Month: August 2022

Senate Republicans are looking for a way to quietly end a standoff over legislation to help veterans suffering from toxic exposure that has turned into a major distraction and put them on the defensive at a critical moment.

Activists representing veterans are enraged after GOP lawmakers blocked a $278 billion bill aimed at helping veterans suffering from health ailments because of their exposure to toxins. They’ve been staging a sit-in protest on the Capitol steps since Thursday to draw attention to the Republican opposition.

The legislation initially passed the Senate in June by a lopsided 84-14 vote, and Republican senators are struggling to explain why they’re now holding up the same bill on the Senate floor.

Jon Stewart, the former “Daily Show” host who for years has acted as an activist for veterans and first responder groups, has relentlessly pummeled the GOP over its stance, drawing a barrage of media attention to the issue.

Stewart took delight in pillorying conservative Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) in a recent video in which he responded to Cruz’s objections to the bill point by point. He characterized Cruz’s arguments as “inaccurate, not true, bullshit” and concluded the video with footage of Cruz fist-bumping a colleague after the legislation failed on the floor last Thursday.

Republicans concede the standoff is not a good look for them three months before a crucial election and that they’re taking most of the blame for the stalled bill.

Asked if Republicans are getting blamed, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), a combat veteran, replied: “Yeah, and it’s unfair.”

Now Republicans, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), are predicting the bill will pass this week, even if they can’t amend it, signaling they’re ready to move on from the politically damaging fight.

GOP senators insist they support the substance of the bill, but are objecting to what they say is an accounting gimmick that will likely add to future budget deficits.

Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), whose home state has one of the highest numbers of veterans per 100,000 residents, said strong Republican support for the bill was demonstrated by the bipartisan vote to pass it in June.

“I want to see the PACT Act pass,” Daines said referring to the Honoring Our Pact Act.

He said that he and other Republicans agreed to support Sen. Pat Toomey’s (R-Pa.) objection to the bill because “Sen. Toomey raised a legitimate question about how the funding works.”

Toomey, a leading Republican voice on fiscal issues, says the bill designates the $400 billion the Department of Veterans Affairs is slated to spend over the next decade to help veterans exposed to toxins as mandatory spending. Traditionally, this spending is classified as discretionary, which means it needs to fit under annual discretionary spending caps.

Toomey, who is not up for reelection this year because he is retiring from the Senate, argues that converting to the mandatory side of the ledger will give Congress flexibility to fit other spending programs under the annual budget caps.

“Here’s the problem with this bill, here’s the budgetary gimmick, this is what’s outrageous,” Toomey said on the floor recently. “It enables that spending to be shifted from the discretionary category to the mandatory category of spending.

“By moving this big category of spending, this $400 billion, out of the discretionary category and putting it into mandatory, you create this big hole under the [budget] chap,” he added. “Guess what happens with that big hole? It gets filled with spending on who knows what.”

The problem for Senate Republicans, however, is that it’s not easy to explain to the American public why this is a deal-breaker.

It’s complicated by the fact that 34 Republicans voted for the bill six weeks ago, even though that version of the bill also designated the new veterans funding as mandatory spending.

Stewart in the video responding to Cruz and other Senate GOP critics declared: “There was no budgetary trick and it was always mandatory and when they voted in the Senate June 16, they actually got 84 votes.”

Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough warned in a CNN interview over the weekend that Toomey’s amendment could lead to the “rationing of care for vets” because it would place “a year-on-year cap” on what his department can spend to help veterans suffering from exposure to burn pits.

Republicans have also come under criticism from Democrats over their motivation for blocking the bill.

Several Democrats view it as retaliation for a separate deal worked out last week by Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (DN.Y.) and Sen. Joe Manchin (DW.Va.). That budget reconciliation package is a top priority for Democrats and is being moved under special budget rules that prevent a GOP filibuster.

After 25 Republicans who had previously voted “yes” for the veterans bill voted “no” on a measure to advance it last week, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (DN.Y.) accused them of “holding our service members hostage for the sake of politics.”

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) accused them of plotting revenge after learning of the Schumer-Manchin deal on climate and taxes.

“Republicans are mad that Democrats are on the verge of passing climate change legislation and have decided to take their anger out on vulnerable veterans,” he told Vox.com.

Senate Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Jon Tester (D-Mont.), who has led the floor debate, said it’s “a very bad decision by the Republicans.”

Democratic aides say Schumer offered Toomey a vote on an amendment related to the mandatory spending designation six weeks ago, but 34 Republicans still voted for the bill even though that amendment vote never happened.

In other words, even many of Toomey’s GOP colleagues weren’t prepared to block the popular bill over arcane debate over mandatory and discretionary spending earlier this summer. That changed when Democrats announced a breakthrough deal on climate and taxes.

But now Republicans are being forced to play defense and offer complicated explanations about why they’re holding up the veterans bill.

They would prefer to go on the offense and attack Democrats for raising taxes and fueling inflation with the climate and tax bill they intend to pass later this week.

Republicans backed Toomey last week but are ready to end the standoff soon.

“Some of our members are like, ‘Toomey’s talking about this for several weeks in our conference meetings, let’s try and fix this.’ He’s got a legitimate issue but clearly at some point this is going to pass and it’s going to pass big,” said Senate Republican Whip John Thune (SD).

Jon Stewart has called on the US Senate to remain in session for as long as it takes to pass burn pits legislation in an impassioned speech on the steps of the US Capitol this week.

The comedian and activist turned up the heat on Republicans ahead of a second vote on The PACT Act, which provides healthcare for veterans exposed to burn pits, on Monday night.

Speaking to a group of veterans who have been camped out for days in Washington DC, Stewart said the Senators shouldn’t be allowed to leave the building until the bill had passed.

“My suggestion to this Senate would be when you come back, if all the members aren’t here, keep the lights on, keep the doors open, and don’t leave here tonight until you do the right thing by these folks.”

The host of The Problem with Jon Stewart has been on a media blitz in recent days, appearing on all of the cable news channels and filming viral social media videos attacking the Republican senators who blocked passage of the bill last week by name.

Stewart has himself become a target. Senator Pat Toomey recently called him a “pseudo celebrity” on CNN’s State of the Nation and Fox News host Jesse Watters suggested he should stick to farming.

In his speech on Monday, Stewart joked that the right was trying to smear him as “Hunter Biden’s cocaine dealer” and “more gay pride flag than man”.

“You can attack me all you want. And you can troll me online…. but here’s the beautiful thing, I don’t give as**t. I’m not scared of you. And I don’t care,” he said, before gesturing to the veterans standing behind him. “Because these are the people that I owe a debt of gratitude to, and we all owe a debt of gratitude to. And it’s about time we start paying it off.”

The PACT Act easily passed the Senate by 84 votes to 14 in June, but was voted down last week after some changes were made to the legislation in the House.

Texas Senator Ted Cruz accused Mr Stewart of misrepresenting the bill, saying that Democrats were attempting a “budgetary trick” of including $400bn in spending unrelated to veterans.

“What Ted Cruz is describing is inaccurate, not true, bulls***t”, Stewart said in a video posted on Twitter, mocking Mr Cruz for saying that the Democrats put “discretionary” funds in the legislation that they made “mandatory” .

Footage of Mr Cruz fist-bumping Montana Senator Steve Daines on the Senate floor after the bill was blocked provoked outrage, and was seized on as proof the Republicans were playing politics with veterans’ lives.

Despite reporting of a potential prisoner exchange to bring home Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan, a deal between the United States and Russia to free the detained Americans still appears to be a ways away.

A top White House official slammed Russia in a CNN interview Saturday for attempting to tack on an additional convict — a murderer who was tried, sentenced, and imprisoned in Germany — to the United States’ proposed prisoner exchange of Griner and Whelan for notorious arms dealer Victor Bout.

John Kirby, the Biden administration’s National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications, called the Kremlin’s counteroffer “a bad faith attempt to avoid a very serious offer and proposal that the United States has put forward.”

“Holding two American citizens hostage in exchange for an assassin in a third-party country is not a serious counteroffer,” Kirby said, adding: “We urge Russia to take [our] offer seriously.”

Even despite his criticism of Moscow’s counter, Kirby was hesitant to agree that discussions between the two superpowers had “stalled.” He also denied that the Russians “hold the cards,” as CNN’s Jim Sciutto phrased his question about him, at the negotiating table.

Instead, Kirby underscored the Biden administration’s stance since early May, when they designated Griner as “wrongfully detained.” A source previously told Insider that the classification change sends a “strong signal that the US government does not believe that there is a legitimate case against her.”

“We very much want to see Brittney and Paul come home to their families, where they belong,” Kirby said. “They’re wrongfully detained there, and we’re just gonna keep at that work.”

Griner, an eight-time WNBA All-Star, has been in Russian custody since February 17. The 6-foot-9 Phoenix Mercury center was charged with the large-scale transportation of drugs and moved to a Russian jail shortly after customs agents at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport claimed to have found vape cartridges containing hashish oil in her luggage.

Whelan, meanwhile, has been wrongfully detained in Russia since December 2018. The former Marine-turned-security executive was arrested at a Moscow hotel over suspicions that he was an American spy. He was subsequently convicted of espionage and sentenced to 16 years in Russian prison, with the possibility of serving time at a labor camp.

Though Griner’s trial — which legal experts characterize as a “show trial” with a “predetermined” outcome — is still underway, sources have repeatedly told Insider that a prisoner exchange is Griner’s most likely path home. The same goes for Whelan.

The US government’s offer to release Bout is a serious one. Known to many as the “Merchant of Death,” the 55-year-old is infamous for supplying rebel groups and terrorist organizations with weapons that fueled bloody wars across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.

However, Bout’s 2008 arrest in Thailand was not actually based on charges for the high-stakes trafficking operations that have since served as inspiration for several movies, documentaries, and books. Instead, he has been in foreign custody for over a decade after he was caught in a US Drug Enforcement Agency sting operation.

American officials lured the elusive arms distributor to engage with purported representatives of a Colombian guerilla group. He offered to sell weapons to the rebels, even with the understanding that the materials could have been used to kill Americans.

Soon after, Bout was arrested in Bangkok and, following an extended legal battle and protests from the Russian government, extradited to the US. Nearly four years after his initial capture of him, Bout was convicted of a trio of crimes and handed his minimum 25-year sentence.

Expert opinions vary on whether the weapons dealer would still pose a national security threat to the United States if he were set free. And even though Bout has already served 11 years of his sentence, many see his release of him as a major concession from the US government.

Adding another dangerous criminal — Vadim Krasikov, who was convicted late last year of killing a man in broad daylight — would make the deal even less palatable to those concerned about the initial trade proposed by the Biden administration.

Griner’s Russian legal representation previously estimated that she’d be sentenced sometime in August. The 31-year-old is expected to appear in court again this week.