Jon Stewart-Backed Bill for 9/11 First Responders Passed by Senate

After countless efforts from 9/11 first responders and former The Daily Show host Jon Stewart, the Senate voted to replenish the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund on Tuesday, per Vanity Fair.

The Senate voted 97-2, and Trump is expected to sign the bill on Friday. Utah’s Mike Lee and Kentucky’s Rand Paul are the two outliers who voted to block the bill. According to the two, we should rather focus on the massive debt the country’s in, rather than the sick and dying first responders who risked their lives during 9/11.

Stewart previously appeared on Fox News to call out Paul’s decision on the bill, and to say the least, Stewart eviscerated him. “Pardon me if I’m not impressed in any way by Rand Paul’s fiscal responsibility virtue signaling,” Stewart said on Fox News.

The lack of funding toward 9/11 first responders was brought back into the spotlight in June when the first responders and Stewart sat before Congress, and Stewart laid into them for lulling on whether to extend the bill. Stewart’s damning outcry not only sparked something in the House Judiciary Committee to unanimously sign off on the bill the next day, but it also garnered tons of support online.

On Tuesday, Stewart was surrounded by New York senators Kirsten Gillibrand, Chuck Schumer and several first responders. Stewart singled out firefighter Ray Pfeifer, and first responders John Feal and the late Luis Alvarez, who died in June after appearing before Congress beside Stewart.

“This has been the honor of my life to work with the men and women behind me,” Stewart said on Tuesday, per Vanity Fair.

With the bill passed, the funding for 9/11 first responders has been extended 73 years, through 2092, and it will allow the sick and dying 9/11 first responders, who selflessly risked their lives for others, to get the treatment and medical help they need and wholeheartedly deserve.

Watch Stewart’s impassioned speech to Congress from June below.