Jon Stewart deftly swatted away Fox host Martha MacCallum’s attempt to blame President Biden’s COVID relief and American Jobs Plan for the lack of health care coverage for veterans exposed to burn pits.
On Tuesday, Jon Stewart paid a friendly visit to Fox News to promote his efforts on behalf of war vets.
MacCallum was friendly to Stewart, which is not surprising since he’s a big name guest she probably doesn’t want to antagonize. And Stewart was friendly back, presumably because he was more interested in promoting his cause than calling out Fox for hurting America.
Also, let’s not forget that Stewart is the executive producer of the The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and MacCallum has said her family and the Colberts are “very close friends.”
But Fox News gotta be Fox News and, even though MacCallum could have noted that Stewart’s mission is the kind of thing left and right can unite behind, she knows Fox’s mission is to weaponize whenever possible.
So, when Stewart said, “It’s gonna come down to money,” and that the country “doesn’t get to now haggle” over “the cost of war,” MacCallum used that moment to pounce with her propaganda:
MACCALLUM: It’s a great point. And 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?
Nice try, Martha, but no cigar.
STEWART: Oh, the money that would handle this problem, if implemented, 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. It’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.
MACCALLUM: Very true.
She thanked him for his work and said she hoped he'll come back when his new show debuts in the fall.
"Yeah, absolutely," Stewart said, as the interview closed. "Much appreciate you guys covering it," he added, apparently meaning the burn pits issue.
You can watch it below, from the April 13, 2021 The Story with Martha MacCallum.
To my mind, use of this practice constitutes criminal endangerment, both of soldiers and civilians.