Jon Stewart slammed Mitch McConnell for blocking funding for 9/11 victims unless he gets a ransom payment since 2010.
Stewart was asked if he has had problems with Mitch McConnell, and he said yes, and continued:
In terms of getting the 9/11 bills passed, Mitch McConnell has been the white whale in this since 2010, and this brings up something because I think it’s the cynicism of Washington that also causes this situation to be so emotional. They asked Mitch McConnell about the testimony after it was done. He said oh, gosh, I think he used the word gosh. Gosh, we haven’t looked at that in a while, but we will look at it, and I’m sure we’ll deal with it as compassionately as we have in the past, but I want to make it clear that this has never been dealt with compassionately by Senator McConnell. He has always held out until the very last minute, and only then, under intense lobbying and public shaming has he even deign to move on.
This is not a Republican-Democrat issue. We have Republicans on the bill. We’d obviously like to have more of them, but Senator McConnell has seen fit to, in 2010, he used it to make sure the Bush tax cuts would be permanent. In 2015, he took out of the transportation bill because he wanted to extract some promises on oil imports, so in this bill right now in 2019, he’s been aware off this. We were told in August that the fund was running out of money, and people were going to have their award slashed by thirty, fifty, and even seventy percent.
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Mitch McConnell holds funding for dying 9/11 victims hostage
McConnell views funding for the care of first responders and 9/11 victims as an opportunity to ransom the American people. As Stewart pointed out, McConnell always attaches some sort of unpopular special interest goodie to funding for 9/11 victims. Mitch McConnell’s behavior is unpatriotic and un-American. His callous and cynical approach makes him the perfect partner for Donald Trump.
As with so many other issues, Mitch McConnell is the problem, and the solution to making the Senate functional again is getting Mitch McConnell out of office.
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Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
