Skip to playerSkip to main content
Jon Stewart sharply criticized officials over the response to air-quality concerns following the September 11 attacks, saying the city began “covering their ass” weeks afterward. Stewart argued that hazardous material remained in the air, on the ground, windowsills, air conditioners, clothing and even pets for months. He said “everyone knew” about the contamination. Stewart also praised Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s release of previously undisclosed 9/11 records, framing the documents as potentially important to understanding how authorities handled information about conditions around Ground Zero after the attacks.



#JonStewart #Mamdani #911 #September11 #GroundZero #NYC #AirQuality #911Files #NewYork #DailyShow #USNews #PublicRecords #Government #NYCNews #BreakingNews

~PR.498~HT.408~ED.194~VG.HM~

Category

🗞
News
Transcript
00:00Thank you. Much appreciated. Thank you. Thank you. We put it up there. I'm going to walk everyone through the
00:09user agreements. First of all, thank you to the mayor and to his office for getting this done.
00:21I want to be fair to the city. If you look at the Harding memo, they didn't find out, they
00:28didn't recognize that the air that everyone was breathing in downtown Manhattan was toxic until October of 2001.
00:40So to be fair to them, they only buried that information for 25 years. And I just want to say
00:49that the people that made them uncover that and made it be released to the public are the people that
00:56are standing behind me.
00:58They're the ones on the tilt. They are first responders. They are families of loved ones that were lost. They
01:04are legislators. They are legislative aides.
01:08The city began covering their ass three weeks in, in a memo. The memo is entitled Legislative Alternatives to the
01:19Fiscal Responsibility for 9-11.
01:22These people had to fight sick and dying for years. And I'm not saying that the information may have changed
01:31the outcomes, unfortunately, for their families.
01:34But I guarantee you it would not have been the struggle that it was to get people to recognize that
01:43what they all knew and what we all knew who live in downtown Manhattan
01:48is that there was poison in the air and on the ground and in the windowsills and in your air
01:56conditioners and covering your pets and your clothes and it stayed there for months.
02:05Everyone knew. And now it's very clear that the city knew as well.
02:11And rather than take the steps to ameliorate the damage that that would cause to its citizens and to the
02:19people that were down there,
02:21they instead covered it up to get back to business as usual.
02:25But unfortunately, after 9-11, business will never be usual again.
02:32And so, uh, I just want to say that the people that are standing up here are heroes.
02:41They are. And it's not just about the past. It's not just about going into the files and re-litigating
02:47how we all knew what we knew was there.
02:50It's about the future.
02:51And people like Ben Shabbat, who is a giant pain in the ass, and I say that in the best
03:02of ways, he is the best of us.
03:04Never open his emails. I cannot stress that enough.
03:09You will be reading for hours.
03:13Uh, this is about making sure, uh, these guys like John Feal and, uh, Gail Brewer and, uh, Nadler and
03:21Maloney,
03:22they've done a great job at making sure all the first responders that were down there,
03:25they all understand their sicknesses to get in the program.
03:28But residents of this city, students that were down, uh, uh, at Ground Zero that were brought back to do
03:36that,
03:36they need to sign up for the program.
03:39We've lost three times as many people to 9-11 related illnesses as we did on 9-11.
03:45Three times as many, almost 10,000 people.
03:48There's more work to be done so far, and it continues.
03:52So, thank you very much, and, uh, I just want to say what an honor it is to be standing,
03:58uh, with just giants.
04:01So, thank you.
04:12Download the One India app now.
Comments

Recommended