They “celebrated their victory over veterans with cancer. Way to go, guys!

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Republican senators sparked outrage when they bumped fists after voting to hold up aid for military veterans suffering from burn-pit exposure.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) was captured on video Thursday fist-bumping Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) shortly after Republicans managed to block the PACT Act, which would allow soldiers, sailors and airmen exposed to pits of smoldering waste in combat zones to be covered by the Veterans Affairs health care system for linked illnesses. Many are suffering from cancer.

The surprise GOP resistance to the bill was apparently payback after Republicans were outplayed by Democrats earlier this week to win passage of a sweeping $740 billion package to increase taxes on the wealthy and invest in climate change measures and health care.

Democrats and veterans groups were furious that the veterans bill was held up by miffed Republicans when it was expected to pass.

“This is total bull****. This is the worst form of overpoliticization I’ve literally ever seen,” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) said at a press conference Thursday held by Democrats and veterans.

The callous fist-bumping celebration was particularly hard to take for many.

“The most despicable part of this whole thing is watching on the Senate floor Ted Cruz fist-bumping, and then [the Republicans] patting each other on the back when they blocked this bill,” former “Daily Show” host Jon Stewart said Friday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

They “celebrated their victory over veterans with cancer. Way to go, guys! You finally handed it to ‘big veteran with cancer.’ Well done!” he added sarcastically.

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Jon Stewart Takes Down Ted Cruz and His Excuse for Flip-Flop on Veteran-Aid Bill as ‘Bulls–‘ (Video)

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Sharon Knolle

Fri, July 29, 2022 at 7:18 PM

 

 

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  Ted Cruz

  American politician, United States senator from Texas

 

 

After Jon Stewart’s impassioned rebuke of GOP senators for withdrawing their support for a bill that would provide extended medical benefits for military veterans, he laid into Ted Cruz on Friday for presenting the bill as a “Democratic budgetary trick.”

Cruz told TMZ in a video posted Friday that he and his fellow GOP members were in favor of the PACT Act… until the spending was deemed “discretionary” instead of “mandatory.”

A ticked-off Stewart shared the TMZ video to Twitter, adding his own video response in which he called Cruz’s interpretation, “inaccurate, not true, total bulls—.”

What Cruz described as “part of the out of control spending from the left,” Stewart said is “no trick.”

 

The former “Daily Show” host explained: “Everything in the government is either mandatory or discretionary spending, depending on which bucket they feel like putting it in. The whole place is basically a f—ing shell game. And he’s pretending that this is some new thing that the Democrats stuck into the bill and snuck it past one Ted Cruz. It’s no gimmick. It’s been there the whole f—ing time.”

He also insisted that “not one word” had been added to the bill since it was approved in the House with 84 to 14 votes on June 16.

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