Comic Jon Stewart used his buddy Stephen Colbert's late-night show to keep the heat on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for passage of legislation to replenish a victims' fund for first responders to the 9/11 attacks.
Stewart mocked McConnell on Colbert's "Late Show" Monday night, even though the Senate leader had said earlier Monday that the issue would be addressed. Stewart demanded greater urgency.
A longtime advocate for police and firefighters who worked after the attacks, Stewart is taking a biting lobbying effort to platforms that McConnell isn't necessarily used to.
The former host of "The Daily Show" testified last week at a public hearing on a bill that would ensure the fund can pay benefits for 70 years. He scolded legislators who had not shown up. He turned his attention to McConnell, appearing over the weekend with Chris Wallace on Fox.
"Many things in Congress happen at the last minute," McConnell said Monday on Fox News Channel. "We've never failed to address this issue and we will address it again ... I don't know why he's bent out of shape."
Stewart accused McConnell of slow-walking the legislation and using it as a political pawn to get other things done.
"If you're busy I get it," Stewart said. "Just understand that the next time we have war, or you're being robbed, or your house is on fire and you make that desperate call for help, don't get bent out of shape if they show up at the last minute with fewer people than you thought would pay attention and don't actually put it out. Just leave it there smoldering for another five years."
He urged McConnell to meet right away with 9/11 survivors and "don't make them beg."
More than 40,000 people have applied to the fund, which covers illnesses potentially related to rescue work at the World Trade Center site, the Pentagon or Shanksville, Pennsylvania. More than $5 billion in benefits have been awarded out of the $7.4 billion fund, with about 21,000 claims pending.
Asked again about it on Tuesday, McConnell said, "I don't know how many times I can say, we've never left the 9/11 victims behind and we won't again."
The legislation must pass the House first, where the Democrats have promised a vote before their August recess.
Associated Press writer Matthew Daly in Washington contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. has determined that an Israeli military unit committed gross human-rights abuses against Palestinians in the West Bank before the war in Gaza began, but it will hold off on any decision about aid to the battalion while it reviews new information provided by Israel, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson.
The undated letter, obtained by The Associated Press on Friday, defers a decision on whether to impose a first-ever block on U.S. aid to an Israeli military unit over its treatment of Palestinians. Israeli leaders, anticipating the U.S. decision this week, have angrily protested any such aid restrictions.
Blinken stressed that overall U.S. military support for Israel’s defense against Hamas and other threats would not be affected by the State Department's eventual decision on the one unit. Johnson was instrumental this week in muscling through White House-backed legislation providing $26 billion in additional funds for Israel's defense and for relief of the growing humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.
The U.S. declaration concerns a single Israeli unit and its actions against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank before Israel's war with Hamas in Gaza began in October. While the unit is not identified in Blinken's letter, it is believed to be the Netzah Yehuda, which has historically been based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
The unit and some of its members have been linked to abuses of civilians in the Palestinian territory, including the death of a 78-year-old Palestinian American man after his detention by the battalion's forces in 2022.
The Israeli army announced in 2022 that the unit was being redeployed to the Golan Heights near the Syrian and Lebanese borders. More recently, its soldiers were moved to Gaza to fight in the war against Hamas.
Blinken said the Israeli government has so far not adequately addressed the abuses by the military unit. But "the Israeli government has presented new information regarding the status of the unit and we will engage on identifying a path to effective remediation for this unit,” he wrote.
A 1997 act known as the Leahy law obligates the U.S. to cut off military aid to a foreign army unit that it deems has committed grave violations of international law or human rights. But the law allows a waiver if the military has held the offenders responsible and acted to reform the unit.
The Leahy law has never been invoked against close ally Israel.
After State Department reviews, Blinken wrote Johnson, he had determined that two Israeli Defense Force units and several civilian authority units were involved in significant rights abuses. But he also found that one of those two Israeli military units and all the civilian units had taken proper and effective remediation measures.
The reviews come as protests and counterprotests over American military aid for Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza are roiling U.S. college campuses as well as election-year politics at home and relations abroad.
Although the amount of money at stake is relatively small, singling out the unit would be embarrassing for Israel, whose leaders often refer to the military as “the world’s most moral army.”
The U.S. and Israeli militaries have close ties, routinely training together and sharing intelligence. It also would amount to another stinging U.S. rebuke of Israel’s policies in the West Bank. The Biden administration has grown increasingly vocal in its criticism of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians and recently imposed sanctions on a number of radical settlers for violence against Palestinians.
Lee contributed from Beijing. Josef Federman contributed from Jerusalem.
FILE - Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks during a press conference, April 26, 2024, in Beijing, China. In a letter from Blinken to House Speaker Mike Johnson obtained by the Associated Press Friday, April 26, Blinken says the U.S. has determined that an Israeli military unit committed gross human-rights abuses against Palestinians in the West Bank before the war in Gaza began six months ago. But he says the U.S. will hold off on any decision about aid to the battalion while it reviews new information provided by Israel. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana, File)
Mother of Palestinian Shadi Jalaita, 44, cries upon the arrival of her son's body at the family house for the last look during his funeral in the West Bank city of Jericho Tuesday, April 23, 2024. Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian man early Tuesday in the West Bank city of Jericho, an eyewitness and Palestinian officials said. The Palestinian Health Ministry said he suffered a fatal gunshot wound to the chest. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks during a press conference at the U.S. Embassy in China, Friday, April 26, 2024, in Beijing, China. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, Pool)
