Pat Toomey Lashes Out at ‘False Accusations’ From ‘Pseudo Celebrity’ Jon Stewart After Jamming Burn Pits Healthcare Bill

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) took a not-so-veiled swipe at Jon Stewart over the criticism he has received for delaying a bill to provide healthcare to those who’ve suffered from exposure to toxic burn pits.

Toomey and several of his Republican colleagues have come under criticism in recent days for blocking the PACT Act, legislation aimed at providing benefits to veterans and 9/11 first responders who’ve been exposed to burning toxic chemicals. Stewart has been at the forefront of protests against the bill’s delay, and in an interview on Sunday with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Toomey was asked to justify his position to those who have suffered without those health benefits.

Toomey began by dismissing the “trick” of taking a sympathetic group of people and making them the face of a bill like the PACT Act. He accused the bill’s proponents of trying to “sneak in something completely unrelated that they know could never pass on its own and dare Republicans to do anything about it because they know they’ll unleash their allies in the media, and maybe a pseudo-celebrity to make up false accusations to try to get us to just swallow what shouldn’t be there.”

Toomey went on to claim he was denied a chance to make amendments to the bill, and that “Republicans are not opposed to any of the substance of the PACT Act.” He further accused Democrats of attempting to launch an “unrelated $400 billion spending spree that has nothing to do with veterans and won’t be in the veterans space.”

The interview continued with Toomey reaffirming his demand for a vote on the amendments pitched by him and his GOP colleagues. Tapper also questioned him on his claim that the bill is a “budgetary gimmick” when the legislation requires its funding to be used on health care for veterans who’ve suffered from burn pit exposure.

His answer:

This is why they do this sort of thing, Jake, because it gets very deep in the weeds and very confusing for people very quickly. It’s not really about veterans spending. It’s about what category of government bookkeeping they put the veteran spending in. My change, honest people acknowledge, will have no affect on the amount of money or the circumstances under which the money for veterans is being spent. But what I want to do is treat it for government accounting purposes the way we’ve always treated it for government accounting purposes because if we change it to the way that the Democrats want, it creates room — in future budgets — for $400 billion of totally unrelated extraneous spending on other matters. That’s what I want to prevent.

Watch above, via CNN.