John Feal, an outspoken advocate for fellow 9/11 first responders, said on Wednesday that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) committed to holding a vote on funding the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund, but that the responders are still “going to hold his feet to the fire.”
Feal told CNN hosts Alisyn Camerota and John Berman that although he’d met with McConnell several times before, this time he saw a “different side” of the GOP leader when they met on Tuesday.
“This one was different because Mitch McConnell showed his humanity yesterday in that meeting,” the first responder said. “I saw a different side of Mitch McConnell that I hadn’t seen in previous meetings.”
Feal said he’s “confident” that McConnell will stick to his promise to hold a vote on funding the VCF, but he also noted that the battle was far from over.
“We’re going to hold his feet to the fire still,” Feal said. “We’re not over, we’re not done. Nobody’s celebrating, we didn’t pop the champagne.”
“We still got a lot of work to do, but we’re in a different place from yesterday,” he continued.
After a heated testimony and another impassioned plea from comedian Jon Stewart, McConnell was pushed to take action on the nearly expired VCF that helps the victims of the September 11 attacks and the first responders who were at the scene, who still suffer health issues from inhaling the smoke and dust.
Watch Feal speak below:
9/11 first responder: I'm "confident" McConnell will keep his promise to hold vote on VCF but we're "still going to hold his feet to the fire" pic.twitter.com/eAfxs2jtWJ
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) June 26, 2019
Literally, I hope.
Satan promised Mitch, as part of their deal, that he’d be immune to flames.
The Devil is apt to overlook his bargains. Just like McConnell.
A promise from McConnell is the same as a promise from a junkie.
McConnell is the reason Trump is still President.
Is it election season already? Gosh, how the last 4 years have flown by.
I really wonder how explicit McConnell was when demanding that this guy say nice things about him in exchange for permitting the Senate to do its job for this one 45-minute interval.
Mitch: Every 2 positive adjectives gets you 10 minutes of Senate work. But you get nothing if you fail to mention my name and “human” in the same sentence at least once.