During Tuesday’s democratic presidential debate, Beto O’rourke recounted meeting a woman who he said “works four jobs” raising a disabled child, highlighting her struggle as an example of growing income inequality in the U.S. 

But a storm ensued when former Fox News host bill O’reilly responded with a skeptical tweet: “Beto says he met a woman working four jobs. And raising a child with special needs. I don’t believe him. Excuse me.” 

In response, O’rourke shot a photo of himself with a woman he identified as Gina and her daughter summer. 

In fact, Gina Giambone doesn’t work four jobs – she works five, she told CBS MoneyWatch on Wednesday. She also sleeps in her car because she can’t afford to pay rent in Las Vegas, Giambone said. Because none of her jobs are full-time, she cobbles together to work between “gig economy” jobs as well as service jobs including cleaning homes. 

O’reilly doesn’t “have an idea of what life is,” she said. “This is reality. I see it every day that people can’t make ends meet.”

Giambone, 59, says she earns money as a home health assistant to her daughter, for whom she paid about an hour’s work each day, and delivery jobs for three companies-DoorDash, Uber eats and Postmates. She supplements her income by cleaning a friend’s house. 

Overall, she estimates it is about $ 300 a week, equivalent to $ 15,600 a year. “I worked for three billion dollars,” Jambon said, fully aware of the irony. 

Jambon is looking for a full-time job, but suspects employers are scaring off her age. At the same time, the delivery job allows her to keep her daughter, summer, in the car with her. “She has the mind of a child,” she said. “She needs protection, and she needs me with her.”

Jambon, who said she’s actually a long-term Bernie Sanders supporter, said she met O’rourke at an event where he spoke. She went because she was curious about his looks, and liked the way he connected with her daughter. 

Other families with children with special needs also told CBS MoneyWatch they are working multiple jobs to keep up with medical bills. In some cases, this provides the flexibility they need to meet their children’s health care needs. 

O’reilly is” moving away from reality, ” says Sheletta Brundidge, a mother of four children, three of whom are autistic, in Cottage grove, Minnesota. “What does he think we have money trees in our yard?”

Brundidge said she works full – time at a television station in Houston, but when one of her children was first diagnosed with autism, she and her husband had to reconsider. She asked her employer for a part-time job because she needed more flexibility, but they didn’t. She now works four part-time jobs.

“I didn’t start working four part-time jobs,” she said. “I started with one, then I had to pick up another one.”

Brundige works as a part-time producer at a radio station, writing for a local newspaper, blogging and hosting a podcast called “Two haute Mamas”. She said she works nights and weekends because it gives her the flexibility to take her children to medical appointments and deal with health insurance companies. 

O’reilly’s comments struck her as “unbelievable,” she said. “He doesn’t know anything about our struggles,” she said, adding that he should spend the day with his family to understand the stresses for families with special needs children.

Among the most pressing of these issues are high medical costs. 

One woman with a special needs child, who wished to remain anonymous so as not to anger one of her family’s employers, told CBS MoneyWatch that she and her husband are struggling despite their six-figure income. Although her husband is a doctor with health insurance, he works three side jobs in addition to his full – time job in order to earn money to cover his daughter’s health care costs, she said.

Many medical expenses for children with special needs are not covered by health insurance, parents say. Brundig noted that her family spent thousands on special equipment to make the home safe for their children, such as a $ 1,900 door with multiple locks so their youngest child would not run away from home.

But parents hope O’reilly’s tweet draws attention to both the financial and emotional challenges of raising children with special needs. Said Brundidge: “the Struggle of parents with children’s special needs is real and it’s important and it’s what we have to talk about in this debate.”

Quotes are delayed for at least 15 minutes.

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