Jon Stewart "Can't F**king Believe" Democrats Caved on the Shutdown | Rep. Chris Deluzio & Rep. Pat Ryan

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Speaker 3 You're listening to Comedy Central.

Speaker 3 From the most trusted journalists at Comedy Central, it's America's only source for news. This is the Daily Journal with your host, John Stewart.

Speaker 3 Hey, welcome to the Dell Show.

Speaker 3 My name is Don Stewart. We've got an unbelievable show for you tonight.

Speaker 3 Later on, we're going to be joined out here as Veterans Day is coming up by Representatives Chris DeLuzio and Pat Ryan, co-chairs of the Democratic Veterans Caucus. They'll be out here to leave.

Speaker 3 Why not?

Speaker 3 They'll be showing us how to make their favorite dishes for Veterans Day.

Speaker 3 But let's start tonight.

Speaker 3 Let's start tonight's show with the big news out of Washington

Speaker 3 on the shutdown.

Speaker 3 By the way, tonight's show will be brought to you by I Can't Fing Believe It.

Speaker 3 I can't f ⁇ ing believe it.

Speaker 3 For when the I can't believe it Edvard Munk scream emoji

Speaker 3 doesn't quite convey how much

Speaker 3 you cannot

Speaker 3 believe it

Speaker 3 and what you ask

Speaker 3 is it

Speaker 3 Well

Speaker 3 it

Speaker 3 is the Democrats. You remember the

Speaker 3 They shut down the government last month for a very particular reason.

Speaker 4 Any deal must secure the extension of the ACA tax credits.

Speaker 3 This is about my party saying enough is enough.

Speaker 5 Democrats will not back down.

Speaker 3 Do not stop fighting.

Speaker 6 We're in this fight until we win this fight because we know we're on the right side of this fight.

Speaker 7 It's literally life or death. So Democrats have three words for this: no

Speaker 3 way.

Speaker 3 Well funny f ⁇ ing story.

Speaker 3 Yes, Charles Schumer's three words were no match for these five other words.

Speaker 4 Democrats cave on the shutdown.

Speaker 3 Excuse me.

Speaker 3 Cave on the shutdown? Huh?

Speaker 3 Not this forceful, young, authentic Democratic Party that hangs out down by the river

Speaker 3 and curses in what appears to be a Cerulean blue blazer.

Speaker 3 And I say in a f ⁇ ing way.

Speaker 3 No, they f ⁇ ing caved on the shutdown.

Speaker 3 Not even a full week removed from the best election night results they've had in years. Seven Democratic senators and an

Speaker 3 voted with their Republican counterparts to end the shutdown and reopen the government. And did they get? their extended health care subsidies.

Speaker 3 Democrats wanted the deal to include extending subsidies for the Affordable Care Act. Instead, they got a promise to vote on it at a later date.
I cannot believe it!

Speaker 3 You had the wind at your back.

Speaker 3 Election victories all over the country.

Speaker 3 The new Sydney Sweeney movie, Box Office Pupkiss.

Speaker 3 Apparently, her new MAGA fan base didn't show up in droves to see a biopic about a lesbian professional boxer who overcomes domestic violence to live her truth.

Speaker 3 Who could have seen that come?

Speaker 3 Democrats, you sold out the entire shutdown not to get what you wanted, but for a promise to not get what you wanted

Speaker 3 later.

Speaker 3 Where in the art of war?

Speaker 3 Where? Hold on.

Speaker 3 Where?

Speaker 3 Where in the art of okay, here it is. I got it.

Speaker 3 Sun Tzu

Speaker 3 said, never press your advantage.

Speaker 3 It's unseemly.

Speaker 3 Fighting's hard.

Speaker 3 How about a snack?

Speaker 3 And by the way, what good does a promise of a Senate vote even do for you, Democrats? You don't control the city?

Speaker 3 Do you even know how this shit works?

Speaker 3 Let's just say, for Schnex, that you managed to win a vote in the Senate, which you haven't done all year.

Speaker 3 Do you know what happens then?

Speaker 3 Give me, hold on one second. Give me the thing.
I want to show you. I'm just a Bill.
Yes, I'm only a Bill.

Speaker 3 And I'm sitting here on Capitol Hill.

Speaker 3 I can't stay mad at Bill.

Speaker 3 But the point is this. Let's say, let's just say you pass a bill out of the Senate that you don't control as Democrats.
Guess what happens then?

Speaker 3 Now I go to the House of Representatives and they vote on me. Yeah, go to the House of Representatives.

Speaker 3 But they don't vote on it because Democrats don't control the House of Representatives either.

Speaker 3 But let's live in your eight-senator fantasy land and you do. Let's say you somehow convince old Taolik McBabyface

Speaker 3 to hold that House of Representatives vote and you win that one as well.

Speaker 3 Guess what happens then?

Speaker 3 Well then I'm off to the White House where I wait in a line with a lot of other bills for the president to sign.

Speaker 3 The president.

Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 You get it past the Senate, you get it past the House, and then the President of the United States.

Speaker 3 Right? You remember him? This guy? Obamacare is a disaster. Yeah, that f ⁇ ing guy.

Speaker 3 The Obamacare is a disaster guy.

Speaker 3 The guy who spent the weekend posting about how Barack Obama is collecting millions of dollars in royalties from Obamacare, a fact that Trump picked up from an eight-year-old satire article.

Speaker 3 Democrats, you gave up the only leverage you had without getting commitments from Trump or Mike Johnson.

Speaker 3 I

Speaker 3 cannot

Speaker 3 believe it.

Speaker 3 Surely someone in the party understands that offering a vote in the Senate without a commitment that it would pass or that the House would even take it up is an empty offer.

Speaker 8 Offering a vote in the Senate without a commitment that it would pass, without a commitment that the House would even take it up is an empty offer.

Speaker 3 This guy gets it.

Speaker 3 Tim Kaine.

Speaker 3 Tim Kaine. You don't see him as one of the eight voting yes.

Speaker 5 Virginia Senator Tim Kaine was a yes.

Speaker 5 I can't believe it!

Speaker 5 And for what?

Speaker 3 There's got to be someone in this party who understands what's at stake with these expiring subsidies. Senator Gene Shaheen.

Speaker 4 I had a meeting with some constituents last Friday when I was in New Hampshire.

Speaker 9 One was a man.

Speaker 4 He said, if I didn't have that insurance through the Affordable Care Act, I would not have gone to the doctor. I would not have gotten my cancer treated, and I would be dead by now.

Speaker 4 That's what this fight is about.

Speaker 3 Now, that's somebody who's not going to roll over. That is somebody who has the moral clarity.
And

Speaker 3 she voted yes, didn't she?

Speaker 5 Gene Shaheen decided to vote yes.

Speaker 3 That was the most weirdly coordinated boat.

Speaker 3 Not only was it coordinated,

Speaker 3 here was the most beautiful part about that boot. It started at a low timber

Speaker 3 and then it grew and then a staccato.

Speaker 3 Fing Gene Jahan.

Speaker 3 And you know

Speaker 3 what she did that's almost worse, after a month of standing on principle because of the needs of her constituents, she now uses those same constituents as her cover for cowardice.

Speaker 4 When I talk to my constituents in New Hampshire, you know what they say to me? They say, why can't you all just work together to address the problems that are facing this country?

Speaker 3 Really? Even the cancer guy? He's saying that that now?

Speaker 3 That's not what he was saying before, but now he's like, look, what I said earlier about wanting to live,

Speaker 3 I didn't know that the alternative was a spirit of bipartisan cooperation.

Speaker 3 I was just thinking, I want lungs.

Speaker 3 And by the way, doing exactly what the Republicans wanted isn't working together. That's not working together.
That's just doing what, oh, Mr. Sawyer and I worked together to paint this fence.
No!

Speaker 3 He made you f ⁇ ing paint it.

Speaker 3 And then he just jumped in at the end and was like, we can't free Jim. It's not bipartisan.
Yeah, that's what happened.

Speaker 3 You don't remember the book? That's what I...

Speaker 2 I didn't remember it either, but one of the writers.

Speaker 3 You might be wondering to yourself there, well, where's a Democratic leader? Mr. No f ⁇ ing away Chuck Schumer,

Speaker 3 during all this? Well, ladies and gentlemen, he is on your social feeds. Glass is in the ready position, putting on a show.

Speaker 7 Democrats have been fighting to get the Senate to address the health care crisis. This bill does nothing to ensure that that crisis is addressed.
I am voting no, and I will keep fighting.

Speaker 3 I don't believe this.

Speaker 3 And I mean that now literally. Chuck Schumer, your protestation be not believable.

Speaker 3 Look, either all eight senators who voted to capitulate coincidentally are not up for re-election in 2026, or Chuck Schumer worked behind the scenes to give in to the Republicans while still protecting vulnerable Democrats, including himself.

Speaker 3 You know.

Speaker 3 That's right.

Speaker 3 You know, humorously after the election, I mentioned to a couple of political analysts in the afterglow, post-Coidal, about how the Democrats were going to squander their hard-earned electoral victories.

Speaker 3 And I guess the question next for both of you is, how will they squander it? How?

Speaker 3 How will they piss this away?

Speaker 3 You know, the only thing I love more than seeing my face on TV is seeing it on a webcam with no filters.

Speaker 3 Talk about needing needing health care, my god.

Speaker 3 Is jaundice contagious? What the

Speaker 3 but it's a fair question.

Speaker 3 How would Democrats piss this away? Apparently they did it something like this.

Speaker 3 Acting.

Speaker 3 This is a world-class collapse by Democrats.

Speaker 3 It would be like being up 10 points with three minutes left to go in a game and still finding a way to miraculously lose it for the fourth time in just one month.

Speaker 3 For those of you who don't follow the New York Football Giants,

Speaker 3 because let's say you value your time on this earth.

Speaker 3 This is a football team that on three separate occasions this season has blown games that statistically speaking, based on their sizable leads, vis-à-vis the amount of time left in the athletic contest, they had a 95 to 99% chance of winning.

Speaker 3 I refer you, for instance, to this win probability chart from Sunday's game against the Chicago Bears, where you can see the New York Giants' chance of victory

Speaker 3 climbs to 97% before they trip on their own dicks

Speaker 3 and fall down a flight of stairs. And again, I don't want to get too inside football here, but you're not supposed to do that.

Speaker 3 I have not had a good weekend.

Speaker 3 Now for those of you who believe that professional sports and politics are an inept comparative,

Speaker 3 not only did the Democrats and Giants lose in the same, I can't fing believe it, manner, they sound the same doing it.

Speaker 7 It's natural and appropriate to feel deep disappointment. Disappointing, disappointing outcome.
It was not the result many of us wanted. Want to get the results that you hoped for and came up short?

Speaker 7 It never feels good to come up short. We came up short and that was a tough one.

Speaker 3 You learn and you prepare to do better in the future.

Speaker 7 You're always learning and trying to be better. Well, not enough wins.

Speaker 10 Not enough wins. We will win.
We will win.

Speaker 3 We will win. We will win.

Speaker 10 We won't rest. We won't rest.

Speaker 3 Inspired yet?

Speaker 3 So please, Democrats, I do not understand.

Speaker 3 Explain this to me like I eat with my feet. Why?

Speaker 11 How do you explain though to your constituents why it was worth it to put up this fight for so long when in the end you did not get your key demand?

Speaker 3 Because it wasn't working.

Speaker 3 First of all, how are we being ruled by the only old people who don't stubbornly cling to shit whether it's working or not?

Speaker 3 That's the whole point of being an old person

Speaker 3 what what kind of an old person are you

Speaker 3 well maybe it is time to give up my driver's license

Speaker 3 I mean

Speaker 3 to be fair I am a menace

Speaker 3 and second of all it was working.

Speaker 3 It was working. Never,

Speaker 3 never,

Speaker 3 never

Speaker 3 has the gap between this administration and the people it claims to serve been so disgustingly visible than during this shutdown.

Speaker 3 This week, while the Trump administration was at the Supreme Court demanding that the court let them withhold food stamps from hungry Americans, Trump himself was at Mar-a-Lago with an all-you-can-eat shrimp and synchronized swimming buffet, while the president of Argentina danced the night away, securing the $20 billion we recently gave his country.

Speaker 3 And I gotta say, for $20 billion,

Speaker 3 you'd think he'd dance better

Speaker 3 than

Speaker 3 leprechaun jerking elephants.

Speaker 3 All right,

Speaker 3 apologies to the elephant.

Speaker 3 I am not trying to disrespect.

Speaker 3 By an elephant watching that, going like, who's whoa,

Speaker 3 what kind of an elephant, dick?

Speaker 3 Point is this, don't get distracted.

Speaker 3 Americans were finally seeing the gap between how Donald Trump bends reality and actual day-to-day reality.

Speaker 3 This shutdown has focused America's attention away from his gift for distraction and onto stark actualities and seeing through

Speaker 3 many for the first time his bald-faced lying.

Speaker 4 Can you just answer that question that tariffs have led to inflation? They have led to an increase in cost of living.

Speaker 3 We have no inflation. We have no inflation.

Speaker 3 Except that we have inflation!

Speaker 3 And normally, we have no inflation goes the way of they're eating the cats and dogs, and I'm suing Rupert Murdoch because I'm not on the Epstein list, and all of the other lies that Trump deploys in his reality distortion arsenal.

Speaker 3 But miracle of miracles during the shutdown, the old songs ain't hitting like they used to.

Speaker 7 Football fans loudly booed as Trump was shown on the Jumbotron during halftime that the Lions and Commanders game.

Speaker 3 Do you know how f ⁇ ing unpopular you have to be to be booed by football fans

Speaker 3 while swearing in troops? And by the way, not just any football fans. Football fans who still use the term Redskins.

Speaker 3 And not even with respect to the team, just casually.

Speaker 3 This is what the Democrats have squandered. A country finally shaking off Trump's Jedi mind tricks and saying, no, these are the f ⁇ ing droids we're looking for.

Speaker 3 And instead of pressing that advantage, perhaps neutralizing Trump's reality distortion field for good, the Democrats just suddenly went,

Speaker 3 droids, I guess we aren't looking for those droids. But you'll help us find them later, right?

Speaker 3 They squandered their leverage, sapped their voters' enthusiasm, and snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

Speaker 3 And it's just too bad that we are now stuck with these leaders that we have on that side, and there's nothing that can be done about it. Ms.

Speaker 3 Joseon, the New York Giants, have just fired head coach Brian Davis.

Speaker 3 So you're saying there's a chant.

Speaker 3 When we come back, Congressman Chris DeLuzio and Congressman Pat Ryan will be joining us. Don't go away.

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Speaker 3 Thank you for coming. We want to have you guys on.
It's Veterans Day is tomorrow, and we wanted to see you guys.

Speaker 3 I did also, I'd be remiss by asking you guys.

Speaker 3 The Senate caved. The House, Democrats, did not.
No.

Speaker 3 Is there any kind of, I don't know where you guys connect in the whatever, Representative's gym or any of that kind of thing. Like

Speaker 3 when you walk by Schumer, is there ever any, you know, pussy?

Speaker 3 So maybe a little more this week. All right.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 Now, the House has not been in session at all since the shutdown.

Speaker 14 It's been like

Speaker 14 seven weeks. Pathetic.

Speaker 3 Have you guys spent your time in Washington or just back in your districts?

Speaker 15 Back and forth, and we're on the Armed Services Committee, so we've had some work to do down there, but we haven't had a vote since the middle of September.

Speaker 3 No votes. No votes.
And you know, the big, obviously the conspiracy theory is: oh, Mike Johnson doesn't want to swear in the representative who was from Arizona because that's the vote that

Speaker 3 makes it so that they have to then vote on releasing the Epstein files. Is that, I mean, that's,

Speaker 3 or is that, is that plausible? You don't have to answer this.

Speaker 3 100%. It's plausible.

Speaker 14 More than plausible. They're waiting to run out the clock.
There's another special election happening in Tennessee.

Speaker 14 And if that guy gets sworn in with Adelita Gahalva from Arizona, then it neutralizes the numbers. So they are running.

Speaker 3 Yes, agree. Agree with response.

Speaker 3 You guys are like

Speaker 3 some sort of weird old-timey Greek chorus thing.

Speaker 3 They're like, it's like in a peanuts cartoon, where every now and then you cut to the audience and they're like, yeah!

Speaker 3 Boo!

Speaker 3 Yeah, what I did.

Speaker 3 Let me ask you this.

Speaker 3 How surprised were you? How taken off guard were you by the developments of this weekend from the Senate? Did it take you off guard?

Speaker 15 I wish I could say it did.

Speaker 15 And yet I think this is what we've come to expect from this leadership and from what the Senate's been doing. They did not stand their ground and it's a deal that I think it's a bad deal.

Speaker 15 I think it's weak.

Speaker 3 It doesn't even seem like a deal. It seems like it's a nothing.

Speaker 14 It's pathetic. I mean I literally have folks in my district getting letters in the mail.
Their premiums are doubling, tripling.

Speaker 14 And they are like, folks understand actually what's happening. I've had many folks just last weekend home say, thank like hold your ground.
Right. Hold your ground.
We know this is hard.

Speaker 14 We know it's complicated, but we literally cannot afford to pay triple. I mean, it's already way too high as it is.

Speaker 3 And what gives them any confidence that the Republicans will all of a sudden go, like, oh, okay, you reopened it. So now we're going to reach across the aisle in bipartisan agreement.

Speaker 3 They haven't done it once. They've run the table.
You know, 74, 75 million Americans voted for the Democrats. They have zero representation in Senate, House, House, Judiciary, and Executive.

Speaker 3 You guys in the House, it's the closest that I can remember it being, and yet you're not allowed to bring up any votes. Don't have any committee chairmanships.
It's unconscionable.

Speaker 15 And there's not even an agreement to have a vote in the House.

Speaker 15 Even if they had this agreement, there was going to be a vote in the Senate and somehow passed. There is nothing making Mike Johnson give us a vote on that.
to extend the tax credits.

Speaker 3 None of the meeting.

Speaker 15 I mean, that on its own tells you this is a weak deal for something we were fighting for our constituents and their health care.

Speaker 14 And I think we both learned,

Speaker 14 me and the superior service of the Army,

Speaker 3 the Navy guy, him in the Navy.

Speaker 3 You have no idea what was going on backstage between these days.

Speaker 3 We got Army giving me swag on Army. We got Navy giving me swag on Army.
I turned around, noogies, headlocks. It was down.

Speaker 14 We both learned when in charge, take charge. Right.
And I strongly disagree with everything that the Republicans are doing, but at least they understand when you have power, use it.

Speaker 14 Now, they're using it for evil. They're using it truly for evil.

Speaker 14 But we have to understand, I think we get this, a lot of our younger colleagues, frankly, get this. When in charge, take charge.

Speaker 14 Like, let's be clear what we're against, but also make clear what we're going to fight for when we're back. And when it's going to be when, when we're going to be back in charge.

Speaker 14 I don't doubt that for a second.

Speaker 3 What astonishes me, I think the space was created for Donald Trump because of the disconnect between

Speaker 3 the sort of insulated world of Washington, the disconnect between the lawmakers and the needs of the people they purport to represent. I think that gap is what allowed his rise, that dissatisfaction.

Speaker 3 To see these

Speaker 3 folks in Senate leadership not understand that,

Speaker 3 honestly, I think might be the most shocking part of this equation. And does the leadership in the House understand that?

Speaker 3 Do you deal with the Senate at all?

Speaker 16 Look, our states are both different, right?

Speaker 15 And so there's some of it.

Speaker 3 Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, New York. But both swings that you guys are not in deep blue areas.

Speaker 14 Our districts now are the most competitive, yeah.

Speaker 15 Right. The majority in the House runs through whether we can hold and win in these districts, and we do.
And by the way, we know how to win in tough districts.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 But

Speaker 3 the theory of their case, as far as I can tell, is people like you will lose if you stand your ground on principle.

Speaker 3 That you have to be the so-called moderate centrist that is going to reach across the aisle. Not realizing they didn't reach across the aisle, they surrendered across the aisle.

Speaker 15 I don't know any constituents of ours that want us to just wilt. They want us to stand our ground for something that matters.

Speaker 15 Our health care, of our region and yours, like people's health care is a real thing that is bankrupting families.

Speaker 15 They're going to roll the dice on buying a, paying for a policy they may not be able to afford, or maybe showing up in the emergency room because they skipped out on health care.

Speaker 15 That is something they want us to fight for, and we have been. And to see what happened on the other side in the Senate is just, it's weak.

Speaker 14 And I think, like, there's this old theory of left, right, progressive, centrist, moderate. It's bullshit.

Speaker 14 People want to know, are you going to actually fight for me when it matters, or are you going to cave? And that is the thing that matters, especially in this moment.

Speaker 14 But the folks that have been in the bubble of DC for longer than some of us have been around,

Speaker 3 they don't longer than even I've been around.

Speaker 3 I'll be honest with you, I could go down there and kick their asses physically.

Speaker 3 Many of them are hollow like birds.

Speaker 14 If you allow me, I think...

Speaker 3 Please.

Speaker 14 And you have. And I actually, like, coming into Veterans Day tomorrow,

Speaker 14 I just want to, like, personally,

Speaker 14 your fight for the the PACT Act, you came down and destroyed Ted Cruz.

Speaker 14 Shame those Republicans.

Speaker 14 And I'm telling you, I had not, both of us had toxic exposures in our service. Oh, really? And I had not gone to the VA for over a decade.
And when the PACT Act finally passed,

Speaker 14 it really meant a lot to me. It meant a lot to, you know, a million veterans signed up after that bill.

Speaker 3 I'm telling you. It's so happy.
It would not have happened. It's a fantastic fantastic program.

Speaker 3 And thank you both for

Speaker 3 signing up for that duty because that's the thing. And veterans, I think, understand this in a way that maybe some of the legislators don't.

Speaker 3 Because when you guys came home, the idea that you had to fight for benefits that you had earned, a lot of Americans are all of the sudden realizing, oh shit,

Speaker 3 the government is antagonistic, not just agnostic to my needs, antagonistic. And that's something that I think I found with the veteran communities, it was really dispiriting for them.

Speaker 3 And I don't know if you guys felt that way, but that the government's antagonistic.

Speaker 15 Well, and look, it's not just it's tough to get into the VA and the PACT Act made that better. And I echo what Pat said.
Thank you for your work to help make it happen.

Speaker 15 You know, a lot of politicians who voted to send guys like us to places like Iraq

Speaker 15 spending trillions all of a sudden want to count pennies when it's time to care for the veterans they sent to fight.

Speaker 3 Man. And

Speaker 16 you know, that's just wild.

Speaker 15 And it's, look, it's a lot of the politicians we are battling with now in Washington, right, are people who wrap themselves in the flag and they're, you know, the chicken hawks and the draft Dodgers vote for a war and then won't vote to fund the health care for the guys they sent to fight.

Speaker 15 That's who we're up against.

Speaker 3 It's wild. It must be frustrating.
So, and this is interesting for you guys because you are in those swing districts.

Speaker 3 You guys are the idea that somehow Democrats have to prove their love of country versus this sort of paper patriotism that I see on the right, it's performative oftentimes.

Speaker 3 And the idea that the onus is on you guys, do you feel that as well?

Speaker 15 I mean, I think people on the right who we run against and who fund elections against us would have that.

Speaker 15 I know both of us, we take no lecture for anyone who, number one, tried to overthrow the government in January 6th.

Speaker 3 Okay? Sure.

Speaker 3 A little bullet, a little bullet, which the vast majority of them did.

Speaker 16 Right, right.

Speaker 15 And we serve with people who I think are oath breakers, who are part of trying to overthrow the Constitution.

Speaker 15 There's a guy in Pennsylvania, a member of Congress, who was central to that scheme, voted against certifying the results in Pennsylvania, a congressman named Scott Perry, who went on some radio interview and said that Democrats hate the military, said the guys and gals who served who then go into elected office did it for just a credential.

Speaker 16 He's an oath breaker.

Speaker 15 So we don't take a lecture from patriotism on guys like that. No way.

Speaker 3 Let me ask you a question.

Speaker 3 When you're on the retreat for Pennsylvania House of Representative lawmakers and you guys are

Speaker 3 in the tents at night,

Speaker 3 does that, how personal does this get?

Speaker 3 Is it hard, when you have somebody that that's saying something like that along you and your feelings about that are clear, how personal have these divisions gotten?

Speaker 15 I think probably in olden days you'd have a scotch and work it out. Well, I decided I'm going to the guy's district.
I told him in a press conference and I'm coming for a seat.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 3 that's the way to run. Now let's get to some of the priorities.

Speaker 3 I'm fascinated now that

Speaker 3 so much of the talk about these programs, whether it be SNAP program or these things that for the most part are people that work jobs or are elderly or are disabled or are children and veterans and veterans the vast majority are that there's a very small percentage some say five percent six percent of able-bodied Americans who are getting these things but we don't know what their situation is they could be felons who have trouble getting work whatever it is

Speaker 3 That seems to be for them the core of their this is the tragedy of this country is these moochers and this is the waste fraud and abuse in America. And this is what we have to stop.

Speaker 3 Yet they hand a trillion dollars to a Defense Department that's never passed an audit.

Speaker 3 And the rank and file, that you guys know this, suffer from oftentimes food insecurity themselves that are serving in the military. How the f does that compute?

Speaker 14 For veterans, we have tens of thousands of active duty service members and millions of veterans on SNAP, food stamps, right now in the United States of America, number one.

Speaker 14 Number two, as we speak, the President of the United States is actively suing in the Supreme Court to block food going to those veterans and 42 million Americans, one in eight people.

Speaker 14 And they're the patriots? They're the ones that stand up for liberty and justice for all.

Speaker 15 It is bullshit.

Speaker 3 It is complete bullshit. The whole thing is so mind-boggling.

Speaker 3 What is the pressure? You know, in terms of that military budget, like, where does the pressure come from? Is it defense contractors?

Speaker 3 Who is it that lays the hammer on everybody to get these things through?

Speaker 15 Well, look, there's very little competition. There used to be 51 prime defense contractors back in the 90s.
There are five now.

Speaker 3 Five? Five.

Speaker 15 Okay, and I could cite, we could spend the whole night talking about different ways we get gouged. Let's take the C-17, okay, transport aircraft.

Speaker 3 Sure.

Speaker 15 Soap dispensers. The report that we saw, 7,900% markup on soap dispensers.
Okay, so imagine what happens with everything else.

Speaker 3 I have flown on a C-17. My hands were never cleaner.

Speaker 15 But the evolved, but think about the cost that we are all paying for that.

Speaker 3 Here's the crazy thing about a C-17, and you guys know, like, it's this giant cargo plane, and you fly in it, and there's no, like, they didn't put up paneling, like sound. No.

Speaker 3 Like, we went on a USO tour in a C-17, and they were like, you know, bring a winter coat and shorts. Like, they said the weather changes in a C17 depending on the altitude you're at.

Speaker 14 I never even knew you could actually use the bathroom in a C-17.

Speaker 3 I never have

Speaker 3 to.

Speaker 14 No, I mean, but

Speaker 14 you hit on something else though, John, which is that it is a corrupt system.

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 14 There are, these five companies have tremendous power of their purse.

Speaker 14 After Citizens United in particular, they pour money in and both of us have refused to take corporate PAC money for this exact reason.

Speaker 3 And put you in a disappearance.

Speaker 3 It doesn't, though.

Speaker 14 Honestly, it doesn't because, one, we can both sleep at night and know we're doing the right thing. But two, our constituents actually understand how corrupt the system is.
Right.

Speaker 14 And they want leaders that are going to actually stand up to that.

Speaker 14 So when, I mean, I actually remember in the Armed Services Committee two years ago, the F-35 jet program is probably the biggest boondoggle of my life.

Speaker 3 $2.7 trillion, to me a lot. It's insane.

Speaker 14 And their operational readiness rate is like 30%.

Speaker 14 And so a bunch of us younger members, and it was actually bipartisan, all veterans who had served, were saying, this is crazy. We have to get leverage on Lockheed Martin, who's the company.

Speaker 14 The amount of like swarm of lobbyists that descended on us as we tried to ram through this amendment, and we didn't succeed in getting it through because we just got overwhelmed.

Speaker 14 Now we've continued the fight, but that's just one example.

Speaker 3 Now, what was the amendment attempting to do?

Speaker 14 So it was specifically saying, and this is the crazy part, we pay them trillions of dollars, and Lockheed Martin keeps the intellectual property for the stuff that our tax dollars pay for.

Speaker 14 So all the amendment did was say, we're paying you an ungodly amount of money.

Speaker 14 We Americans should own the intellectual property that we're paying you for. And that was not able to be passed through.

Speaker 3 It's like the worst episode of Shark Tank ever.

Speaker 3 What do I get for the trillion?

Speaker 15 I'm asking for a trillion dollars for my company and you don't get anything yeah yes you get planes that don't actually work and you don't own them and like this problem is a it plays out on a bunch of systems and you name it where the troops can't even fix their own stuff because of these contracts, where it's got to be repaired by the company or their subcontractor.

Speaker 15 It costs the public a lot of money. It hurts readiness for the troops because they, again, they can't fix stuff that they would know how to do because of these contracts.

Speaker 3 So this Veterans Day coming coming up, instead of anything performative, what do you want to say to the American people? What do you ask of the American people

Speaker 3 for those that have been brave enough to sign up, to take that oath, to do that, those who are doing it actively, and those who have done it in the past? What would you say?

Speaker 15 Look, stand solid for a strong and funded VA that is there to take care of veterans for care that we have all earned, for those benefits that we've earned.

Speaker 15 Let's make sure the VA is strong and there for veterans all over the country.

Speaker 3 Right. And you are.

Speaker 14 agree with that and I have to say Trump ran on

Speaker 14 supporting and helping veterans

Speaker 14 and on ending the forever wars right

Speaker 14 he has done the 180 degree opposite he has fired 80,000 people at the VA in my own VA 20 beds closed that deal with mental health crisis and addiction recovery closed that we've been fighting for to get reopened.

Speaker 14 And that happened, I know, in Pittsburgh, it happened around the country.

Speaker 14 And then I think the most serious thing I would say to the country is: don't send our most precious resource, our young men and women,

Speaker 14 into harm's way on some chicken hawk BS from a five-time draft dodger who does not understand what selfless service means whatsoever and hold them accountable for that.

Speaker 3 Let me see a bit of myself. Gentlemen, thank you.
Representative Todd Ryan. Representative Chris DeLuzio, we're going to take a big break.
We'll be right back after this.

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Speaker 17 Everybody left our show for tonight. But before we go, we're going to check in with your host for the rest of the week.

Speaker 3 Mr. Josh Johnson.
Josh!

Speaker 3 It's Josh Johnson.

Speaker 3 Josh Johnson, what do you got planned for us for the week? Well, we will be diving into more of these crazy airplane cancellation stories.

Speaker 3 They say that even after the shutdown ends, it could take weeks to get back to normal. And I mean, if this isn't fixed soon, then

Speaker 3 who will I spend Thanksgiving with?

Speaker 3 Well,

Speaker 3 Josh, I'm sure it's going to be fixed.

Speaker 3 They said it just a couple of weeks. You're not probably going to have to worry about it.

Speaker 3 Yeah, but what if it's not? I mean, I'll need to find someone local to spend, give me your hand, spend

Speaker 3 Thanksgiving with maybe one of my lovely daily show co-workers.

Speaker 3 All right, you can come to my house for Thanksgiving if you want.

Speaker 2 Your house?

Speaker 3 Jewish people do Thanksgiving?

Speaker 3 Guess what?

Speaker 3 You're not going to have ham, though. No, we're not going to have ham.

Speaker 3 No, I was talking about Ronnie Chang. I heard he got good pool, everything.

Speaker 3 I was hoping you could ask him for me.

Speaker 3 Because he can't say no, you're his boss. All right, I'll do my best.
Josh Johnson, everybody.

Speaker 18 Explore more shows from the Daily Show Podcast Universe by searching The Daily Show, wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 18 Watch The Daily Show weeknights at 11, 10 Central on Comedy Central, and stream full episodes anytime on Fairmount Plus.

Speaker 3 This has been a Comedy Central podcast.

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