Calling out conservatives slow to back the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund through the lives of first responders up to 2090, Jon Stewart ripped "agonizingly difficult" politics of Washington, calling Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell the "white whale" of 9/11 funding.
"I think this community is at the end of their rope,” Stewart told "Fox News Sunday." "I think there's a feeling of disbelief, that they can't understand why they have to continually saddle up and ride down to Washington and make these appeals for something that should be simple but is somehow, through politics, made agonizingly difficult."
Stewart's appearance with "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace came Sunday following a visit to Congress where he made an impassioned plea for lawmakers to "do their job."
"They did their jobs with courage, grace, tenacity, humility – 18 years later, do yours," Stewart said during a tear-filled statement to the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties.
The 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund is capped at $7.4 billion and will expire after 2020.
"In terms of getting the 9/11 bills passed, [Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell has been the white whale of this since 2010," Stewart told Wallace.
". . . Not all Republicans oppose this, but everyone who has opposed it is a Republican, and it's unacceptable. They've done it now for years, Sen. McConnell, Lindsey Graham is the one who is the head of Judiciary — he's the one who's going to be negotiating, whether it's five or 10 years.
"We cannot make these individuals continue to live in the agonizing uncertainty of not knowing that these programs will be extended and that they will be able to move on with their lives."
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