Jon Stewart is not done fighting for 9/11 first responders. Last month the former Daily Show host excoriated Congress for dragging its feet on extending a bill that funds health care for the police, firefighters, construction workers, volunteers, and victims of the 2001 attack. He also appeared on Fox News that month to blast Mitch McConnell. And on Wednesday night he made an encore appearance to eviscerate another senator: Rand Paul, who recently blocked the bill on the grounds that Congress should make cuts elsewhere before providing the funding.

“It’s absolutely outrageous,” Stewart told host Bret Baier as he sat next to 9/11 first responder and activist John Feal. “And pardon me if I’m not impressed in any way by Rand Paul’s fiscal responsibility virtue signaling. Rand Paul presented tissue paper avoidance of the $1.5 trillion tax cut that added hundreds of billions of dollars to our deficit. And now he stands up at the last minute, after 15 years of blood, sweat, and tears from the 9/11 community, to say that it’s all over now; now we’re going to balance the budget on the backs of the 9/11 first responder community.”

In addition to Paul, Stewart said, Senator Mike Lee also blocked the vote despite having promised not to stand in its way. Paul’s office provided a statement on the matter to Fox News: “Senator Paul is not blocking anything,” the statement read. “He is simply seeking to pay for it. As with any bill, Senator Paul believes it needs to be paid for. Senator Paul is simply offering an amendment, which other senators support, to pay for this legislation.” Lee’s spokesman also gave a statement on Wednesday, saying, “Senator Lee fully expects the 9/11 compensation bill to pass before the August recess and he is seeking a vote to ensure the fund has the proper oversight in place to prevent fraud and abuse.”

But Feal seemed confident that a victory is nonetheless coming—regardless of what these two “bottom feeders” want. Stewart’s speech was more subdued than it was during his congressional visit last month, but his anger has clearly not diminished since then.

“What Rand Paul did today on the Senate was outrageous,” Stewart said. “He is a guy that put us in hundreds of billions of dollars in debt.... And now he’s going to tell us that a billion dollars a year over 10 years is just too much for us to handle? You know, there are some things that they have no trouble putting on the credit card, but somehow when it comes to the 9/11 first responder community—the cops, the firefighters, the construction workers, the volunteers, the survivors—all of a sudden, man, we’ve got to go through this.”

Stewart noted that the program has already been running for five years—adding that when he and his fellow activists appeared before Congress, the special paymaster testified that the fund had seen no fraud, waste, or abuse. Yet now, he continued, these senators are forcing these victims to “drag themselves back to Washington, to put their hats in their hands, and beg for something that this country should have done 14 years ago. It’s an abomination.”

More Great Stories from Vanity Fair

— The scoop on Midsommar’s totally wild sex scene

— A new Elvis biopic casts its King

— A toast to When Harry Met Sally, the romantic comedy for grown-ups

— The best books of the year, so far

— The media reflects on its actions in the decades-long Jeffrey Epstein saga

Looking for more? Sign up for our daily Hollywood newsletter and never miss a story.