For days, Jon Stewart has been railing on Republicans for blocking a veterans health bill they’d already passed in June. But he’s spent most of his time singling out one of them: Ted Cruz. The Texas senator has claimed, falsely, that the bill — alled the Honoring Our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act (aka the PACT Act) and meant to help veterans exposed to toxic pit burns — has been amended since it first passed. It hasn’t. And Stewart will not let his deceptions fly.
WATCH: GOP Senators stopped a veterans health bill after previously showing support. Sen. Cruz blamed a budgetary trick, though the bill didn’t change.@jonstewart: “That’s just a word salad that he’s spewing into his coffee cup. … At some point we all have to live in reality.” pic.twitter.com/1bPSfYmSrG
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) July 31, 2022
Stewart went on Meet the Press Sunday, where host Chuck Todd asked him about the excuses Cruz and his colleagues have made for shooting down the bill. Cruz, for instance, has accused Democrats of a “budgetary trick,” claiming they changed one part of the spending to “mandatory.” Stewart pointed out that nothing in the bill has been altered.
“He can’t point to anything specific that was changed,” Stewart said. “They all just got this mumbo jumbo about a budgetary gimmick, but nothing changed. This isn’t my opinion. It is on congress.gov. The text of the bill they voted for June 14th is the same bill.”
After Todd played a clip of Cruz, with a Diet Dr. Pepper can in his hand, accusing Democrats of foul play, Stewart pushed back. “That’s just a word salad that he’s spewing into his coffee cup on his way to God knows where as veterans sit in Washington, D.C. and the sweltering heat, demanding that they pass this legislation that they have been fighting for, for 15 years,” he said.
Stewart also dragged him for, as he suggested, making stuff up. “Look, anybody can say anything, you know,” Stewart said. “We can say Elvis Presley is still alive, but at some point we all have to live in reality, and what he is saying is just factually incorrect. The bill that Ted Cruz voted yes on had the exact same funding provisions as the bill he voted no on. It is the exact same bill. None of this makes any sense.”
Meanwhile, another GOP lawmaker who voted no on the PACT Act, John Cornyn, seemed to admit that Republicans only blocked the bill to own the libs.
(Via Rolling Stone)