My American Life

By Congresswoman Lauren Boebert and Ted Cruz

How Lauren Boebert, the gun-toting Congresswoman from Rifle, Colorado, joined the fight to make sure we never live in a socialist country.

Lauren Boebert is the Republican, gun-toting Congresswoman from Rifle, Colorado who overcame difficult life circumstances to be a leading voice for personal freedom and our 2nd Amendment rights. Raised on welfare in a Democrat household, young Lauren learned from her first job at McDonald’s that she could provide for herself better than the government ever could. She gained national attention after wearing a Glock on her hip and telling Democrat presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke, “Hell no, you aren’t taking our guns.” A self-taught conservative and small business owner, Lauren Boebert’s My American Life describes in vivid detail why Lauren dropped out of high school, the success of Shooters Grill (where her restaurant staff open-carries live firearms), and how she came to be a United States Congresswoman making sure her four boys never grow up in a socialist country. Lauren Boebert is a true believer in the opportunity of an America based on the beliefs in God, family, and country, where a one-hundred-pound, five-foot-nothing mom who had never been elected to public office suddenly had the opportunity, in Congress, to stand up for our core conservative beliefs and call Nancy Pelosi, AOC, and the rest of the crazy liberals out on all their bullcrap.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bombardier Books
• Release date: Jul 12, 2022
• ISBN: 9781637582053

Congresswoman Lauren Boebert

Lauren Boebert became the first mom to represent Colorado’s Third District in Congress after unseating a five-term incumbent Congressman; then, despite being outspent nearly 2–1, she defeated her Democrat opponent on November 3, 2020. Lauren’s historic victory showed that no amount of money can beat good, old-fashioned grassroots enthusiasm and hard work. Lauren believes in personal freedom, citizen rights, and upholding the Constitution of the United States. She is also the founder, owner, and operator of Shooters Grill, a restaurant that earned national notoriety for staff who proudly open-carry as they serve their customers.

Book preview

Published by Bombardier Books

An Imprint of Post Hill Press

ISBN: 978-1-63758-204-6

ISBN (eBook): 978-1-63758-205-3

My American Life

© 2022 by Congresswoman Lauren Boebert

All Rights Reserved

This is a work of nonfiction. All people, locations, events, and situations

are portrayed to the best of the author’s memory.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

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Post Hill Press

New York • Nashville

posthillpress.com

Published in the United States of America

This book is dedicated to my four boys, who I promised would never grow up in a socialist country, and to every American who supports me standing up for their God-given rights and belief in freedom.

Contents

Foreword

Introduction

A TOUGH START

Chapter 1: From Florida to Colorado to Florida to Colorado

Chapter 2: Teen Angst & the Art of the Fight

Chapter 3: Living on the Government’s Dime Is No Way to Live

Chapter 4: McQuitting High School

MARRIAGE, MOTHERHOOD, & MINISTRY

Chapter 5: Love at First Sight

Chapter 6: Working in the Gas Patch

Chapter 7: Foreclosure

Chapter 8: Highway Delivery

Chapter 9: Birthing Babies & Goats

Chapter 10: Jailhouse Minister

FRENCH FRIES & FIREARMS

Chapter 11: Welcome to Shooters Grill

Chapter 12: The Place Is Packed. The Waitresses Are Packing.

Chapter 13: Pretty Little Mugshots

A GUN-THEMED RESTAURANT OWNER BECOMES A GUN RIGHTS ADVOCATE

Chapter 14: Gathering Signatures and Steam

Chapter 15: Hell no, Beto.

Chapter 16: My Rights Don’t End Where Your Feelings Begin

TO RUN OR NOT TO RUN? THAT IS THE QUESTION

Chapter 17: Time to Go to Washington?

Chapter 18: Two Trips to Washington

Chapter 19: Winning a Primary

ONE UPSET DOWN, ONE MORE TO GO

Chapter 20: Dirty Pool

Chapter 21: Fighting the Falsehoods of Fake News

Chapter 22: The Debates

Chapter 23: Wait. What’s QAnon?

Chapter 24: Shut Down but Not Out

MRS. BOEBERT GOES TO WASHINGTON

Chapter 25: Who Really Wants to Compromise?

Chapter 26: How about a Personal Option for Education and Health Care?

Chapter 27: Meeting President Trump

Chapter 28: The Oval Office

Chapter 29: Challenging the Results

JUST THE BEGINNING

Chapter 30: Keep the Faith, Keep Up the Fight

Acknowledgments

Foreword

Lauren Boebert’s love of country, her commitment to conservatism, and her enthusiasm to help get our country back on track made it easy for me to endorse her candidacy for Congress.

Lauren Boebert is not only my colleague in Congress, but also a friend whom the American people can count on to be a fearless fighter for liberty.

For those of you who have never met Lauren, she is a true patriot. When Lauren says she is serving to make sure her four boys never grow up in a socialist nation, she means it with all her heart. Family means the world to her, and her four boys are the driving force that motivates her to work so hard for our shared conservative values.

Her authenticity is rare, and it’s no surprise that she is not a typical member of Congress. In fact, Lauren had never even run for public office before she won her seat, because she was running her own business and raising her family.

Lauren speaks from her heart about her relationship with God, her motivation to serve, and her experiences during her first year in Congress. It is clear to me that Lauren cares deeply about the people she represents, and they love her passion to fight.

Her story is one that so many Americans who’ve worked hard to overcome challenges and yet risen to the occasion can identify with. And for that very reason – because she rejected the liberal trap of dependency and worked hard to achieve the American dream – she is relentlessly vilified by the Left.

As you read, I think you will appreciate learning about the influences of Lauren’s upbringing and her experiences that led her to Congress.

Our nation needs more Representatives like Lauren who are committed to the fight to save our country, who work tirelessly to enact conservative policies, and who aren’t afraid of the Left-wing mob.

United States Senator Ted Cruz

Introduction

"Y ou are eager. You are excited. You are what we need in America. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you don’t have a role in this country, in our future!"

It’s true! And it’s just as true today as it was when I spoke those words before a group of eager, free-thinking, and patriotic young women at the 2020 Turning Point USA Student Action Summit. In that group of doe-eyed, enthusiastic young women, I saw the future—although someone rightfully opened my eyes to the fact that they are not the future but rather the now. I couldn’t agree more.

Now is the time to fight for freedom of thought.

Now is the time to stand up for diversity of ideas.

Now is the time to say no more to the evil that seeks to destroy our nation.

Now is the time to embolden my generation—the oft-maligned millennial generation—to stand for conservative values.

Now is the time to persevere and pursue dreams.

And if you don’t believe opportunity and the American Dream are yours for the taking, look no further than me—a thirtysomething mother of four from a small rural town who has a GED, no college degree, and no formal training. I grew up poor, raised by a practically single mother on welfare. Yet here I am, a successful business owner proudly serving Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District as a United States representative.

From rural Colorado to Capitol Hill. Only in America.

If there were such a job title as Spokeswoman for American Opportunity, I could easily fill it. By God’s grace, I am the personification of the American Dream, and here’s the special sauce—you can be too! With a work ethic, tenacity, and a love of country, you can achieve anything in America. Contrary to what an Establishment liberal will tell you, you CAN be whatever you want to be in this great country of ours. I’m proof.

Success in America is a choice. The choice young Americans make today will determine not just their future but the country’s future too. There are two sides to my generation: There are the smart, hard workers who give it their all, knowing success depends on them—the ones who choose to take ownership of their future, pull up their bootstraps, and make it happen! Then there are the lazy, entitled ne’er-do-wells who believe government and the successful owe them something—the ones who choose to sit idly by, not make an effort to live up to their potential, and then blame the haves when they have not. If I’d stood around with my hand out when I had nothing, where would I be today? Certainly not in Congress.

I wasn’t raised in a fancy home with a fancy education. I worked at a McDonald’s. I proudly represented the Golden Arches and learned valuable lessons about hard work and an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work. It helped shape who I am today.

But the measurement of success goes so far beyond money, material possessions, or position. Ask yourself, What difference am I making in my community? What impact do I have on others? Am I a catalyst for change? After all, there will always be a changing of the guard. Someone will have to answer the call. Will it be you?

I went to DC to make sure my boys don’t grow up to live in a socialist nation, which is where we’re headed if people who have common sense don’t speak up. But before I even thought about running for Congress, I got involved at the grassroots level in my community, where real change can be made. I stood up to local government officials when their pandemic powers overreach nearly ruined my business and the livelihood of all my employees. I showed up at a rally for failed Presidential candidate Robert Francis Beto O’Rourke and challenged him to explain why he wanted to trample over the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States on his way to confiscating your guns. I wasn’t a politician. I was a small business owner, a mother, wife, a concerned citizen, and I was ticked off. So there I was, going toe-to-toe with a man—the embodiment of entitlement—who fancied himself called to be President, or as he famously told Vanity Fair, I’m just born to be in it. It’s amazing what a concerned citizen can do when they remember the government is here to serve the people—the people are not here to serve the government.

Influence doesn’t necessarily come easy, but it also doesn’t come with any prerequisites. It doesn’t require a degree from a hoity-toity college, a privileged background, a huge Instagram following, powerful connections, or a big bank account. As I’ll say repeatedly, with a work ethic, tenacity, and a love of God, family, and country, you can, and will, make a difference!

There are so many people who work to keep the government accountable—and who’ve helped to make America the greatest country in the whole of humankind. Our country stands on the self-evident truths that all men (and women) are created equal, that we’re endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Countless stories bear witness to principled people fighting for the American way of life.

I’m one of them.

A TOUGH START

Chapter 1

From Florida to Colorado to Florida to Colorado

The first campaign advertisement I launched after I won my Republican primary was called Breaking the Cycle of Poverty. The ad highlighted how I had overcome the challenges of growing up poor. The cycle of poverty is a very real thing, and far too many people in our country don’t know any other way of life. I lived it, and I can tell you it’s a tough cycle to break, no matter how hard you try, because it turns out hope and change is easier said than done. A lack of job skills, instability at home, family members addicted to drugs and alcohol, and a dependency on the government all reduce the odds of someone breaking that cycle of poverty. I’m sure there are also powerful statistics that show how being a single mother makes it that much harder.

Welcome to my childhood.

I was born in Altamonte Springs, Florida, a bustling suburb in the northern part of Orlando. Growing up, I didn’t know my biological father. He pressured Mom to get an abortion, but thank God, she refused. My mom is my best friend, so it’s important you know that when I talked to her about this book, she encouraged me to tell you just the way things were, so here it goes.

Mom was an eighteen-year-old high school dropout struggling to make ends meet. She attended beauty school for a while, then cut hair to put money in her pocket. The struggle was real. Since Mom was still a teenager when she had me, besides being a parent, she wanted to be my friend too. Mom was not authoritarian. She wasn’t all too interested in being a disciplinarian, and she has always been my best friend. I consider myself lucky for that. She’d also be the first to tell anyone she wasn’t a typical mom, but her parents were, and that made me lucky too.

My grandparents filled what I considered to be the traditional mother and father roles in my young life. They helped with my foundational beliefs. They’re the ones who taught me to be responsible, respectful to elders, and to attend church. Granny and Papa wanted me to grow up knowing what it meant to be a good person. We lived with them for the first four years of my life. Then Mom decided she’d venture out on her own. But at first, it wasn’t what one might call easy.

We didn’t have a particularly stable home life, and Mom’s choices in men weren’t, well, let’s say they weren’t exactly the best. When I was four, Mom, who was then twenty-two, met a guy I will call Mike for the purposes of this book. He was visiting from Colorado and staying with one of her friends. The second the friend introduced the two of them, sparks flew. Their connection was so strong that Mike immediately made the pitch for Mom to visit him when he got back to Colorado. For him, the timing couldn’t have been any better. But for Mom, in hindsight, it could not have been worse. She accepted his offer mainly to spite my grandmother, who was adamantly against her making such a foolish move at such a young age.

Up to this point, Mom had been in an on-again, off-again relationship with a successful Florida business owner named Jimmy. It was during one of those off-again times when she met Mike. Mom figured she and Jimmy weren’t a thing anymore so she could date whomever she pleased. Besides, Colorado and the Rocky Mountains sounded like a great escape for a wayward twenty-two-year-old. Nevertheless, she had reservations. Mom didn’t know Mike all that well and was nervous about traveling so far on her own. Besides, she couldn’t just leave her four-year-old daughter alone for a week. What should she do? Mom’s solution, and a questionable one at that, was to bring her pregnant friend along with us on a Greyhound bus from Florida to Colorado. Why either one of them thought this was a good idea, we’ll never know, but it happened.

So, a toddler, her mom, and a pregnant woman get on a bus…. It sounds like the opening line to a good joke, but there was nothing funny about this trip. Being pregnant and riding cross-country on a bus made my mom’s friend sick—so sick, in fact, that she needed all of us to get off the bus and wait for the next bus while she recovered. On the next bus, she got sick again, and we had to get off that one too. This was clearly going to be a very long trip, but Mom was determined to get to Colorado and see Mike, so she decided to leave her friend and me at the station and hop on the next bus by herself. Great. I got to ride across the country with a cranky, sick, pregnant lady I barely knew.

Mom made it to Colorado and enjoyed two days alone with Mike before I, along with her road-weary friend, rolled into town. Mike lived in Aurora with two dogs in a small, cramped apartment. So here we were, three adults, one toddler, and two dogs packed into one apartment—not exactly the brochure picture for life in the Rocky Mountains. But, hey, I liked the dogs, and Mom liked Mike. They had a great time together. Clearly. Mike was now asking my mom to leave Florida and move in with him in Colorado.

This guy moved fast but Mom, well, she moved faster. She turned Mike down and instead got back together with Jimmy in Florida and moved us in with him at his beach house. Suddenly life was good. It felt like I had a family. The three of us together, eating and laughing at our dinner table and going for long walks on the beach where we collected seashells, felt like living in a fairy tale. Jimmy was kind, and I was sure he was going to be the dad I never had. I liked the idea of that a lot because of the connection we were making. He and I had already spoken with a secret code word, Slatterslaw, that I am quite confident meant, I love you. It meant a lot to me.

Unfortunately, he never had a chance to be that guy. Just as quickly as we moved in, we moved out. Mom suddenly decided to dump Jimmy and move us in with Mike in Colorado.

In case you haven’t figured it out by now, my mother could be, in a word, flighty. Perhaps that is where my need for adventure originates from.

My head was spinning. Why wouldn’t it be? I was a little kid who didn’t understand why things were changing so quickly. Oh well, goodbye beach house, hello Aurora, Colorado apartment. I hoped this would be a fun adventure.

It wasn’t.

In no time at all, it was clear that Mom had made a terrible, terrible mistake. Life with Mike was miserable. First, as if it wasn’t already overcrowded with the three of us and the two dogs in a little apartment, on most weekends, Mike’s son, who was two years older than me, would come to stay with us too. Ironically, that was the one positive to this whole arrangement. He and I had an instant brother-sister relationship, where we’d often play and, just as often, fight together. Generally, though, we found a way to get along. Truth be told, having another kid around was fun for me.

Second, Mike was abusive toward my mother. We’d barely unpacked the boxes before it began. He’d yell at her, push her, and slap her around. I’d get so mad that I’d stomp my little feet and throw things at him to get him to stop. He wouldn’t. I repeatedly called my grandparents for help, telling them how bad things were and how Mike would hit my mom. They begged Mom to come home.

Reviews for My American Life

[Nick Quick · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

As awful as you think this book is likely to be... Trust me: It's waaayyyyy worse!