Title: Call Your Senator: Sen Gillibrand on Trump's 'Big Beautiful Betrayal,' Mamdani's Victory and More

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now, our monthly Call Your Senator segment. My questions and yours for Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. 212-433-WNYC. Call or text 212-433-9692. Call mostly if you're in New York and therefore a constituent, but we can take some calls from the other 49, as so much of the US senator's work has national implications, obviously. 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692. Call or text. Senator, our listeners always appreciate this. Welcome back to WNYC.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: Thanks, Brian. I'm happy to be on your show.

Brian Lehrer: Making national and worldwide news, not just New York news, is the apparent victory of Zohran Mamdani in the Democratic primary for mayor. Are you endorsing him for the general election?

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: Not today, but I did speak with him yesterday. I congratulated him on his victory, and I raised some issues that, if he does become the mayor, will be very important that we not only work on together, but I raised some concerns that I had.

Brian Lehrer: What issues? What concerns?

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: I congratulated him on his laser-like focus on affordability. He was an excellent communicator in talking to New Yorkers about the challenges that they have. Affordable housing is top of mind for the work I do in the Senate. I'm now on the Appropriations Committee, so I'm in charge of really focusing resources for affordable housing, as well as transportation and mass transit. I talked about the importance of talking about food security. It's not right in this country, as powerful as we are, that any child or any senior goes to bed hungry.

That's something I've focused on for a long time, especially food deserts. One of his ideas about food deserts was getting the government more involved in providing grocery stores. I have legislation about creating public-private partnerships to do exactly that, and so that might be an area where we could work on together. He also focused on the fact that costs for not only housing and food, but for everyday life continues to go up, whether it's medicine or other costs, those are areas we can work on together.

I introduced myself, told him the things I work on, and I raised the two issues with the public statements about Israel that gave me concern, and I raised the issue of public safety, which is really important for New Yorkers.

Brian Lehrer: What did you ask him to do with respect to either of those?

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: I'm not going to disclose our conversation because these are personal conversations, but I raised them on behalf of constituents who had deep concerns about those very exact issues.

Brian Lehrer: Is there even a potential world in which you might support Eric Adams running as an independent or Andrew Cuomo if he also does that over the Democratic nominee?

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: I vote in Albany. While I have followed the New York City race, my voting is in upstate New York. I have tried to leave this to the voters of New York. Obviously, I will work with whoever is mayor, as I will always do. My focus this week is entirely on this ridiculous reconciliation package that President Trump is shoving down the throats of Republican senators. That reconciliation package alone will be very destructive for New York City. Whoever wins this race, I will be working with them to make sure these Medicaid cuts do not result in people without healthcare, and these cuts to SNAP don't result in people going hungry.

It's a very challenging time, and we need leaders who understand what people are going through and find solutions to make a difference.

Brian Lehrer: Is this consistent with your history since you've been in the Senate? Have you not endorsed the Democrat for mayor of New York City in the previous cycles, one way or another?

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: I don't know that I've endorsed candidates for mayor in the past in New York City, and I don't know that I've been asked by those candidates. It's just not something that I typically do.

Brian Lehrer: You haven't gone to rallies for a Democratic candidate? We're talking about the general election now, not different Democrats against each other in the primary, but running against Republicans and non-Democratic independents. It was not automatic for you in the past. You just stayed out of it?

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: Generally, that's accurate, but this is not going to be a race of one Democrat versus one Republican. I think it may be a much more complex race because multiple people have multiple lines. Again, I respect New York voters. As I said, what I think the Democratic nominee did well was laser-like focus on affordability. It's the number one issue in the state right now. It's the number one issue in every part of New York, and it's the most important thing for Democrats to be focused on is how do we help people afford housing?

How do we help them afford food, and how do we help them afford providing for their kids? The Trump administration is not helping us at all with his irrational approach towards tariffs, with his engagement in war with Iran. It is a huge problem for communities, for families, for businesses just to afford the everyday things that their children and their families need. That's where my focus has been.

Brian Lehrer: All right. Let me take one call on this, and then we will move on to the so-called Big Beautiful Bill, which I see you're calling the Big Beautiful Betrayal, and the US bombing of Iran with you on the Armed Services Committee. Gwydia in Queens, you're on WNYC with Senator Gillibrand, and you want to talk about the nomination of Mamdani, right?

Gwydia: Yes. I'm interested, because now that he has become the Democratic nominee, I was going to ask my senator if she's willing to support him for the general election. That's really my question, and I'll hang up on this one.

Brian Lehrer: You heard the answer. Did you have any reaction to that answer?

Gwydia: If I have any reaction? I feel like he did pretty well campaigning. I did actually did some campaigning for him as well, even though I do have a full-time shift working and all this stuff, but in between, I was doing a couple of things for him. I feel like he put his soul and his effort to try to win this. I don't know. I just feel like he should have more support. That's basically it. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Brian Lehrer: Gwydia, thank you for your call, I appreciate it, with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692. Call or text. All right. Trump's so-called Big Beautiful Bill, which they are hoping to get through the Senate before the July 4th recess. I see you have a press release calling it the Big Beautiful Betrayal. Why is that?

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: It's a big beautiful betrayal because he's cutting lifelines for so many Americans. The bill is going to cut 14 million Americans off of their healthcare, not only requirements for Affordable Care Act, but also requirements under Medicaid that will make it impossible for people to receive healthcare. That's one gut punch. It's about a trillion dollars of cuts to healthcare, and sending that trillion dollars, instead of funding healthcare, to billionaires and people who are getting massive tax breaks.

That's the biggest problem with the bill. The second thing is it will be the largest cut to food security in our nation's history. It'll cut about $300 billion out of the SNAP program. If you don't know what SNAP is, it's food assistance. It funds programs like Meals on Wheels, it funds medically tailored meals for veterans, it funds school and summer program lunch food for kids. It funds almost every imaginable funding for food banks and food security. It's just going to mean people will go hungry, and people will have a lot more challenges in their life.

It does a lot of other things in terms of green energy and making sure we have green jobs and making it harder for people to put their money in places that help keep our country green and clean air and clean water, so that's going to be problematic. The tax cuts that we used to have for people to make their house more energy efficient, install insulation, do heat pumps or solar panels, energy-efficient windows and doors, all of that's going to be deleted. It just means less people will be able to afford helping keep our air and water clean.

Brian Lehrer: How much of what you don't like in the bill can Democrats and some dissenting Republicans stop?

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: Right now, I haven't heard of which Republicans will side with us. What we've been able to stop so far is a lot of things that were in the bill that were overreaches that weren't appropriate for a tax bill. The purpose of a reconciliation bill is to do tax policy and to lower the debt. This bill increases the debt by $3 trillion. It also had a lot of policy in it that it's not allowed to have. We objected to those policy changes and won some of those objections. It's a term of art. We call it the Byrd Bath. It's named after a senator named Senator Byrd, who came up with these requirements, and we won a lot of those.

An example. There was policy in the bill that said they didn't want courts to enforce their temporary restraining orders or other orders because Trump was angry that the courts were ruling against him and trying to enforce their rulings. We were successful in getting that provision taken out. There was a lot of things that were not supposed to be in this bill that we've successfully gotten taken out. There was some SNAP things that were pushing some federal responsibilities to the states, which we didn't think would help. We succeeded in getting that taken out.

We're just trying our best in every procedural way to, number one, take things out that shouldn't be in there, and two, to show our colleagues that these cuts are heartless. That these cuts are extremely harmful to their constituents. Through our advocacy and through trying to drill down on all the detailed specifics, we're going to try to convince them to change their minds. So far, there are a couple of Republicans who don't like adding over $3 trillion to the debt because they're fiscal conservatives, but whether they stand by that, we don't know.

There's a few Republicans that actually realize cuts to Medicaid are devastating to their constituents. Whether they will stand up to Trump, I don't know. So far, they have not stood up to Trump in any meaningful way, and so we'll just keep raising the issue so that at least their constituents can call them and object and tell they want a no vote on this.

Brian Lehrer: Here's a Mamdani-related call. They're continuing to come in. This one, anti-Mamdani. Gabe in Jersey City. You're on WNYC with Senator Gillibrand. Hello, Gabe.

Gabe: Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my call and question. I wanted to ask two very pertinent questions about the threats facing the Jewish community, unfortunately, from Zohran Mamdani. There was a bill that I was reading about that, unfortunately, he wants to target synagogues and Jewish institutions which donate to nonprofits which are medical institutions like United Hatzalah and Magen David Adom, which is the Jewish Red Cross.

How do we make sure that Jewish institutions are protected from his plans to punish and fine our institutions which fundraise these medical nonprofits which do work both here in the United States and in Israel and other countries in the world? Also, how can we hold Mr. Mamdani accountable for his glorifying association of Hamas and other terror bombings of the intifada in 1990s, where over 1,000 Jewish Israelis were killed to his revisionist Holocaust knowledge to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, where Jews were mass exterminated and faced threats.

He compared when Jews were killed to when Jews fought back against Nazis. It's quite despicable. I'm sorry.

Brian Lehrer: Gabe, thank you for your call. There's a lot in there, Senator, some of which may be inaccurate. I don't know. I can't fact-check everything in real-time, but do you know any of that to be inaccurate or accurate, including the original premise that he would somehow target synagogues if they were contributing to groups like Hatzalah Ambulance Services in a way that he could hurt the synagogues? I just don't want to give out information that's false, but I also don't want to shrink from information that's true.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: The caller is exactly the New York constituents that I've spoken to that are alarmed. They are alarmed by past public statements. They are alarmed by past positions, particularly references to global jihad. This is a very serious issue because people that glorify the slaughter of Jews create fear in our communities. The global intifada is a statement that means destroy Israel and kill all the Jews. These are the kinds of things that, if Mr. Mamdani is elected our mayor, we'll need to assure all New Yorkers that he will protect all Jews and protect houses of worship and protect funding for not-for-profits that meet the needs of these communities. Those are the things he'll have to do as our mayor.

Brian Lehrer: He would certainly say that he has committed to protecting all Jews in New York as mayor of New York. Do you doubt that?

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: One of the issues I did talk to him yesterday was exactly this issue, and he has agreed to work with me on this and to protect all residents. This is something I care deeply about, and so I will be an advocate on these issues. These are things that I think are important to New Yorkers, and I will work with him when he gets elected, if he gets elected, to make sure everyone is protected. I also, on the federal level, work to get resources for all our religious sites in the state and in the city.

I lead the letter for the funding to protect synagogues and churches and temples and places of worship across our city and state. These are things that he has assured me in my one conversation that he will protect everyone, but I understand why people are concerned because of past statements. This is just an issue that I will work with him on, for sure.

Brian Lehrer: Hani on Prospect Heights, you're on WNYC with Senator Gillibrand. Hello, Hani.

Hani: Senator, good morning. We all obviously care a great deal about public radio. We wouldn't be listening to you right now if we didn't. From your approach on the Appropriations Committee, tell us what you can about the rescission package. Where is it going, and what are you doing to get your Republican colleagues to oppose it? I know that there are a few of your colleagues who are very concerned about the effect this rescission will have on tribal and rural communities in states across the country, not just here in New York.

What is the play here? Because we also know, people who listen to Brian's show closely, that there are members of Congress who have appeared on his show frequently who voted for that same clawback. What's the state of play now? Can you tell us a little bit about that? What can listeners like us do?

Brian Lehrer: We did not put this caller up to this. I do not know this guy, but Senator, go ahead and respond. I'm sure our listeners are interested.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: That's so appropriate of you, Brian, to say that. I'm grateful he did raise it because it is a huge problem. On June 12, the House passed a rescission package to claw back funding for NPR, PBS, and international aid that lawmakers on a bipartisan basis had previously approved. It would cancel $9.4 billion appropriated by Congress, specifically targeting public radio, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, NPR, and PBS. $1.1 billion cuts for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds both NPR and PBS.

Just so you know, PBS received $325 million in funding this year. That's a huge hole that will be very hard for public radio to make up. Public radio is really important. For those who don't know all that public radio does, it is responsible for cutting-edge technology that helps our first responders communicate with each other over a broadcast spectrum when they have a need for mobile service and broadband. 55 million people in the United States have no or only one source of local news, and rural communities are far more likely to lose their local news outlets.

NPR and PBS provide that critical service. On the education front, public television's early childhood education services are fantastic. As a mom, we watch PBS all the time. My kids loved the programming, and it's all focused on early childhood education. It actually plays a huge role in supplementing early childhood education for families. 50% of three and four-year-old children who do not attend formal preschool rely on this kind of educational input, and it will be taken away.

These are just a thumbnail of some of the things that PBS and Corporation for Public Broadcasting are responsible for that will be harmful. On the other side, in terms of USAID, a lot of our constituents will often say, "Well, we don't care about money going abroad. We care about America, and we only want money spent in America." One of the things that we fund around the globe is healthcare, so we don't get Ebola in the United States, or any diseases, any pandemics. We are in countries all across the globe, making sure they don't become pandemics.

It does affect us, and it also affects our national security. You have to remember, China has spent probably trillions at this point in their Belt and Road Initiative doing projects across the globe so that they can be integrated into these countries for military and telemetry reasons so they can use bases of operations across the globe. If we just allow the rest of the world to be China's, we'll be less safe if China ever decides to start a war. It's very problematic not to be engaged in the world when it comes to national security, and it comes to trying to spread democracy.

When you don't invest in trying to spread democracy, authoritarianism rises. When you have authoritarianism rising across the globe, it puts the United States at risk from foreign actors and from terrorism. These are the types of funding that is now going to be rescinded. It's all bipartisan, which is what's most shocking about the fact that my Republican colleagues won't stand up to President Trump. They voted for these types of investments. They, in their best judgment, decided these are good investments for the country and that they're good investments for my constituents.

They are still turning their back on their own work, their own authority, and handing power to Trump for no reason. It is so harmful on so many levels.

Brian Lehrer: On Mamdani, I just feel compelled to say we can find no evidence that he has supported Hamas or has supported violent jihad, as that caller was asserting. Can you?

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: Again, Brian, I don't have all the data and information, and I've never sat down with Mr. Mamdani. I've asked to have that meeting. I'm going to have that meeting. We will talk through all these things. He can tell me his views of the world, and I can learn them firsthand. I think the reference that I had read was global intifada, specifically, which has very serious meanings that are violent and destructive.

Brian Lehrer: Which he says, and I pressed him on this, on this show on Monday, which he says are not calls for violence because intifada is a much broader term involving all kinds of uprisings and resistance and things like that. I just want to be clear about how at least he defines it, and maybe he needs to be more clear. "I don't mean this. I don't mean that." He did say here that he didn't want to be the word police, even as the mayor of New York if he's elected, but I do also want to be clear that he said he does not support violent intifada. Is that fair?

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: Brian, I didn't hear your exchange with him, but if I was speaking to him directly, I would simply say that is not how the words are received. It doesn't matter what meaning you have in your brain. It is not how the word is received. When you use a word like intifada to many Jewish Americans and Jewish New Yorkers, that means you are permissive for violence against Jews. It is a serious word. It is a word that has deep meaning. It has been used for wars across time and violence and destruction and slaughter and murder against the Jews.

It is a harmful, hurtful, inappropriate word for anyone who wants to represent a city as diverse as New York City with 8 million people, and I would be very specific in these words, and I would say you may not use them again if you expect to represent everyone ever again because they are received as hateful and divisive and harmful, and that's it. I appreciate that he told you he didn't mean that, and that's great. That's a great place to start.

Brian Lehrer: I think we also clarify or he was clarifying that he never said globalize the intifada. He was asked in an interview if he would denounce the phrase globalize the intifada. Then that led to this kind of conversation that you were just referring to, but that he was never out there saying globalize the intifada. He was asked about other people who used it. Just to be precise about what happened there, yes?

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: As a leader of a city as diverse as New York City, with 8 million people, as the largest Jewish population in the country, he should denounce it. That's it. Period. You can't celebrate it. You can't value it. You can't lift it up. That is the challenge that Jewish New Yorkers have had certainly since October 7th. It is exactly what they have felt. It is why Jewish students in our universities have felt unsafe.

It is why Jewish students have felt that their schools did not have their backs and cared about them, or they're learning, because the people doing these protests use words that have meanings that are far more violent and horrific than they may have intended. When you hear things like intifada, when you hear things like jihad, when you hear from the river to the sea, it is received as slaughter the Jews and destroy Israel. Period. It's how it's received.

If you talk to any group, you talk to our LGBTQ community, you talk to our Black community, you talk to our Hispanic community, there are words and there are imagery and there are things that are said that they will hear it and feel it as a dagger to their throat. If you want to be a leader, you have to recognize how these things are felt and received. Saying there should be no word police is irresponsible, because as a leader, you have to protect everyone. Period.

Brian Lehrer: One more thing before you go. For you, as a member of the Armed Services Committee, the US Bombing of Iran, did you support or oppose engaging militarily like that? Do you think President Trump exceeded his authority by launching a major military strike on another country without Congress's approval, the Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war?

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: President Trump does not have the power to declare war. He should not have engaged militarily without checking with Congress. That is in no way to denigrate the excellent work and the success of the mission. They had a particular goal. The service members performed that goal well, and they did what they were asked to do, but President Trump should be asking Congress before he goes to war, especially in the context of something that can create a world war.

Bombing Iran can create the circumstances of a world war. It puts us at risk, and it puts the United States at risk. It puts New York City at risk. He should have had the benefit of talking to Congress who represents the whole nation, who represents all the people who will be at risk. He did not do that, and that is why I am so vociferously against what President Trump is doing, because he didn't follow the Constitution, and he's put our country at risk.

Brian Lehrer: Do you see any US national interest in engaging militarily with Iran?

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: This has been an issue we've been working on for a very long time, Brian. We don't want Iran to have a nuclear weapon. If, in fact, I had received intel and Congress had received intel that Iran was loading the missiles with the nuclear materials and about to push send, that's a very different conversation, but we did not have that intel. I've not been given that intel in a very long time, so that is not something that I was aware of. I'm going to get a briefing today at two o'clock. We are never afraid of keeping all options on the table to protect the United States or to protect an ally.

That is not the question that was asked here. What President Trump did is act, at least from what we know, without that level of intel, without an urgency that war was imminent. We have tried assiduously for decades, certainly the 15 years I've been in the Senate, to push Iran off its nuclear ambitions through crippling sanctions. We tried to have an Iran deal that gave us access to all these facilities, so we knew where they are, what they're doing.

We did get all the intel about where all these facilities are located, which was one of the reasons why the Iran deal was so helpful. We tried. When President Trump came into power, he deleted and discontinued the Iran deal, so Iran started using their centrifuges again and refined a great deal of highly enriched uranium. We still don't know where that highly enriched uranium is. We did not see Iran make progress on their missile technology and their ability to deliver a nuclear weapon, but these are all our areas of concern.

When President Trump said he wanted to work with Iran to figure out if he can get them to give up their nuclear program, that was something that I fully supported, and he was going to try this other tact. Now, I don't know what changed his mind. He's not told the American people. He's not told the Senate why he changed his mind and why he felt he had to act militarily imminently, but the case hasn't been made to me.

I just have huge concerns about the actions he's taken without either the intelligence saying this was imminent and that we had no other choice, and without talking to Congress because we represent the American people.

Brian Lehrer: Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, we always appreciate it, and so do the listeners. Thank you very much.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: Thank you, Brian.

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