McConnell Assures 9/11 First Responders Bill Will Pass After Getting Ripped by Jon Stewart
Jon Stewart has made two TV appearances this week––on The Daily Show and on Stephen Colbert‘s Late Show––to fight for 9/11 first responders. The Zadroga Act––the health care legislation for those first responders––expires this year and Stewart traveled to Washington, D.C. to confront members of Congress directly for not supporting the legislation.
On Monday’s Daily Show, Stewart encouraged people to flood social media with #WorstResponders to send a message to the men who control the House and Senate: Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell. Stewart was convinced Ryan will do the right thing because he is a decent human being, but held McConnell in pretty high contempt for playing politics with the health of first responders.
He said McConnell promised to include the legislation in a congressional spending package, and wants to make sure he’s held to that.
Well, today, McConnell gave an interview to Politico in which he assured, “Everybody’s for it. It’s going to be included.”
He defended himself thusly:
Asked whether Stewart’s advocacy has been productive, McConnell said Congress always planned to address a victims compensation fund that’s expected to expire next year as well as the World Trade Center Health Program, which expired in October.
Earlier this week, McConnell said it was “not true” to say that he’d personally advocated to remove the provision and that more work needed to be done to the health care bill. He said he supported the measure.
“Everybody was for it. This is a worthwhile cause and we’ll take care of it,” McConnell said in the interview.
McConnell did not appear to respond to the charges that he was playing politics with the issue or react to Stewart calling him a hypocrite for his past support of similar legislation.
You can watch part of Stewart’s Daily Show appearance above, via Comedy Central.
[image via screengrab]
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