mentioned the mass deportation effort to you know, I tend to like to believe I tend to have an optimistic view about the United States. I'm still proud of our country. I'm still proud to be an American. I love the ideal that we always try to live up to. We've never made it. But part of what being an American is, is to be aspirational, to be better, I think. And to see this bill, one of the main things, the areas that it spent money in was in creating this new

massive law enforcement effort in ice Dollars yes while cutting health care for moms and babies as we've and our most vulnerable people By the way also will remove will decrease access to health care for everyone and make everyone's health care more expensive, but it targets the most vulnerable people. And we're going to spend money. They it was sold as we're going to deport the violent criminals, right? I think people are probably on board with that. However, that is not that's not

what's happening. They are deporting grandmas who have been here for many decades, they're deporting kids who have cancer, they're setting people up to fail by having them do their regular visa check ins and then going and snatching them and deporting them, not only to whatever their home country, even though America is now their home country, but to a third country that they have no tie to or have never been to. It's to me that is the most un-American part in some ways of this whole effort and it's absolutely heartbreaking.

We're gonna have so much rebuilding to do when this fever time as you describe it is over. It's certainly not healthy either. Oh, it's not. It's, it's, you know, have so much rebuilding to do when this fever came, as you describe it, is over? It's certainly not healthy either. Oh, it's not. It's a one place that we really kind of find stability is in our families, in our home lives. And my wife is the daughter of Latino immigrants. My son is half Mexican.

His grandfather came to this country today in a manner that would have him deported to this country today in a manner that would have him deported to another country today. And I look at these people very much like I look at my father-in-law. He came here to build a life for our family, her and my wife, and him and his wife and my daughter, you know, his daughters. And I think that's what most of these people are here doing. Deporting criminals is not objectionable, but breaking up families and spending $35 billion that could be spent on, you know, things like improved school lunch access,

but instead we cut $700 million from something like that. With $35 billion, we could make meaningful investments into physical education and to snap education into SNAP, but we're going to build a new paramilitary police force that gets more annual investment than the Israeli military to deport mostly fine people at this point. I don't think there's, you're not going to get 3,000 people a day that are criminals. There's not that many criminals. And I've started to see this as a young person. I feel like more young people who are less politically inclined are starting to see that.

And that, to your point, that's an investment. We're putting money into this. And I think we should be putting money into stuff that's way more wholesome. And you can make an investment into border security. You can make an investment into the prosecution of criminals who are here illegally. You could also invest in judges who could help

allow these people to be here. And have appropriate due process. Yes, absolutely. I genuinely believe watching this and seeing this is bad for our collective psychology. This is really tough to see and that money could be spent in better ways. I really believe that.

I totally agree with you. And I agree from the trauma perspective, the mental health. We already know we have a loneliness epidemic and we have a mental health epidemic. I've been calling for a kindness revolution. I think that having this toxic person as our role model and leader leader who I can't think of

an example when he has said something empathetic or kind, we need it sounds a little Pollyanna ish, but our kids are watching this and the eight examples of leaders who care about other people and who care about our collective well-being.