Former Daily Show host Jon Stewart tore into Republicans as stab-vets-in-the-back senators on Thursday after they blocked the passage of a bill expanding health care coverage for military veterans .

If this is America first, then America is fucked, an exasperated Stewart said.

The comedian, surrounded by a group of veterans on Capitol Hill, spoke to reporters after GOP senators pulled their support for a bill meant to help those suffering from exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam and toxic pits full of burned military waste in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Though the bill, known as the Honoring our Pact Act, passed through the Senate earlier this year in a 84 to 14 vote, 25 Republicans who previously backed it withdrew their support during Wednesdays follow-up vote.

The sudden reversal came as a surprise to many and an outrage to Stewart, a longtime advocate for veterans and 9/11 first responders.

Aint this a bitch, Stewart said. Americas heroes who fought in our wars, outside sweating their asses off, with oxygen, battling all kinds of ailments, while these motherfuckers sit in the air conditioning, walled off from any of it.

These are men and women, mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers we just let stand outside in the heat when they cant breathe, he continued, gesturing at the veterans who appeared with him.

Agent Orange a powerful herbicide the U.S. government sprayed on forests in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos from 1961 to 1971 is now known to cause cancer, heart disease, severe organ dysfunction, painful skin conditions, and neurological and psychological harm.

Burn pits have been linked to several types of cancer. President Joe Biden has raised the possibility that burn pit exposure in Iraq may have contributed to his late son Beau Bidens fatal brain cancer diagnosis .