tavis: good evening. from los angeles, i am tavis he is known for successfully advocating the 9/11 sequestration act. now they are reducing the money needed for treatment. then we will turn to actor johnny galecki. he is star of the sitcom big bang theory. those conversations are coming up right now. >> there is a saying that dr. king had that said there is

always the right time to do the right thing. i try to live my life every day by doing the right thing. we know that we are only halfway to completely eliminating hunger and we have work to do. walmart committed $2 billion to fighting hunger in the u.s. as we work together, we can stamp hunger out. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. tavis: 20,000 9/11 responders receive payment under the act that set aside 4.3 billion dollars to compensate men and

women who fell ill after being exposed to the toxic dust of the twin towers. now the money has been reduced thanks to sequestration. john feal is lobbying to change new yorkjoins us from city. good to have you on the program. >> i am honored. yous: i am a big fan of and the work you have done to try to bring some justice all these years later. i assume you are angry and you are angry with legitimate reason. tell me why you are so angry and what you're trying to do about it. >> i am more than just angry. there are a lot of emotions in the 9/11 community. foot. half my left i spent weeks in the hospital.

i had dozens of surgeries. i am insulted. i cannot put my arms around am frustrated. there are times where i am angry, and we are trying the best we can. there are others fighting, too. there are some good elected officials fighting and good responders that are fighting. this is an uphill battle. the compensation act, we walked the halls of congress for eight years. we got that past two and a half years ago, and now the bill is being questioned. my problem is we are the only bill in congress completely paid for, and we reduced the deficit i $433 million. by 430 $3 million.

where i come from, two plus two equals four. there are programs that have lifetime exemptions for many sequester. we were the first line of defense on 9/11. we have become handicapped since then. they should be exempt. i am confident we will get it done. everything is a hurdle, and everything is a game in d.c., and while republicans and democrats would rather see each other lose, the 9/11 responders and the american people wind up losing, and it is a shame that two parties but their political differences before the american people. juxtapose to to things you have said. on the one hand you feel confident. on the other hand there are

always obstacles you have to overcome. why does it have to be this difficult? why do you have to run an obstacle course? what are you hearing from members of congress about why they are making you run this maze? gethen we were trying to the bill passed, they did not like to pay for it. foreign companies doing business in the united states two percent. what a concept it saves human lives. at the time republican leadership did not like this or that. certain democrats did not like something. there was always something we had to fight for. for eight years we fought to get simple healthcare. we have lost close to 1400 people in 9/11 related illnesses. dictate did kate --

these should be exempt. you see how fast air traffic controllers got sequestered because members of congress could not fly home. you see how weatherman are exempt from weather services and sequesters. this is not just a new york issue. 430 five congressional districts. 430 of them were represented at ground zero. someone from every state came after the disaster to aid new york, so this is a national issue. viewers watching across the country, someone from your state is sick or has died of 9/11 illnesses. that is sad. >> up the risk of sounding insensitive, let me ask whether there is in washington 9/11

fatigue? >> they have 9/11 fatigue for 364 days out of the year, and on september 11 they are going to say how patriotic they are, that they stand by those who came to the aid of this great nation. i am a veteran of the army, and i am a 9/11 responder and a kidney donor. like i see it. those in congress 97% of them have done nothing to aid and protect their constituents. a circus monkey can do a better job. a circus monkey can do a better job but there are so -- there are no circus monkeys elected to congress, what makes you confident the job will get done? >> we are going to keep pressure on them. the anniversary is coming up, and we call them out. no one likes to be that guy.

that is how we got the last bill passed. we took things into our own hand and pressured them. three days before the bill got passed by almost got arrested. they were ready to handcuff me. not enough?an life responsibility to feel other people's pain and suffering, and when we are in a good mood we feel their happiness and spirit, and as a human being i feel the pain of the thousands of men and women who are sick and dying. our bill does not cost any money. all it is is a piece of paper that says i am going to do what is morally right to help yesterday's heroes. there is no more, no less. tavis: it does not surprise me

you have two new yorkers in the their nameave what on this bill and are leading the charge. am not asking you to call names. what are the politics that keep you having to jump through these hoops? >> most of the time it has been republican leadership, and that singling out republicans. tavis: what is their issue? >> there is always some lame excuse. they played games with us in committee where they said we could stay here all night, and there would be no abortion in the 9/11 health care bill. we did not want abortions.

we wanted to treat us for our illnesses. i wound up ordering 20 domino's pizza boxes and having them delivered to congress. we stayed all night. these are the things we get. this will be 12 years since our nation was attacked, and people move on. i do not fault people for moving on. that is human nature. the media forgets about it. they move on. the anniversary reminds them what happened, but this country needs to know thousands of men and women are sick and dying. i am not making this up. almost 1400 people have died. we lost 30 people this year alone, 28 of them to cancer, and the others to home and area fibrosis these are debilitating men andkilling our women. the average age of a late .esponder was the 40's

that is no way for a hero to be treated. tavis: how doesjoh -- how does john feal navigate his own life? it seems to me part of moving on with your own life is not being stuck. it is enough you have to be reminded of this every day when you wake up. it is another you have to be reminded every year on the anniversary, but how did you navigate your own life and you were fighting these kinds of fights that you cannot the at peace in your own soul? >> that is a good question. you ever see groundhog day with bill murray. that is my life. everyday is the same repetitious reminder of 9/11 from the moment i wake up up to ie moment i go to bed, and have been angry my own life, and i take that anger and channel it to positive energy.

i am a gym rat. i like a challenge. i like being told i cannot do something. i am never the smartest man in the room, but i think the ability to not accept no is an answer when human life is at stake, i think that is my gift. other than that i do not have much to offer. >> i have always believed smartness is overrated. give me someone with courage and commitment and i am down with them. you are a courageous man, and i thank you. >> i did not mean 9/11 to know right from wrong. i needed 9/11 to show how my mother raised me. feal, fighting on behalf of those and making sure they do not get punished by this sequestration in washington. up next, johnny galecki. stay with us.

impossible to overstate the success of the big bang theory with its complete its sixth season. the sitcom regularly draws 20 million viewers each week. anchoring the series is johnny galecki. i like saying that. he plays a brilliant but sensible physicists, providing an excellent foil to jim parsons, and later this year he will be seen in the independent film, cbgbs. bigs take a look at the bang theory theory. >> glasses off. find waldo. .> hurry up find him, find him. >> i'm trying. don't yell at me. >> he is wearing a hat, glasses,

and a red striped shirt. could you not find him? >> because he is hard to find. if he was easy to find, the book would he called, there is waldo. >> i almost did not recognize you with the beard. that is your summer look? >> sheer laziness. ?> you look forward to this you are one of those people who loves to work? >> i love to work. i do not look forward to the brakes. even every once in a while we have a weeklong hiatus to let writers do some writing, and i do not like those. am honored to have you on. >> i am honored to be on. i am a lifelong fan. >> and my staff had you booked, i said, it is about time. , are they still in first

run, and the reason i asked that question is i see you like five times a day. time.on all the i literally had to go back and realize you guys are is ill in first run and in syndication and both are killing it, and you are not feeding on each other. it obviously works. >> i think they do benefit each other. eyes on our lot of primetime first run. >> >> that is almost unheard of. >> it has been a relatively slow climb, which is good for all of us on the show. i think to come out of the barrel and just the a phenomenon must be pretty jarring. you say slow climb you will have to do find that. you are the most successful thing on tv these days.

>> six years. it was not friends which came out of the box and was just this explosion. ,hen i started on roseanne they were on their third season. the show was number one. was 35one back then million viewers a week, so three or four lines of my first episode on that show changed my life the next day. i think it is a slower climb if for no other reason personally is more manageable. >> that opens up two or three lanes i want to follow in. television ton be allowed to have a slow build. if you do not get the first two or three shows, you are out the door. >> there were a few things that happen.

.e did a pilot jim and i were the only cast members in the pilot. it was not good, did not work, and cbs called and said, why don't you give it another shot? there is something we like, the chemistry between the characters we like, but the rest is not work, and you never hear that. you are picked up, or the phone does not ring. that was wise to have that foresight. we recast, and the whole thing was rewritten. we reshot it, and ironically that writers strike actually helped us. we might be the only show that the networkefited. did not have anything else to put on. they reran those four times in that span. when the numbers began

to pick up. i know everybody feels their show is the little show that could, but we looked over the edge a couple times and survived. tavis: when you say the pilot was not good, yonoare right this is not a story we often hear that a show got a chance to build slowly, but we also rarely hear an actor say to me, i did a pilot and it was not good. it seems to me there is an honesty with yourself, you are pretty clear this pilot was not very good? you can feel that? >> i do not know that i felt it when we were filming it, but i went into chuck lori's office, and i can only say it enough for unlike is that it did not work because chuck has said it, but i , and i was not sure.

maybe it is just not my own personal sensibilities. in my early 20's, i felt like everything i did had to be 100% my own tastes and sensibilities, and that is really a lead is -- elitist. i thought, maybe it will be one of those wings i will not necessarily get, and if other people do, that is fine. if it makes other people happy, i do not need to be number one on the list, but it was a shared feeling. it is intangible. if there was a recipe every show would have 20 million viewers. you.: yet it did work for we are grateful it works for you. it works for you because you make it work. when we talk about how the

strike might have been for the show, i sense a willingness to acknowledge providence does play towne in success in this or can. >> it certainly can. tavis: you had no control over ae writers strike. >> i think lot of it had to do with the pedigree of the people behind the camera and the success they had with two and a half men and his relationship with the studio. chuck felt like we could have done a better job, and they trusted that. any of thelook at first episodes of any great the -- i just re-watched pilot of all in the family or seinfeld, cheers, they are vastly different from a season or two in. no one is sure of the tone. the actors do not know -- their characters have not settled yet.

the writers do not know what the actors strengths are. tavis: the fact that strike was happening at that moment, that it forced the network to play it over and over again, that is a food fate that fell on your lap. stage i think it showed all of us, we all love what we do, and we love working together, but if anyone had one foot out of the water before that strike, we came back with very grateful eyes and the people we were working with, and it really showed us how valuable this opportunity is. tavis: there are folk in this town who wait for years for something that never happens, no matter how gifted or talented they may be, they never get that .ne show you now have

in your case lightning has struck a couple times. will say you were on to iconic shows -- roseanne and the big bang theory. what do you make of that? come, theyse is to cannot take this from you. >> i understand how incredibly rare it is. i know a lot of incredibly talented people who are not given certain opportunities or any opportunities that are not working. beyond that, and feeling as grateful as heck, i cannot really dwell on it too much. there is an element that might the degree ofle, good fortune i have had an opportunities i have been given.

it's hard. those people you mentioned, one of the pitfalls of rejection in this isstarting to question yourself and your talent or your looks or your height or weight or whatever it might the, and it's hard not to. it's hard to keep your head up. i think a lot of people shoot themselves in the foot by altering themselves. you cannot. i'm a midwestern boy. tavis: that's why i like you. >> the worst you can do is to be have not just vanity but healthy ego about yourself can be mistaken as something unforgivable, so it took me a long time to realize to walk around without a certain amount of belief in walk onto a job with

my tail between my legs was not helping anyone else, so whether i truly believe i can contribute anything or not, it is not going to help whoever wrote it. it is not going to help my fellow cast mates. even if it is a lie for a couple hours a day, you have to believe in yourself and the fact that you can contribute to this storytelling. tell me about your independent film work. >> i started that when i used to make a lot more independent films near the end of roseanne. and i did a film last summer called cbgb about the iconic punk rock club and the music manager who is a real fellow, and he has passed away, but i spoke to some friends of his and sat down with people who work with him at the time.

aen though he was not celebrity by any means, you have got to start with the carrot or somewhere. character somewhere. you might as well tell the truth. i hear great things about him. it is a massive task. tavis: if nothing else, the music cannot be bad. i am honored to have you on. you come back again whenever you want to. it is good to have you here. big banglecki from the theory. that's our show for tonight. as always, keep the faith. >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. tavis: hi, i'm tavis smiley. join me next time for a conversation with booker t with a new album called

"sound the alarm your quote that's next time. we will see you then. >> there is a saying that dr. king had that said there is always the right time to do the right thing. i try to live my life every day by doing the right thing. we know that we are only halfway to completely eliminating hunger and we have work to do. walmart committed $2 billion to fighting hunger in the u.s. as we work together, we can stamp hunger out. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> be more. >> be more. pb♪)

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