Comedian and former “Daily Show” host Jon Stewart on Sunday knocked Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) for voting no on a bill to aid military veterans exposed to toxic burn pits during their service.
“The bill that Ted Cruz voted yes on had the exact same funding provisions as the bill he voted no on. It’s the exact same bill. None of this makes any sense,” Stewart told moderator Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Stewart also pushed back on Cruz’s claims that the bill is a “budgetary trick” by the Democrats to make some discretionary spending mandatory.
“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., in the sweltering heat, demanding that they pass this legislation that they’ve been fighting for, for 15 years,” Stewart said
The bill would expand health care coverage for veterans exposed to toxins and burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Senate Republicans blocked the bill last week. Though all Democrats and eight Republicans voted in favor, the bill was five votes short of the amount needed to bypass the upper chamber’s filibuster.
Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Democrats will bring the bill forward a second time on Monday.
“At some point, we all have to live in reality. And what he is saying is just factually incorrect,” Stewart said Sunday, referring to Cruz.
Cruz said in a video on Twitter last week that the bill “gives a $400B blank check—separate from vets care—for unrelated pork that will supercharge inflation.”
–-Updated at 10:26 a.m.