'Shameful': Jon Stewart Excoriates Congress Over 9/11 Fund

NEW YORK — The comedian Jon Stewart excoriated Congress on Tuesday for failing to dedicate more money to a fund for sickened 9/11 first-responders.

In fiery testimony before the House Judiciary Committee in Washington, Stewart reamed lawmakers over their reluctance to renew the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund, which has said it must slash payments to victims of the terroist attacks as it faces a cash shortage.

The former host of “The Daily Show” also called it “shameful” that only a handful of representatives bothered to show up for the hearing on what he said is often dismissed as a local issue. He pounded his fist and appeared to hold back tears as he accused Congress of brushing off a group of heroes who are running out of time.

“Al-Qaeda didn’t shout ‘Death to Tribeca,'” Stewart said, facing a dais with at least a dozen empty chairs. “They attacked America, and these men and women and their response to it is what brought our country back.”

“They did their jobs with courage, grace, tenacity, humility. Eighteen years later, do yours,” he added.

Stewart made his statement at a hearing on the need to reauthorize the Victim Compensation Fund, which first operated from 2001 to 2004 and was reactivated in 2010.

The fund for victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and their families is currently slated to end in 2020 and has already burned thorugh more than two thirds of its money. Officials have warned that claimants will have their payments cut as much as 70 percent because of the shortfall.

More than 300 House members have signed onto a bill sponsored by New York City Rep. Carolyn Maloney that would extend the fund for about seven more decades. But it has not gotten out of committee since it was introduced in February.

“Why this bill isn’t unanimous consent and a standalone issue is beyond my comprehension, and I have yet to hear a reasonable explanation for why,” said Stewart, who is a longtime advocate for victims compensation funding.

Stewart said the largely empty panel was a “perfect metaphor” for the process of securing funding for 9/11 first-responders, who he said have been shooed away “like children trick-or-treating rather than the heroes that they are and will always be.”

He invoked the name of Ray Pfeifer, an FDNY firefighter sickened from his response to 9/11 who was a prominent advocate for health care for first-responers. Stewart said Pfeifer traveled to Washington even when he was battling cancer, from which he died in 2017.

“This hearing should be flipped,” Stewart said. “These men and women should be up on that stage and Congress should be down here answering their questions as to why this is so damn hard and takes so damn long.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated for how long Rep. Carolyn Maloney’s bill would reauthorize the fund. It would last for about seven more decades, through the 2090 fiscal year, not about six more decades.