Sen. Jim Justice, R-W.Va., found a way to get something passed unanimously, despite what he rebukes as “romper-room behavior” of political polarization in the Senate.
In an interview Saturday with Fox News Digital, Justice detailed how he worked around the Senates bitter partisan divide to get a monument honoring late World War II Medal of Honor hero Hershel “Woody” Williams onto the National Mall.
“I’ve never seen anything like this, never in my life seen anything to where it is, it is so preposterous,” Justice lamented. “You know, no one could make any sense out of what in the world is going on a lot of times.”
“I don’t know why we don’t talk to one another,” he added. “I don’t know why we’re disrespectful to one other.”
Using good, old-fashioned dialogue, Justice’s effort ultimately succeeded in getting his first Senate law passed for his late friend. The Williams National Medal of Honor Monument Location Act directs the National Medal of Honor monument to a prominent location within the Reserve on the National Mall.
The legislation is Justices first bill as a senator. It honors Williams, a West Virginia native who received the Medal of Honor for extraordinary heroism during the Battle of Iwo Jima and who was the last surviving World War II Medal of Honor recipient before his death in 2022 at age 98. The monument will honor Williams by name while commemorating Medal of Honor recipients as a whole.
The House approved the measure on Aug. 31 after the Senate passed it unanimously in March. The legislation is now awaiting Trumps signature.
“We’re really hopeful he’s going to sign it this coming week,” Justice said. “There’s been a lot to make all that happen and everything, and I can’t be more proud.”
Justice, describing the partisan fight in the interview, said the path to unanimous approval was anything but smooth.
“I mean, we had it shot down,” he said, adding, but “I just wouldnt turn it loose.”
“And the reason I wouldnt turn loose is because it was just real simple: I mean Woodys unbelievable, or was unbelievable, thats for sure. But all these Medal of Honor recipients and everything, the ones weve lost and all those that are still living, they are so deserving.”
Justice described how the measure initially had become caught up in the same divisiveness that has locked up the Senate on a much broader range of issues.
“All we managed to do is keep a food fight going to where â because it was a Republican thing or Republican Jim Justice introducing â well, Im telling you, if Im a Democrat, by God, were not gonna let that happen and everything,” he lamented. “And then its just, its the same thing on both sides. Way, way, way too much for a guy thats got white hair and wants to try to get things done.”
EXCAVATION SET TO BEGIN ON TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S 250-FOOT TRIUMPHAL ARCH AMID LEGAL BATTLE
Justice said the breakthrough came just before he was preparing to take the matter to the Senate floor with four Medal of Honor recipients present.
“I was about three feet f
