‘F*ck You, Pat Toomey!’ 9/11 First Responder Destroys GOP on MSNBC for Delaying Senate Burn Pit Bill

John Feal, an advocate for veterans and 9/11 first responders, excoriated Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) and Senate Republicans over the delay of a bill that would have covered medical benefits for those harmed by toxins from burn pits in Iraq and the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, launching into a profane rant that included his hopes that “piece of sh*t” Toomey would be divorced by his wife, his dog would bite him, and he would lose his own health care.

MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell reported that Toomey had objected to the spending in the bill after “technical changes” had been made to the House version, and Senate Republicans were now blocking its passage until after the August recess. The bill would cover health care benefits for more than 3 million veterans exposed to burn pit toxins, she noted.

Mitchell played a video clip of comedian Jon Stewart, who has been an outspoken activist on this issue and was in Washington, D.C. to urge the Senate to vote for the bill. After the delay, he sharply criticized the Republicans who voted against it, calling it “casual cruelty” and commenting that “every minute of delay is a minute that a veteran who fought for this country and their families” was left to “suffer and die.”

The MSNBC anchor then introduced Feal, noting that he had been “fighting to get this bill passed for years and years” and had “lost some of his fellow responders along the way,” dying from cancers caused by their exposure to the toxins.

“John, you’ve got to be furious,” said Mitchell.

Feal said that he wished he could have been in D.C. with Stewart but had just had surgery yesterday, so he told him to “scorch the earth this morning at the press conference” and was glad to see “he did that.”

“America needs to know,” he continued, “the GOP stabbed veterans in the back this morning” by failing to pass the bill. He blamed Toomey for taking orders from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and said that “thousands if not millions of veterans are now going to pay the price, and many of them are going to die waiting.”

“I’m trying not to show emotions today, Andrea,” said Feal. “But — and if you want to bleep me, that’s fine — but f*ck you, Pat Toomey. Because you literally have blood on your hands now.”

He explained that his “heart breaks for those veterans” who had been “fighting side-by-side” with him and Stewart, because they felt like they had “won” on June 16 when the bill had previously passed the Senate 84-14, but now for them to refuse to pass it and leave for August recess, saying they would finish it when they returned, was “cruel.”

Feal continued that he didn’t think that America or our veterans should “have to put up” with this, and vowed that he and his fellow activists were “going to scorch the Earth” on this issue. He was especially incensed with those who had previously voted for the bill but now “fell in line” and voted against it, even though “many of them are veterans” themselves, like Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA).

“They are going to feel the pain, the suffering,” Feal went on. “We’re going to make their life miserable.” He mentioned how the activists had “stood out there today in the heat with oxygen tanks,” some of them currently battling cancer, while the senators were “in their air conditioned offices laughing,” and they would prove they were “a formidable opponent” and “not pushovers.”

Mitchell played a clip of Sen. John Tester (D-MT) criticizing the bill’s delay as “totally unacceptable,” and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) calling it “total bullsh*t” and blasting Toomey for his “eleventh hour” decision to “rewrite the bill, change the rules, and tank it.”

The bill would also cover veterans who were affected by Agent Orange in Vietnam, Mitchell said, and mentioned the veterans and first responders who had already died during the fight for this bill.

“What does it say about our country that victims have to die to fight for health care?” she asked Feal.

“Republicans love the soldier but they don’t love the veteran,” Feal replied. “That’s the bottom line.”

Feal said he had been to 191 funerals and would soon go to his own, and the fact that they still had to fight for veterans and first responders to get this care was “proof that the Congress and Senate in this country do not get it.”

“The American people should be fed up,” he said, and then turned his ire back to Toomey, who he said had claimed that the VSOs had wanted him to block that bill. Not true, Feal insisted, saying that representatives from those organizations were at the press conference showing their support for its passage.

Toomey is “a liar,” said a clearly incensed Feal. “His wife should divorce him. His dog should bite him. He should not get health care when he retires because he’s a piece of sh*t.”

Mitchell said that they had to go to commercial and thanked him for coming on the show, saying she knew he was “angry.”

“I want to apologize,” Feal said, “but we are talking about human life.”

“I get it,” Mitchell sympathized. “There are some things more important than anything else.”

“Nobody told you guys in the burn pits — the EPA told you that there was no toxic problem and it wasn’t until years later when people started getting cancer that they acknowledged what was going on out there,” she remarked, promising to keep covering the story.

Watch the video above, via MSNBC.