Jon Stewart comes to KC, advocates for bill to help veterans

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) - A famous comedian stopped in Kansas City today but he was on a serious mission, which was to promote a legislative bill that still lacks enough support on the senate floor.

Jon Stewart is calling on Missouri and Kansas senators to pledge their support for the so-called “Honoring Our Pact Act,” which is meant to offer better care and benefits to military veterans who have been exposed to toxic materials while serving overseas.

Stewart said, “Delay, deny, hope you die. That’s what this is; it’s a strategy.”

He was surrounded by veterans and other dignitaries at today’s rally at the VFW headquarters downtown. They were hoping to draw attention to a piece of bipartisan legislation that just passed the U.S. House and now moves to the Senate.

The Honoring Our Pact Act is designed to provide health benefits for U.S. troops suffering from potential exposure to toxins from “burn pits” in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Those burn pits were large areas near American overseas bases where plastics, trash, body parts, and ammunition were covered in jet fuel to burn night and day, seven days a week.

At this point, in order to pass, it would take nine more senators to say “yes” to this bill -- to address toxic exposure as a cost of war.

The pushback comes from legislators who say the money just isn’t there.

For Stewart, the decades this debate has taken to get to this point is unconscionable.

He said, “Take your time Congress. We have people who sacrificed everything and we are treating them like trash that is burned in those pits”.

As of now, none of the senators from Missouri or Kansas have pledged their vote.

However, we do know the legislation is strongly backed by President Joe Biden. His son, Beau, had served in the U.S. Army near burn pits in Iraq for a year, then later died of a rare brain cancer.

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