breaking today president biden will pull
all 2500 u.s troops out of afghanistan
by september 11th the 20th anniversary
of the attacks
that took the lives of almost 3 000
americans that according to a senior
defense official
today former president trump made a deal
with the taliban to withdraw the troops
next month may was the original deadline
under certain conditions but president
biden has said that that would be quote
tough
to meet that deadline so the now
deadline is september
11th of this year senate minority leader
mitch mcconnell says that the withdrawal
would be quote a grave mistake
and an abdication of american leadership
in
his opinion jon stewart has made it his
post-daily show mission to fight to make
sure that we support
our heroes after their battles are over
he championed the cause of making
permanent the september 11th
victim compensation fund supporting
those whose related illnesses
stayed with them long after that
terrible day
now he's fighting for our veterans who
worked near the infamous
burn pits of iraq and afghanistan the
veterans affairs department estimates
that more than three million service
members
may have been exposed to these open air
piles of burning trash and fuel
many of them are suffering like this
marine who has
been denied coverage from the va
he deployed to iraq in 2003 and 2004
where he was exposed to toxic burn pits
in 2018 he was diagnosed with
glioblastoma
members of congress this bill is
important to veterans
and their families we fight every day to
preserve
quality of life and fighting to get the
care that they deserve is both
exhausting
and disappointing
activist and comedian jon stewart joins
me now john good to have you with us
today
thank you for being here thanks so much
for having me i appreciate it so can you
explain to anybody who doesn't know
what were these burn pits what was in
them how prevalent were they
and what was what was the extent of the
damage do you think
the damage was extensive anybody who
served in iraq and afghanistan
had uh experience with them uh the one
in
balad in iraq i think was camp victory
probably the biggest one
uh was 10 acres and this thing was
smoldering it's a low burn so it burns
at a low temperature almost like
leaves but they use jet fuel to ignite
all the waste that may be on a base and
that includes
human waste hazardous waste munitions
hazardous you know radiation like uh
it's this toxic brew and this thick
black smoke
that would pour over 24 7. the soldiers
that
lived there uh slept there ate there
and were exposed and now many of them
are suffering
the effects of these kinds of toxic
exposures and what kinds of effects are
they seeing
well i mean it's it runs the gamut it
actually parallels the 911
community almost identically you have
constricted bronchiolitis you have
pulmonary issues you've got really rare
cancers like glioblastomas
and pancreatic cancer in very young
healthy individuals you've got permanent
nodules and
and lung damage uh neuromuscular
immune you know the whole gamut it's the
reason why we can't do it in america
martha i mean that that's the whole the
whole point of this is to delay and to
deny
the va exists to advocate for the
veterans care
they shouldn't be operating as an
obstacle or as some sort of insurance
company
that has a barrier of entry to deny
service-related uh diseases we
we couldn't do it here believe me if a
senator
or a representative is unsure of the
science let's go
dig a 10-acre burn pit in their town
light it on fire with jet fuel and see
how quickly uh the health effects come
to the forefront
it's a great point i mean you have
attached yourself like you did to the
911 fund
um it's so heartbreaking to see these
people who have sacrificed so much
to to fight for us or to go up the
towers to go up the buildings
uh on that day and then we sort of leave
them hanging
when they have longer-term effects
you've been so
personally in invested in this how is
the response on capitol hill
how is this going do you think you're
going to get something passed that will
help
these heroes so i feel like
we have more momentum now than we had
you know we've been at this
so people like rosie torres and leroy
torres
leroy who was stationed in balad and
suffered the effects of it they've been
working at this for
you know 10 years 15 years uh john phil
and i the feelgan foundation we've been
involved for about two years
and tried to work to help write that
legislation which is the warfighters
bill
we feel like there's a momentum to do
something the thing we don't want them
to do
is take the easy way out we don't want
them to give these
these veterans another clerical
procedure another bureaucratic procedure
they need presumption of exposure and
they need to immediately be placed into
a program
that mirrors the 911 program which has
medical screenings
uh that tend towards what are the
illnesses that come from these sorts of
toxic exposures
and then they need the health care and
benefits that come from the diseases
so it's it's a simple program we already
have the blueprint
it's going to come down to money and my
feeling about the money is
this is the cost of war this is the
total cost of war
you don't get to pay for one aspect of
the war
and and not the other you don't get to
leave people hanging
uh so you know you ordered you ordered
the meal and you ate the meal
and you don't get to now haggle about
not paying for a certain part of it it's
a great point
before i let you go you know you see the
trillions that we're talking about
spending for a lot of different things
right now for covid
for infrastructure how does that make
you feel about what you're pushing for
here
oh the the money that would handle this
problem and implement it
is dwarfed by all kinds listen just even
at the pentagon you're talking about 750
billion 80 billion
800 billion dollars a year there's an
oco fund
which is basically an overseas
contingency operations fund
that's probably about 70 or 80 billion
dollars a year that's
just basically unaccountable and we're
talking about
a fraction of that to implement the care
and benefits
that these folks have already earned
very true uh we thank you for what
you're doing here once again and getting
involved in this uh jon stewart i know
you've got a new show coming out in the
fall so i hope you'll come back and
maybe talk to us when you get a little
bit closer to that
thank you it's good to see you today
yeah absolutely
much appreciate you guys covering it
thank you you bet thank you john