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[MOTIVATIONAL MUSIC] - Hey everyone, Steve Adubato.

We're taping this program in late July 2026, the 25th Day of Remembrance of 9/11 is coming up.

This will be seen before, be seen after.

And a guy who understands and appreciates and is impacted by that Day of Remembrance more than just about anyone I know is John Feal.

And he's with us now.

John Feal is the author of this book, "I Will Follow You Anywhere: The True Story of the 9/11 Responders who Took on Congress."

The forward is by his good friend and colleague, Jon Stewart.

And John Feal wrote this book with Charles Daly.

Good to see you, my friend.

- Hey Steve, how are you?

And thank you for having me.

- Always.

Hey, listen.

- And you don't age.

- Yeah, well, I've had some work done, but I'll leave that alone.

Hey, how about this?

People off, oh, the 25th anniversary.

You say no, it's the 25th day of remembrance.

What's the difference?

Because there's a big one.

- Yeah.

As we get closer to that day, I find myself correcting a lot of people.

And listen, some people will say no matter what, an anniversary is something you celebrate.

An anniversary, hey, how long you been married?

20, 25, 30 years.

This is a day of remembrance.

There's nothing to celebrate.

This is to remember those that we lost and those that we continue to lose because of their illnesses.

And I'm never going to say the word "anniversary."

It just doesn't register, and it doesn't sound right.

And it doesn't offer enough empathy.

-John, Let me start with this.

The title of the book, "I Will Follow You Anywhere," as I read the book, and I know this, but because I've known you for a while, that comes from Jon Stewart.

He said that to you.

First of all, what was the context?

And then while you're talking about this, talk about the relationship that you've developed with Jon Stewart, particularly battling and fighting and quote, taking on, as the book says, the United States Congress, many members in the House and the Senate who said all the right things.

We'll never forget, but getting them to do the right thing has been, will continue to be a very different challenge.

I know it's a loaded question.

Talk about the Jon Stewart piece.

- So the title came from in 2019 when we got the bill passed in the Senate.

We did a press conference because it was going on the president's desk a week later.

And actually, tomorrow is the anniversary that the bill passed seven years ago.

And you know, Senator.

- When you say the bill, tell everyone what the bill is.

- Well, this was to extend the victim's compensation fund from 2019 to 2090 to coincide with the World Trade Center Health Program, which is free healthcare till 2090.

But it was affected by the aftermath of 9/11.

Whether you're a responder, first responder volunteer, or a survivor, which is those who lived and worked and went to a school in lower Manhattan, plus the Pentagon in Shanksville.

When the bill passed the Senate 97 to two, and the two who voted against were the normal suspects, Rand Paul and Mike Lee, Senator Gillibrand and Schumer spoke and then I spoke and Jon spoke after me.

And when he was done, his last words were, "I'll follow you anywhere."

And it was an emotional embrace after that.

Oddly, a year later, I asked him to come back to DC and to do the burn pits with me for veterans who were affected by burn pits around the world and they had the same cancers and illnesses as those affected by 9/11.

He didn't even hesitate.

And to be honest, Steve, I followed him that time.

I think he took everything he learned from the few years in DC with the 9/11 issues and really, really, really spearheaded that movement for the veterans.

And you know, that was a $300 billion healthcare bill.

- Hey John, do this.

For those who don't know, and by the way, check out John's website.

Check out his foundation.

The website will be up for that as well.

For people who don't know your story, and I know you don't even like to talk about, you'd like to focus on others who are survivors and who were on the pile and who were there and who continue to suffer, but it's important that people know that you were physically, mentally, emotionally, psychologically impacted by your experience.

Talk about that.

- Yeah, again, my story pales in comparison to those who were sick and dying or have died and suffered.

On September 17th, around 5:00 PM, about an hour left in my shift, roughly 8,000 pounds of steel crushed my left foot.

I spent 11 weeks in the hospital with gangrene and septus.

Wound up losing half of my left foot.

I've had about 38 surgeries from 9/11 and 46 altogether now.

Physically, I know I can't do what I used to, but I was diagnosed by four doctors with post-traumatic, and they basically told me, Steve, I was bat crazy, that I would never be productive.

I wouldn't work well with others.

I wouldn't be able to perform in a workforce.

- Wow.

- And yet in 2005, I stopped taking medication, and I embraced my post-traumatic.

And while I can't speak.

- Hold on, I'm sorry for interrupting you.

Explain what, people use the acronym PTSD.

- PTSD.

- But make it clear what we're really talking about, particularly in your case.

Please, I'm sorry for interrupting.

- Yeah, you know, listen, nobody was programmed to see that kind of devastation and carnage and destruction on 9/11 in the days that followed during the cleanup and the recovery.

And to see body parts, to smell death, it played havoc on men and women in uniform and non-uniform on their minds.

And it creates a lot of mental illness in the post-traumatic community.

And you know, I kind of think I'm a strong guy, but I wasn't that strong, and I needed help.

And I did EMDR for two years, which is a form of therapy.

It's a smell, touch, sound.

I chose to do sound, and it helped me get back to some sort of normalcy.

But those who fight post-traumatic PTSD, it will swallow you.

It will engulf you, and it will control you for the rest of your life, no matter how long you live.

I embrace it.

I use it as my superpower.

I smell better, I see better, I hear better.

I have more empathy.

I have more compassion.

And if I see somebody suffering, I feel their pain, and it makes me want to get involved.

- Hey, John, I want to, I'm curious about this.

As you describe your own situation and you minimize it to the degree you just did, even though it's very real, as you know better than anyone, talk about what others, from your experience fighting with Jon Stewart and so many others who have been involved in this fight in Congress to keep the focus beyond the rhetoric to real action, policy, money, help, what are some folks, survivors facing today?

- Well, I wasn't diminishing my illnesses or my injury, but if I made it about myself, I would not have the body of the work that I have, and I would not have been able to help the masses.

So when you direct an issue to yourself, you're just, you're in it for the wrong reason.

But there's 153,000 people in the World Trade Center Health Program.

51,000 plus have a certified 9/11 related cancer.

That's one in three, Steve.

One in three people are now affected by the aftermath of 9/11.

Many of them, if they don't have cancer, have severe respiratory issues like COPD or pulmonary fibrosis.

And, you know, a lot of them suffer from post-traumatic, which is a stigma in the 9/11 community.

- But John, I remember writing about this, and I don't want to pile on here, and excuse me for even the word, using the word "pile" as it relates to the World Trade Center and 9/11.

But I remember writing about this as a journalist that I was stunned by what the then head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Christine Todd Whitman, the former governor of New Jersey, said when she was the head of the EPA.

This is a direct quote, there's no paraphrasing, "The air is safe to breathe and the water is okay to drink."

That's the highest ranking government official, the federal government official when 9/11 happened, and people were working to try to find survivors, to do what had to be done, which the rest of us can't even begin to imagine.

What would, have you ever engaged former governor and former head of the EPA, Christine Todd Whitman?

- No, but when she said that, we knew she was lying.

We knew she was disingenuous.

- Was she lying?

I'm sorry, was she lying or just didn't know?

Or does not make a difference?

- She was lying.

She was disingenuous, but so was the Mayor Giuliani and others who said the air was safe to breathe.

Everything was okay.

You know, from 9/11 to 9/15, it was a free for all.

Everybody was working frantically, and then they fenced it off.

And then you couldn't get into and out of Ground Zero without a badge, and we switched over to 12-hour shifts.

So while we were working 12-hour shifts, just imagine how many people in lower Manhattan never left their apartments, had to go to work, had to go to school.

I mean, they parked a barge next to Siverson High School, and these kids all got sick.

I mean, you know, nobody ever said sorry for her lies or nobody ever said sorry for, you know, years down the road that you guys got sick.

But what they did was help create the World Trade Center Health Program.

And they put that on the end of a stick like a carrot.

And we had to chase it through the halls of Congress for two years, 20 years, two plus decades and listen to them say, "Well, we don't have the money.

Well, it's a New York issue."

And then when we told them that their hallways are made out of marble, you can find the money.

And that 434 out of 435 congressional districts were represented at Ground Zero during the eight month cleanup, we squashed every, every excuse that they had not to help us.

How dare them.

You know, your first priority as an elected official is to serve and protect your constituents, and many of them fail.

And let's not, let's not forget that the city sat on memos.

They're called the Harden memos.

- The city of New York?

- The city of New York sat on the Harden memos that they just started to uncover now that they knew that the air wasn't safe to breathe, the water wasn't safe to drink.

And that has now gone through five administrations.

Giuliani, Bloomberg, de Blasio, Adams, and now Mandani.

And we're fighting Mandani now to get the rest of those memos.

Look, hey, look, Steve, I made 380 trips to Washington DC.

2,400 meetings.

Maybe I only would've had to make 112 trips.

Maybe I only would've had to have 800 meetings.

- If what, John?

If what?

- If we knew the truth, if we knew the honest truth.

You know, we walked the halls in the beginning of the 2000s, and we knew the absorption.

- The halls of Congress.

The halls of Congress.

- The halls of Congress.

We walked the halls of Congress in the early 2000s, saying we were sick.

The absorption through the nose, mouth, and skin with those toxins.

Each individual toxin, if you put it in a bottle, would've been consulted physician, harmful to swallow with crossbones.

We knew we were sick.

Science caught up to us.

We worked there, we ate there, we slept there, we went to the bathroom there, we cried there.

We were exposed to those toxins and those who lived in lower Manhattan as well.

And they lied.

They flat out lied.

And every time there's a deadline or a bill's going to expire, cancer doesn't expire.

More and more people are getting sick now because of their age.

The average age of the 9/11 responder was 38 years old on 9/11.

On average, you're 64, and they don't have the same immune system.

- Hey, John, by the way, remind people what you were doing professionally at the time when you did go to the World Trade Center to where this horrific, calling it event makes no sense.

This tragedy happened.

- Yeah.

- You're talking about 12 hour shifts.

What were you doing professionally?

- Yeah, well, my MBA career didn't work out, so I was a supervisor in a demolition company, and I was in charge of removing debris from the pile without destroying the integrity of that pile in case, god forbid, we found somebody alive or something important that, you know, was needed to be taken out of that pile by three lettered companies like ATF, FBI, you know, you know.

We were working on building seven, which was one of the most secure buildings in the world, which had everybody's agency in there.

And there was a lot of stuff that we found that, you know, it was pretty important.

- Hey, John, do you think?

And by the way, to, as we do this program the 22nd of July together with a group of people up at Eagle- I don't know, have you ever visited Eagle Rock?

Eagle Rock is over here.

It's a memorial.

- [John] Yes.

- Yeah, and to the county executive, Joe Devincenzo and others, for 25 years, we've been doing this remembrance.

And I will make sure as I emcee the event, I do not in any way call it anniversary, John, and the rest of us, it's a day of remembrance.

There are survivors, there are family members who are there who lost loved ones.

And we get to talk to those folks and try to understand all these years later, you said cancer doesn't stop.

Neither does the pain and suffering.

What's your interaction been?

Trust me, there's a question here, John.

What has your interaction been with family members of those who are, either been lost, who died, or continuing to have horrific health effects?

What's your interaction been like with them?

- Same as everybody else.

Same amount of empathy, same amount of compassion, same amount of love.

If you lost a loved one that day, we work closely with them.

We work with everybody.

You know, one way or another, even like the moving parts in the 9/11 community, those that lost a loved one that day, those that are sick, those that lost a loved one because of an illness, we're still all part of the 9/11 community.

We all were affected by the aftermath of 9/11.

And I personally don't have an issue with anybody, and I'm going to continue to do what I do until I can't do it anymore.

You know, I look back, and I'm not one to reminisce, but I mean, if I didn't do this 24 years ago, who would've?

Who would've?

I didn't want to do this.

You know, before we call it "I Will Follow You Anywhere," Stewart said, "Name the title 'The Reluctant Advocate.'"

And then, you know, like, it's like, "Ah, you know, I don't want to do this anymore, but I have no choice."

It's bigger than me, and it keeps me humble, and it keeps me helping people.

You know, we put about 10,000 people into the World Trade Center Health Program a year.

- What is the world- By the way, the book is "I Will Follow You Anywhere: The True Story of the 9/11 Responders Who Took on Congress."

What is that program?

What is the World Trade Center Health Program?

And let's put up a website, folks.

I don't know how people access it, but we'll put up.

What happens when they go to the website, John?

What do they get?

What does it?

What does it do to help people?

- The World Trade Center is one half of the James Zadroga Health and Compensation Act.

- And tell everyone, James Zadrogo, what?

- James Zadrogo was a New York City police officer in the first autopsy confirmed 9/11.

He wasn't the first person to die from a 9/11 related illness, but he was the first autopsied.

And they attacked him because of the way he passed away and died and they dishonored his name until we proved science again that he died from a 9/11 related illness and how he died was none of it, it should never have been questioned.

But the James Zadroga Health and Compensation Act healthcare, World Trade Center Health Program, if you were affected by 9/11 and you live south of Canal Street to the water, to the Brooklyn Bridge, you can go into the program and get free healthcare if they find your illnesses certified and because of 9/11.

And then you'll have two years from that day to file a claim to get compensated for your illness.

You know, I want everybody who's entitled to go into these programs.

A lot of people say, "No, I don't want to go in because I don't want to take money from heroes."

There's enough money till 2090 for everybody, and we implore everybody.

If you know somebody who was there, down there, to get into the program.

It's free healthcare.

Don't, you don't want to do it for yourself, do it for your loved ones.

- Hey John, you said, you didn't, you don't want to be doing this anymore.

- Yeah.

- What do you mean?

- Oh, just, you know, I got hurt at 34.

I'm 59 years old.

This has been almost half of my life now.

This isn't what I was supposed to do.

This is something that made me do it.

You know, my mother.

- But you, John, respectfully, no one made you do this.

You chose to do it.

- No, you're right.

You're right.

You know what?

That's like when people say I sacrifice this or I sacrifice that for you, you're right where you want to be.

The word "sacrifice" we use too freely.

But I, there's an old saying, "Horses that go to war, don't dance at weddings."

And I've missed a lot of, a lot of weddings and a lot of anniversaries and a lot of parties and a lot of milestones in other people's lives because I was too busy.

What I learned, Steve, is.

- 'Cause you're too.

Because you're, hold on.

Because you were fighting the fight.

- Correct.

- Go ahead, I'm sorry.

Pick up your point.

- There's a big difference between advocacy and activism.

Advocacy is a- - What's the difference?

- Advocacy to me is a couple hours a week or on a Saturday afternoon.

Activism's 24/7.

I get phone calls at two o'clock in the morning, three o'clock in the morning, 11 o'clock in the afternoon, nine o'clock at night.

It doesn't end.

It doesn't stop.

People need help because of the aftermath of 9/11.

And Congress and the Senate has failed these men and women.

And I could blame it on a lot of things because of ideologies, but it's really idiologies.

- What's the difference?

- Ideologies is something that you believe in, and it's hard to change your mind.

Idiologies are just you're born stupid, and you're ignorant.

And I just, most members of Congress, there's such a high turnover every two years, that we have to reeducate them that they have so many people in their congressional district that are sick from the aftermath of 9/11.

- Yeah, real quick on this, a few minutes left.

People say we'll never forget or always remember.

Do you think, do you think some people want to forget?

- Yeah, well, I mean, if you ask the 9/11 community at large.

- Or not know, or not know, because it is 25 years and there's those who are younger and those who were so young, they didn't remember.

So it's like, I don't want to think about that.

Why is it?

Go ahead, I'm sorry.

- We don't give the younger generation enough credit because we speak at a lot of schools, colleges, high schools, middle schools, and these kids get it.

The internet is your friend if you use it right.

And, you know, it's older people around my age that want to forget about it, or they don't want to bring it up.

But if you ask the 9/11 community, "Did America forget about them?"

Most of them will say yes.

I disagree.

America's on fire right now, Steve.

And a lot of people trying to find a job or put food on the table or pay their utilities.

And when 9/11 comes around, they absolutely remember it, and they remember those who died that day.

But if you lost your parents when you were six years old in a car crash, you would get on with your life, and you would remember them on anniversaries and holidays and their birthdays.

We're programmed to move forward.

But if we're going to move forward, let's not forget those that are still suffering.

- Speaking of moving forward, how does this book or writing this book, how has it helped you?

I don't even want to say move forward, but how has it helped you?

- Well, there's a couple reasons why I wrote this.

One, to find my way home, because I haven't been home in 25 years.

But there was so many books written in the past by Jon Stewart, by Senator Gillibrand, by Dr.

Love from Stony Brook World Trade Center Health Program, by other people, that I have a whole chapter in my story.

And I wanted to tell my story so other people wouldn't have to, but I wanted America to know it wasn't just Jon Stewart and John Feal.

It was a handful of other people that walked the halls of Congress with their own illnesses and joined me in that fight.

And this took a village to get these bills passed, these pieces of legislation.

And it's not only in DC.

We passed a couple in New Jerseys, several in Albany, and one in Michigan.

And I give everybody the recipe on how to get legislation passed in the book.

And if I could do it, trust me, anybody could do it.

- Their testimony, many of the chapters of Phil Rizzo's testimony, Danielle Holbrook's testimony.

You go through the book, they're testimony from different people.

There's James Ryder's testimony.

Why, got a minute left.

Why was and why is, John, the testimony of these folks, many of whom are not here anymore?

- Yeah.

- Who have passed?

- I wanted America to know it was just not the two Johns, and it was a handful of other people, a handful of great people.

You know, really quick, back in 2018, when I asked my number one team leader, Rich, to ask everybody to come back for the 2019 fight, I think half of them would have said no, because they all got their BCF awards.

They all had money.

They all, they were going to live out the rest of their lives.

Boy, John was a pain in the ass and he wasn't going to be nice to me.

- Jon Stewart was a pain in the ass?

- Yeah.

But everyone, every single one of them said yes.

Not one person said no.

And I went into DC with 35, 40 people who knew what it took to get a piece of legislation passed, and Jon Stewart helped us get it over the finish line.

- Hey, listen, go on John Feal's website.

Check out his foundation.

Also, September 17th, he's at the 92nd Street Y with Jon Stewart.

The two Johns telling their story and trying to make a difference.

The book is "I Will Follow You Anywhere: The True Story of the 9/11 Responders who Took on Congress."

Thank you, my friend.

We wish you all the best.

You have an open invitation.

- Thank you, I appreciate it.

Good seeing you again.

- Always.

That's a good guy making a difference.

We'll see you next time.

- [Narrator] Think Tank with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by Seton Hall University.

PSEG Foundation.

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Braven Health.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

RWJBarnabas Health.

Learn More at RWJBH.org.

EJI, Excellence in Medicine Awards.

A New Jersey health foundation program.

United Airlines.

And by the North Ward Center.

Promotional support provided by Promotional support provided by NJBIA.

And by BestofNJ.com.

- (Inspirational Music) - (Narrator) Great drive fuels the leaders of tomorrow and today.

Great vision paves the way for a brighter future.

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Great empathy finds strength in kindness and in each other, working together to create something bigger than they ever imagined.

Great minds can change the world and great minds start at Seton Hall.