The Problem With Jon Stewart - Jon Talks About the Passing of the PACT Act

Episode Date: August 4, 2022

Jon is joined by staff writers Kasaun Wilson and Rob Christensen to talk about his fight to get the PACT Act—which gives urgently needed healthcare to sick veterans—passed in the Senate. He discusses battling Republican misinformation and the behind-the-scenes work it took to achieve this victory. Plus, Kay and Rob chat about their struggle to behave in the Senate gallery, Jon’s Bernie Sanders impression, and what the Senate has in common with an assisted living facility.If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts, reach out to the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988 or visiting 988lifeline.org.http://apple.com/heretohelpCREDITSHosted by: Jon StewartFeaturing, in order of appearance: Rob Christensen and Kasaun WilsonExecutive Produced by Jon Stewart, Brinda Adhikari, James Dixon, Chris McShane, and Richard Plepler.Lead Producer: Sophie EricksonProducers: Zach Goldbaum, Caity Gray, and Robby SlowikAssoc. Producer: Andrea BetanzosSound Engineer & Editor: Miguel CarrascalSenior Digital Producer: Frederika MorganDigital Coordinator: Norma HernandezSupervising Producer: Lorrie BaranekHead Writer: Kris AcimovicElements: Kenneth Hull, Daniella PhilipsonTalent: Brittany Mehmedovic, Marjorie McCurry, Lukas Thimm Research: Susan Helvenston, Andy Crystal, and Cassie MurdochTheme Music by: Gary Clark Jr.The Problem with Jon Stewart podcast is an Apple TV+ podcast produced by Busboy Productions.https://apple.co/-JonStewart

On this vote, the yeas are 86. The nays are 11. Under the previous order requiring 60 votes for the adoption of this motion to concur, the motion is agreed to. Hello, welcome to the problem with John Stewart. My name is Kason Wilson. I'm Rob Christensen. We're both writers on the show. And for this podcast, we're going to do it a little different. Kason and I are going to host and we're going to bring in a very special guest, our boss, Mr. John Stewart. Welcome to your podcast. A very tired person who was left DC at 8 p.m. last night. Truly. Yeah. You know, you know, I didn't realize that that legislating can give you a hangover. Oh, yeah.

So it's drunk on democracy drunk on democracy. That must be why they don't do much of it in DC. Oh, man. So we have so much to talk about that happened yesterday. I know. The passing of the PACT Act. And what the PACT Act did is that it provided health care for veterans who were injured by the burn pits. They had burn pits in at war. It gave them cancers and other ailments. And now they're going to be covered when they go to the VA.

They're going to have presumption that their diseases were caused by their service. Or if you're a Republican, it is a slush fund that we got you on. Got you. 400 billion. And if you are not familiar with burn pits and the reason for why the PACT Act was so important, please check out season one episode one of the problem with John Stewart on Apple TV Plus. We pretty much talk about it at length about these veterans and everything that they sacrificed in a fight that they've had to come back to America and fight for the health care well-being and for those who unfortunately didn't make it but still deserve to have the health care taken care of. Yes. Yes.

It was passed. And it was passed again. It was a blowout. And then we lost. And then we won by more than what we won by originally. That's the thing, you know, I don't know if you guys would felt like when that gut punch happened, when they turned the bill down, I think that was on either Wednesday night or Thursday night. You know, everybody had gathered there in Washington, all the veteran service organizations, all the veterans for a celebration because this bill had obviously already passed 84 to 14. And it had a blue slip issue, which is there was a small constitutional provision that rural VA providers had to be taken out one sentence.

So they were all there. So when Pat Toomey stood around the desk and convinced all of his frat brothers to and we'll get into what the Senate is like. But when he convinced them all to just, you know, hey, man, let's just take a stand here against veterans with cancer. But let's do that. Let's finally defeat big veteran with cancer. And, you know, when that happened, people were devastated. And I don't like not to like overly massage the point like people committed suicide. Like that's real.

And within the period. Because of because of that. That's right. We know of two instances of people that we were actively trying to get help who committed suicide. Like that's how fucking serious this was. Right. But thanks for playing your games with the bill. See that.

That's the point. That's why I was so mad. And because the misinformation. Willful from the right. Like, I still can't understand. Like, what's the point of this whole like it's a Schumer Green New Deal. Like, and it's right there. Like you can look it up.

We're not like, we're not playing semantic games. Nothing changed from June 16th to July. So knowing the stakes of what was going on. Like, you know, that's why I was so raw. That's why we were fighting so hard because when this misinformation grabs hold. And Rob, you might know, look, and I don't know if you're on like those, you know, net bot servers or whatever they are for military community. But that real right with that hardcore right wing part of the military was attacking the fuck and everybody else all caps. Yeah.

Yeah, I do know some some people who are in who are very right. And it's just they don't question this information when it comes in and like question it. If it's coming from Schumer question it and it's coming from to me. Absolutely 100% every time question it to me being the senator from Pennsylvania. But it was the certainty of it of no, the Dems inserted, they switched it from mandatory. And I kept telling people, don't believe me. I understand what you think of me, but you don't have to take it from me. Take it from your eyeballs, whatever connects your eyeballs to the other processing chips that go on there.

You can actually go on the site and just line the two documents up. John and the whole week is like my evidence ends in dot gov. Like I'm not making fact check me like. Can I tell you what's crazy though it this whole run right was a micro I felt like for me it exposed the fault lines of our dysfunction. By the way, also exposed some really positive developments of people are looking for a reason to hang with this government. Your senators may and not all of them, obviously, but a lot of them. Maybe fuck wads, but the legislative aides that worked on this tirelessly. Know their shit backwards and forwards work way harder than anybody else down there.

They come in earlier, they leave later. They know the ins and outs. They know how to climb the ladders of bureaucratic protocol and get what needs to be done. They're practical. They're brilliant. They're grounded. They're not divided by. And that's, by the way, the most part like certain senators, the ones you might imagine their legislative aides are many means of their idiot senators.

And like you'll talk to them and they'll just be like, why don't you put on a slush fund? And you're like, you fucking know Simon, you know, Simon and Pat, they wrote it. Go talk to them. I'm telling you, by the way, big, big, big shout out to Simon Kuhn and Pat McGuigan, who are legislative and Lindsay Deering from testers office from and Tony McClain testers office, Bozeman's office, Moran's office. The brilliance of them together. Ignoring all the other stuff. So if you're looking for reasons of hope, our government at the level you don't see is staffed by some brilliant, hardworking, practical, reasonable people. And yeah, it's amazing to be standing next to the guy who wrote the bill and then looking at the senators on the Republican side lying.

And I'm like, I have the guy here. He wrote the thing. So Simon and Pat like wrote they they're instrumental in actually writing out the PACT act, how the how the money gets distributed, like all of that stuff. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Can I just say real quick, shout out to Simon Kuhn. I got a tall guy with a shaved head wearing a chain. Yeah, man.

Full sleeve tattoos. Decker Heights, baby. Decker Heights. Let's go. The only Kuhn I root for. Yeah. Can I tell you, can I tell you, that's fucking hilarious. Can I tell you how he and I bonded?

Please. He was a fucking straight edge punk. And I see that. I for I for years worked at a legendary punk club in Trenton, New Jersey called City Gardens. And when Simon found that out, it just we then you start twirling down that road or like, right, suicidal tendencies. And they show that that guar show in 1980s. You know, he's obviously a lot younger than me. But, you know, I was the old man telling them stories of Gibby Hayne, you know, and all those guys.

So, but, but that's how we bond. But those guys are, I'm telling you, man, and you know what you feel stupid about is like wanting to hug them. Because, you know, Pat and Simon, it's like, I will kill everyone in my path. And you're just like, my man. I just, I want, I want the, the, I want everyone to know the guy who wrote the pact act wears a pinky ring. Yes. Not, not all the time. That was a celebratory.

We need to take the pinky ring back. Okay. That's a fact. Celebratory. It was, it was merely an accoutrement on a festive, on a festive day. But you know what's crazy though about that is I can't tell you how many reporters write up the story of what happened and they're wrong. Yes. Just flat out wrong, wrong on substance, wrong on style, wrong on everything.

And you, you'll like my job that whole five days was I am going to suss out every moment of misinformation that I can and try and push it back in the tube because this is making it harder for the veterans to get this through. It's, it's obfuscating. It was doing its job. The misinformation was doing its job. Yes. And so I'd get these reporters and I would say this is wrong. And they'd say, well, you know, I got that from Yahoo News or some other shit. And you're like, that's just an aggregator.

How about this? And so I made Simon all day long, just get on the phone with people and go like, okay, so page 19 years, what happened? And like just run through everything that was going on. Our journalists though, they do have a purpose in society. It is to fact check the shit. That's what they do. They go out and find the stuff and they make sure it's true. I'm not.

So Rob, and again, look, I've been doing this a lot. I don't think that's great. I think what they're supposed to do is find out what, what that means for the midterms. Oh, you're so right. To speculate. My bad. I had an old definition. Yeah.

It's no, it's, it's what everything means for the midterms. But oh, and here's a great one. Like in Newsweek came out with a fact check on to me today. Okay. Okay. The bill, the bill passed yesterday. Well done. We're going to get Tuberville now.

We got it guys. We're going to get to it. We're going to get to it. So can we take a step back? Let's start from the beginning. Yeah. I think for people who don't know, they know something really good happened for veterans. It was trending on Twitter.

Like all of this amazing stuff. Not even really good. Like just, just like, here's how fucked up we are. Like they still have cancer. They're still fighting these illnesses. Like it's the perspective of like, for a moment you are like, yes. Yeah. Kimo won't bankrupt them.

Like, so in the perspective of it was a day the country lived up to an obligation that it had, but their lives are still a battle. Yeah. And that's the thing. I have no segue for what I'm about to say. Bring it Kay. Which is I feel so guilty for how great of a time I had yesterday. And we want to tell you about it, John.

Yes. We just want to talk about everything that happened yesterday. We were, we were in DC with John. A group of us went down and saw it from, I want to say beginning to end. It was clearly, it's been fighting for decades. You know, we showed up on the last day and shook hands. Can I tell you what was nice? And I honestly mean this.

So like, we're worn out. And when you are that way, like, I really, the reason why I switched tactics on that day was, I could tell the group was, was done. Like some of the veterans were in crisis. We had to get the VA to send over crisis counts. It was like, these folks have traumatic stress. They have disabilities. They have illnesses caused by the burn.

And like, they were fraying. They had been outside for a very long time. And when new people come and bring new energy, it allows them to go a little bit further, to dig a little bit deeper. And when Kay and Rob and Brenda and Jillian, the podcast team and everybody showed up. Robbie, Robbie came and it was such a lift. And what I thought was interesting is obviously down there, you know, we don't have unlimited food.

And to see all you guys around that food table in some ways, keeping others from getting there was really what for me, you know, I was like, well, you know, we don't, we don't actually have more. I think it's, I think it's only, we just have that one box of burgers. And to know that it was nice to see how hungry you guys were. Yeah, we make sure when we come down, we support and we get all the pepperoni pizza. That's right. You got to stay focused.

We can't allow you to get. Yeah. Well, I remember I was like, oh, this is a great lift, but guys, it's not an open bar. So if you could just for a second and let the guy in the wheelchair, just have maybe some of the coleslaw. That's all. I wasn't asking for much. Robbie did have two cups of salad.

Yeah. Yeah. What was Robbie doing? I look over, he's got a cup and a fork and I'm like, do you drink? And John feels kind of looked at us like, be more like this guy. We ate bread and he let us have it. And I'm like, bro, we're trying to get the pack deck down. I don't, I didn't come here to feel guilty.

I came here for pizza. Yeah. John feel is pure paleo. He just reaches in. Yes. It's a lot of. So who are, so we should understand that there's some inside stuff here that people may not know. For those who don't know who John feels, can you explain John feel is an absolute whirling

dervish of a human being served in the army. He's an army guy, airborne, I think. And, you know, when, when 9 11 happened, he went down there to help because he was also construction forming and he decided God knows where he got the willpower or the strategic know it. Long Island. That's, you know what, in Wisconsin, he's from Wisconsin. So that's probably it.

And he organized this. I mean, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of trips down to Washington to get these people taken care of. And he was the guiding force behind really the momentum, the foot soldiers of getting the Zidroga act through the, uh, the Congress back in 2010, when I became aware that this was going on, I reached out to him to say, Hey man, come on the show. Let's cause Mitch McConnell, oddly enough, because it's the Senate, it's the same players because nobody ever leaves the Senate because it's Hotel California.

And so come on, let me try and shame them before they go on their break. And let's do, he's like, John, I'd love to come and do it, but I can't, John, John, John, I can't, John, I'm here in Washington and John, I can't. But he hooked me up with four people, firefighter, construction worker, cops, and they came on the show and he and I just stayed in touch with it and thinking it was over, but it was never over and he's never been able to do it. And this will be the rest of his life, by the way, is making sure that these funds are properly administrated and all those sorts of things.

But we became very close and over these past, you know, 12 years or so, we've been, we've been brothers in arms trying to do this and he's just a hell of a dude. Needless to say, you ever watched like a blowout NBA game where when it's a minute and a half left, they bring in a five, four point guard to just dribble the time out? Are you talking about Mugsy Bowes? Cause that's an all star baby. No, I mean, like literally the guy that you've never heard of just dribbles the time out. That's what the writers were yesterday.

We were just dribbling the ball out. You guys had done all the hard work. Two weeks ago, a case on was with G league ignite. And now he's with the Lakers and he's chucking up some threes. So we were out on the, we were, we got to DC. We were on the Capitol lawn at like 10 a.m. And we were just hanging out with the veterans and hearing stories. And, and it was just such an incredible time to, I mean, hearing devastating stories,

but just hanging out with people who like heroes and hearing their stories. That's right. And if, if you want to talk about energy, if you thought we brought energy, they brought us energy when we get down there and we talk to these people, it's like you'll do anything for them at that point. Like I'm going nowhere now. It's, it's, and, and Rosie is, did you, did you get to meet and talk to Rosie? Rosie Torres is talking about it, but she's another,

she's like what John feel was during the Zidroga act for the burn pits. She's been at this, her husband Leroy Torres was sickened by the burn pits, came home, Texas state trooper couldn't work. They fired him. They're about to lose their house. He gets suicidal, you know, it pulling them. She pulled him back from the brink and his service dog and they decided to fight. And so they began this effort and that's actually how John and I,

John feel and I got involved. Rosie saw what was going on with Zidroga and said, that sounds like what's happening to us. Yes. She contacted feel. He contacted me and we were like, when and where baby, let's do this. The question is that in 9-11, they were breathing in some shit that was toxic, that was burning in the rubble.

And at the same time our soldiers were burning shit and breathing it in the same shit they were being told to by their superiors. Right. One, one was an attack and the other was a direct order. Correct. Yeah. It's fucking stupid. It's incredible how effective injustice is at creating community.

It's like it was just hanging out on bars, bars. Oh, listen, I mean, you guys did all the speeches yesterday. And there was a lot of speeches non-stop speeches. By the way, if they would cut out the speeches, you would see probably 60 to 70% more legislation. Washington is 10% legislation, 20% cocktails and lunch and the rest is speeches. All right. So we don't know these people, John. You talk to these people all the time.

We're on the lawn. You know these people. You talk to these people. You talk through legislation. You hear all the stuff behind the scenes. We don't know these people. So we're on the lawn hanging out with the veterans, having a good time, electric sliding for justice, all that good stuff.

Who's the most noteworthy senator that came over to you, Rob? Like who's the person that you like? Oh, well, the star of the show was Warnock. 100%. Yeah. Really? Okay. Whenever those folks walk over, I don't know if you guys noticed this, I walk away.

Yes. We noticed. You know, we still got, we're wide-eyed and bushy-tailed. All right. All right. What we like about Warnock is that he's very different in person than he is on television when you see him. Okay.

I would like to say something that I'm already requesting you guys to cut from this podcast. He wore buffs. He wears buffs, John, and he ties his tie like an original king of comedy. Let me tell you something. Nobody looks better than Warnock. Like he walks out there in a thing, because you also see like, let's face facts, the Senate is a glorified assisted living facility. So when you bring in a Warnock, when you bring in, you know, when you get a couple of guys

to cut a dapper figure, and you're just like, is that the lawyer who's trying to shut down the nursing home? Like you don't know, you're trying to pick everybody's places. It's like when we were in the gallery and you walk them come up, tell me that didn't look like one flew over the cuckoo's nest, where it's just elderly people walking up to get their medicine. Yeah. John Ossoff is somebody's grandson, and they're like, this is my grandbaby.

Who came to visit me? My favorite thing about watching these votes is all the guys in their grays, you know, it's all gray and brown and, you know, ashen. So it all has this very big sort of auto-preminger feel as they're walking up, and then Kristen Sinema walks in with a lily politzer, and her shoes have daisies. Great look. Honestly. Unfortunately, we have to report that she looked great.

And she's moving two to three times faster than anybody else, and creating vapor trails. And all you do is you look over at like Grassley going, who's she coming to visit? And it's the funniest fucking thing you could ever, I mean, it's just, it's such a wild place. It's all right. So for those who don't know, we were on the lawn, we weren't sure when things were going to get passed. No, this though, because any, because senators are coming over, that's how you know shit's

starting to get resolved, because we were down there for days, and the only people came over with the Capitol Police going, please don't put your chair there. Can you? Yeah. You know, when the senators started coming, that's when I went, we're gonna, we're gonna win this. So, so war, war not came over. Yeah.

I mean, it was headliners. We had Heinrich from New Mexico. Sure. Yeah. Tell me, he's a good dude. Hell of a tan on this man, Heinrich. Hell of a tan. Too good of a tan for a man with the last name Heinrich, I think.

How does that happen? Another writer, Robbie said that he had big time game show host vibes. Yes, I agree. I agree. No question. He does, he does their trivia night from what I know. Mark Kelly came and I think the first time you said like senators don't come over unless they know is when Schumer came over and you were like, okay, this is.

They wouldn't do it. Yeah. They, they, they don't have, that's not, they don't come over to like check on things. They, that's just not how they work. Bernie came over and said, what's up? And it started to feel like there was some optimism in the air, but we weren't sure. And regardless, like what everything John is saying is absolutely true. Like any publication that was like Republicans have already voted no, like we didn't even

know. We're kind of getting where it is we go along and we find out there's a vote is going down. And we figure out that we're going to go out into the Senate, which I think for me, Robbie and Rob, we were like, this is not what I envisioned I'd be wearing the first time I'm invited inside. Yeah. I'm watching my first vote in the gallery in a shirt that I've sweated in for nine hours straight.

Deodorant giving up. Yeah. Yeah. They take a, we, we have to go inside the Capitol, but first we have to go through 30 minutes of the insurrection tour and boy, it's not when you walk through there now, it's a different vibe than you walk through certain places and you go, oh, this is where the Confederate flag guy was. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, this is where the like it, it's haunting now in a way that it wasn't when we were first doing it. And also it's really different when you're allowed to be there. I say the vibes a little different. It's a little more put together, you know, when you're like welcomed in. Let me say this, easily 40 to 50% less tear gas. They kept telling us to be quiet.

I was like, you ain't say that to the. Right. Right. Right. Um, so we're sitting in the Senate. Yeah. We make it, we go in, we go, we get invited and we didn't think we were going in. We didn't know that was going to happen.

This is a surprise. And again, our eyes are wide. We can't believe that we're even able to be part of this. And then they tell us that we have to give up our phones and we're like, well, maybe we don't, we don't want to go in anymore, you know, because we're so addicted to our phones, but we go in everyone's phones, electronics, my watch, everything is locked up and we get put into the gallery and we're all sitting together. And at this point it's like, I can only describe it as like, it's 100% pure uncut reality.

Like the emotions are in the air, the air is thick. There's no distractions. You're with your people and you're watching this, the work that everyone done, I had done come to fruition that I had, I felt really alive. I felt truly alive in that moment. Can I tell you, for me, because I've been there a lot, it's hard for me to turn off the TV producer brain. So for me, it's like, if you're going to put our phones in a pouch, you've got to bring

some entertainment and some game. And there are certain things like the vote would, it would stir to a certain climax. And then all of a sudden there'd like be this weird seven minute lag and I'd be like, we're going to have to cut this part, we're going to cut this part and we've got to bring some finale to this. Who's the Senate warmup guy? Where's the warmup guy? Yeah.

John is just David's turning this all year. Y'all ready for this? Turn it, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, a five foot eight inch sophomore from a while. And it's just, it's just Cory Booker like. The whole time it's going on because nobody has phones and we're not allowed to be demonstrative. So all I'm doing is impressions of every senator as they walk out to the entire gallery that we're sitting with, trying not to do it loud enough that is going to cause us an

issue. And you did do it loud enough to cause us a few issues. We were silenced a few times. In my defense, the Bernie Sanders bit was gold and I don't think any of you can argue that. Full volume. You can't whisper that one. You can't whisper that one.

We were, this is just a point of order that goes up. We're looking up in the gallery and Bernie Sanders, most of the gallery is empty and he's just wandering clearly aimlessly. And so the whole time going, I left the candy, there's a, there's a, there's a hot candy. I left it here. It was, they're not, they're not expensive, but I liked the flavor and I got, and I'm doing the whole thing. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

He ends up over at a desk. He reaches in, he pulls something. And what does he take out? I am not fucking lying. Heart candy. Oh man. Boom! Nostradamus.

Yeah. That's a, that's a guy you can rely on. You know what Bernie's going to do and say? How's that go? We, we, first of all, we were, we were very tightly packed in whoever created the dimensions for the Senate gallery also made Greyhound buses. Like it's, it's same, by the way, same caliber of people. Okay.

So we're, we're watching the, they, they go through three amendments. If it's not the whole thing's online, they go through the three amendments, they voting yes or no. And we're, we're literally just in a Senate gallery looking down on just a zoo of evil. It's like, it's just, you're just watching. We're just, we're supposed to be quiet when I suppose to say anything. We can't stand. We can't talk.

We can't move. Can't celebrate. We can't start a wave and, and we're just watching, we're just watching like all of these, we watch Cruz walk in, which is, I mean, Did you ever have a moment, there were certain moments like when Cruz walked in where you almost felt like, so they're not going to play the Darth Vader. But there's, there's a lot of moments where certain people walk in and I think, you know what, you motherfuckers don't necessarily deserve to work in a building this nice.

Like that building is beautiful and it is filled with the, the, the trappings of a democratic system that was messy, but has functioned relatively unscathed for, for all these years. And some of those guys walk in and I just think like, you should be working above a Kinkos, two-story building. Like you don't deserve to be here under the bus of the vice president. Like you just don't deserve it. The best, one of the best jokes I heard yesterday was that the Senate floor looks like it was designed by a Persian.

It was, it was Reza Riaz's dream, our producer. That would be the only thing he would change or Nate or Nate, lots of marble. Yeah. The only thing he would change if he moved in was the flags. By the way, one of my favorite things though, so, you know, we all have that image in our head of when Toomey sank the bill the week prior. And on that, and we were watching it on C-Span again, we were not in the gallery at that time.

He's at that little front desk area and they're all coming in and he's fist bumping, he's talking, he's whispering. And then I remember the time it was before the vote happened officially and I was watching Toomey come in and it was like a West Point cheating scandal. Like we turn our back on the, like everybody kind of fucking turned their back on him and he was alone and the difference was palpable and I thought they're angry with him. He probably sold them a bill of shit that wasn't true and they didn't realize the hornet's nest that they had stepped, they didn't realize that people weren't going to take it, that

they were going to call bullshit, that they were going to raise and kick up a shit storm and I'm sure they were going him the next few days and going, what did you do to us? What the fuck did you do to us? I think we have an experience of what happened that day, like just being down there how honored we were to be there, but look, what's going on through your head? Because you were there, I think you and Rob were the first ones there, Rob got there like dumb early. We stopped to get breakfast and Rob's like, I think it's just me and John here.

You know, I'm not going to eat breakfast when veterans are suffering, come on guys. You're really trying to set me up to be canceled on YouTube, it sucks. So we have the day where we kind of know there's something rumbling to the time that we know we're going in for the vote to when you're kind of confident, slightly that this is going to happen to the moment that you see people flipping and you really know this is what's going on. You talked through like what, like, how do you experience yesterday? I don't think I experienced it, unfortunately.

I think, I certainly was there, I saw the video, but I feel a tremendous amount of pressure in these situations because I feel responsible for helping them and getting them to the next thing because, you know, in a weird way, look, they're, they're on the ground in the trenches feeling the effects of this. I am not, I am isolated from it, insulated from it, and I'm not feeling the pain they're feeling, but I'm feeling the responsibility to help them get what they need. So you're in, I imagine in some ways it's like working in an emergency room and people are coming in and they need to be triaged.

The only difference is I don't have know-how. So you're, you spend your days grinding your gears to think, how can I help this? What can I do? And it's, and there's a, I don't know, you know, you guys know me, you saw like it's just, it's, it's a lot of walking in circles and figuring things out and trying to go and then make that play, make that play. And at a certain point you're running just as hard as you can and as fast as you can because you're on a deadline.

Like I know these people are fraying and I know that if we, if we go past Tuesday night, I don't know if they'll be able to hold on. And so I feel an awful lot of, of a feeling of do not fuck this up for these people. It's one of the things that upset me about, you know, we had that troll guy come over and you guys were doing yoga on the lawn. Yeah. So, you know, I was so mad at myself because one of the things that was keeping this from being done was all this misinformation and this was a dude that was putting out a lot

of it and, and stirring up this whole group. And I know how to deal with this. I've done it my whole life in comedy clubs and the pressure of their pain combined with my sort of exhaustion to some extent and not, and not having the guardrails up on my own kind of emotions. I did what you would call the opposite of what you're supposed to do. I lost my shit. And in that moment, I thought, oh fuck, I just, I just changed the news on this and was very

fortunate that that was not, that that was not the case. That's also why by Tuesday, we would watch you do like a Fox interview and then a second later, it would look like you were on kick return at, on a tree, like two miles away. It's like after every interview, you were like, I need to go pray like it was, where's John at? And it's like a hundred yards away. He's in the shade of a tree. He's kneeling.

John has really his, he has very low fuel economy. His emotional fuel economy is so low that it takes him 30 minutes to come back and be like, everybody got pizza? Everybody got pizza? All right. Cool. That's my staff eating the pizza, right? Other veterans got pizza, right?

Oh, okay. So a couple of things that happened that is great. We did hold signs at some point. We held signs. And the one thing that you have no idea that happened is that they asked us to hold signs because the veterans that were, they were really tired. Robbie Slovik, who is not. Not a veteran.

Not a veteran. I would say this. He's willowy. If that, if that would be the way to describe it, he's a, he's a willowy gentleman. Yeah. Yes. But he's also a writer on our show. Yes.

And he inherited a sign from a veteran that simply said, I am a veteran. I am not a political pawn past the Pact Act. And then I got to, I get a sign. I inherited a sign. It's pretty. I have a pretty generic sign. Oh. And so we're standing there in the sign and I'm hearing Robbie down there.

And he's like, Hey, Rob, Hey, buddy, um, can you trade signs with me real quick? There is at least one news publication that has a line of veterans holding signs with Robbie Slovik breaking the line, asking Rob, can we please, can we please trade signs? He's like, my sign is just not true. I'm not a veteran. And then he gives me the sign. It's like, well, it's still not true because I am a political pawn. There's nothing I can do about that.

But you're a veteran though. So that helps. Yeah. The only sign that Rob was originally holding was I am a thin Jewish writer and it was very strange. Perfect switch. It's perfect. And once he switched with me, we all felt good about it.

Yeah. No, that may, that makes sense. So when did you know, when did you feel good that it was going to go through? I mean, there are steps, right? Newsmax. No. Fox News. None of that is when you feel good at all.

Those are not the steps. By the way, how horrible is it to go on Newsmax and go on Newsmax and I go, these guys know what they're talking about. Like, it was one of those where you're like, what's going on here? Like I would go on certain other networks and be like, you're not listening, are you? And then it would go to Newsmax and be like, this guy seems present. I'm in the upside down. But so all that shit is you're just trying to generate as much heat as you can to keep

the phones going because what you're trying to do is make sure that they know that the shaming will be relentless, tenacious and unending. Like you're not going away and that that's going to translate into phone calls you're going to have to answer and emails you're going to have to answer and not from anybody from constituents, from people who live in your district, from people who say, I voted for you. What are you doing? But to generate that energy, you have to be really strategic and really pointed and you

have to have, you know, they kept saying, you know, people kept saying us like, just keep the pressure on. And I was like, you don't understand, like if you don't give us a backstop, if you don't give us a vote, if you don't give us a moment to hit, I can put all the pressure I want on in the world. But if it's not up against something, nobody feels the squeeze. If it's just pressure in open atmosphere, then I'm just pissing in the wind. And Schumer's the one you need to schedule the vote.

I said, if you don't give me a date and I'm serious, then everything that we're generating here dissipates into the ether and means nothing. I have to have some way to pin people because otherwise there's no backup. So this is all the thought process that's going on here. And you know, so that's all, you know, I sort of look at it like they're in the trenches and I provide air support. So you're wondering like, okay, what does the air support do and how does it go? So all that is just air support, but you don't know until the field clears if it means anything.

And I was talking to Tracy, my wife on the phone, and this is before we were going in and it was as we were lining up and she said, Marsha Blackburn is on the floor because she had her amendment about community care. So I assume she's been a tough one. She's on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee and she's been tough. She always wants to privatize the VA and there's a lot of other stuff. So she goes, yep, she's, she's hitting the community care thing. She's hitting the community care thing.

And then at the very end, she goes, oh my God, and I go, what? She goes, she just urged everyone to pass the PACT Act. And that moment is when I thought we're done. But it's still all, you don't, you know, so defeating Tumi's amendment and I knew the thresholds were 60 and the reality of it was that they weren't going to get 60 on any. And I almost felt bad for Rand Paul's amendment where- Oh, they hate Rand Paul, don't they? That's one of those amendments where you're like, does anyone sit with this motherfucker

at lunch? Yeah. Nobody? Rand Paul put up an amendment and we're just watching both Republicans and Democrats- No. No. No. No.

No. No. So he loses that thing. It's like one of those games that you read about in sports illustrated sometimes where the one coach is brought up on charges for lack of sportsmanship. You're like, you really got to run this thing up that hard. And obviously, so his amendment was first, Tumi's amendment was second. You know, again, as a producer, how Tumi's amendment isn't last doesn't make much sense.

That's literally- It's literally like having the rose ceremony in the middle of the show. It doesn't make any sense. So they do Rand Paul, they do Tumi's, and I just, I only watch a few people. Like what you do is you watch Collins or you watch certain people that might, as soon as Collins went, burp, I go, this thing's not even going to pass 50. So even if his threshold was 50, that thing's not passing. And the part that made me cry was when they brought up the bill and everybody went and

like there was that explosion of on the floor of the Senate, hands went up. And I was like, we fucking won. And I looked over at Rosie and she was crying. And I thought about Wesley and I thought about his wife and, you know, it was- And that moment was case on it, we're talking about it. I mean, honestly, like, thank you for even allowing us to be part of that. Oh, guys, I was so delighted that you were there and so thrilled that you would come to lend your support and everybody appreciated it so greatly and everybody loved meeting

you guys. I mean, truly, you know, now to be fair, they had been sleeping in a field for five days. So, so if really, if anybody had shown up, I think they would have been excited. But, but you brought an energy to them that they hadn't had and you really boosted their spirits at a time where they really needed it, you know, these are folks that pushed a boulder that no one thought would ever get over that mountain. And they did it once and they fucking put the boulder back and this was their last shot. And it was their last, their last little bit of grace and energy that they had in their

bodies and you guys came down and you represented for them. And I truly appreciate it because it made it made a real difference. Their last little bit of grace and energy is a lot of grace and energy. It is more than most people have. And they lifted us up. It was to be there around them. The energy was incredible to be there for that moment. It's I'll never forget it as somebody who who watches Frasier every night and doesn't

inject news directly into my veins like you two questions and we're out because Rob's question is the most important of this whole thing. All right. One, what happens next? Does it go to President Biden's desk? It goes to the desk. They're signing it on Monday. And it's already if you go to the VA site, there's already information now up about if

you're a veteran who has been exposed to toxic. By the way, did you meet the fellow from Camp Lejeune? They knew there was benzene in the water in 1953 and they fucking covered it up and they've got cancer clusters and they've got miscarriages and they've got stillbirths and they've got all kinds of shit buried under there. And this dude in honor of his daughter, an ex-drill sergeant and boy, when you shake his hand, do you know that he's been fighting for 25 years and the tears in his eyes because Lejeune is on this bill.

It's not just burn pits. It's toxic exposure and Camp Lejeune is on this bill 70 years later. That's what it's about. Yeah. I. Yes. It's heavy. It's heavy, John.

It's heavy, dude. It's heavy. It's heavy. It's heavy. It's heavy. That's why I'm saying like this shit is heavy. These people are real. Yes.

It's like Takara said, I quote this all the time from Takara. One of the most brilliant things I've ever heard just knocked me on my ass when Takara said, be careful if they call you a hero because that means they're okay if you die. Boom. I do. I think the one question that we have that will not escape us is Rob's question. And if we got, we got to ask you this before we go. So you worked on this for a long time.

Veterans worked on it for a long time and we're all, we've all done shows on the road. The show goes well and you're alone in the car and you got three hours to drive home. We were like, what is John's drive home like? Is that the fastest three hour drive of your life? What's going on in your head during that time? So this is going to sound very, very dumb, but I was very much depleted. And so what I did was I got on my phone and I found the Odyssey app and I listened to Jacob DeGramme throwing 102 mile an hour pitches for the New York Metropolitan's

with my French fries and my Coke. And I thought about nothing, but why the fuck we didn't pick up one soda. It's nice to know that you're capable of being happy for a moment. It's the little things. Yeah, little things. Well, that's our show. If you want some information on the pack deck, please watch it on C-span. The whole thing is on YouTube.

If you want to watch it, we hope you enjoyed this episode. For more content on the problem with John Stewart, you please check out the Apple TV Plus show. Please go ahead, check it out. The link is in the description and check out all episodes from season one. If you want to know more about this burn pit situation, everything we have to say about it is there, including Rosie Torres, Leroy, her husband, Leroy, Isaiah James, Sergeant Wesley Black, everybody, his last TV appearance is on there. Gina Cancelino. Gina Cancelino.

Gina was down there with her two kids, you know, it's boy, it's a hell of a group. Gina told us a story about her kid said that you guys have been fighting on this so long that Gina's like, so we're not going to get to go to DC anymore. We're not going to go see Uncle Johnny anymore down in DC. So, you know, check it out. I'm sure there'll be more content to come. I'm Kasean Wilson and I'm Rob Christensen and from the Veterans, John. Thank you, John. Thank you.

The Private John Stewart podcast is an Apple TV plus podcast and a joint busboy production.