Comedian Jon Stewart spent Monday traveling to Washington to send a message to President Donald Trump's Office of Management and Budget Director: You're not helping first responders.
The former "Daily Show" host, who championed on his program the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act to provide health care for survivors of the 2001 terrorist attacks, laid into Mick Mulvaney for proposing changes to the program that could "hamper officials ability to provide assistance," according to Politico.
"I want to congratulate Mick Mulvaney on a job well done," Stewart said. "It is a special kind of incompetence to take a program that was fought for for 15 years by firefighters, police officers, first responders and survivors that has finally come to fruition and is finally working well — it's a special kind of incompetence to want to turn that thing upside down."
Since Trump took office, Mulvaney has been on a mission to dramatically slash the social safety net. Last year, his targets included Meals on Wheels — the program that delivers food to elderly and poor Americans.
"I don't know if there are children working, but I urge parents to put their children in front of the television to learn about government this way," Stewart said. "They'll have to rewrite 'Schoolhouse Rock' as to how a bill becomes a law, and one guy screws everything up. That will be known forever as pulling a Mulvaney."
Mulvaney could also be known as the man who was put in charge of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau — which monitors banks, lenders and other financial institutions in to protect consumers — and immediately said that his job was to protect capitalism, not borrowers.
Stewart has made few appearances in public after leaving his longtime late-night home. But he has spoken out on getting health care for 9/11 first responders, whom he championed during his hosting tenure. And that shone through on Monday.
"If you want to and up and say, 'We love our first responders in this country. We love our veterans in this country,' stop screwing them," he finished.
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