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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer WNYC. Now, our monthly Call Your Senator segment, my questions and yours for New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. All relevant questions welcome at 212-433-WNYC. Call Senator Gillibrand with a question relevant to her job as senator from New York or as a member of the Armed Services Committee, the Intelligence Committee, the Aging Committee, and the Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee.

I know we'll touch on her bill to help provide child care for police officers, the US response to the acts of war by Iran and Israel, and the latest abortion law and abortion politics developments. We'll see what you Call Your Senator about if you live in New York. Don't tell anybody. Even if you don't live in New York, you can call too. 212-433-WNYC. You can call or text 212-433-9692. Senator Gillibrand, always good of you to do this. Welcome back to WNYC.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: Thanks so much, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Did I miss any of your committees there, by the way?

Senator Gillibrand: No, you got it right.

Brian Lehrer: All right. Let's start with your Providing Child Care for Police Officers Act. Before we even get to the details, you know what a lot of listeners are thinking. So many families have trouble affording child care. Why do something just for police officers?

Senator Gillibrand: We're working on a much larger childcare affordability bill that we're hoping to pass soon. It's something that Patty Murray and I and several other senators have been focused on for a long time. This is a very small piece of it and it is a piece that has strong bipartisan support. We started working on this about two years ago and we got similar provisions in place for service members. What we realized, particularly with service members, is oftentimes their duty started at 4:00 AM and there was no open childcare facilities.

It's not like they can change their jobs or their hours or their duties. I found the same challenge existing for law enforcement. Unfortunately, we've really had a tough time recruiting for law enforcement. The number of law enforcement officers has gone significantly down. About 3,000 officers have either resigned or retired last year and only 2,300 were recruited in that same year. They're having a real retention problem.

One of the challenges is oftentimes law enforcement families, both the wife and the husband, are law enforcement officers. They don't have enough flexibility on their schedule and daycares just don't meet their needs. This bill authorizes $25 million in funding for each of the next five fiscal years to help law enforcement or providers offer more flexible hours so that they can meet the needs of this unique group of people who have to go to work but often can't because they don't have any accessible daycare that reaches their hours that they have to work.

Brian Lehrer: Child care, as you know, is already unaffordable for so many people. By coincidence, we have an article on our local news website, Gothamist, from a few days ago, not related to your bill, by our reporter, Karen Yi, called Why Child Care is So Expensive in New York City That It's Become a Crisis. Let me read you a few sentences from this. It says, "Unaffordable for 80% of New York City families according to childcare experts, the 80th percentile of families pay between $14,000 and $20,000 a year for care for a child five years old or younger," reports show.

"A family earning $86,000 could spend a quarter of their salary on care for an infant or toddler, which blows past federal standards that say child care should not cost more than 7% of the household income." That 80% figure, Senator, is based on stats from the 2022 report of the New York State Office of Child Care Services. What about all those other working outside the home, New Yorkers with childcare shortfalls? I'm sure many of them are also working unusual shifts, depending on their profession. What do you have coming down the pike for them?

Senator Gillibrand: Interestingly, yesterday, I had my first meeting of my childcare working group. It consists of a lot of stakeholders across the state and a lot of elected leaders and union leaders and leaders for our first responders as well as for our nurses and teachers and people, again, who very much need affordable child care because they are public servants and they are first-line workers that really held us up during the pandemic.

We talked about all the challenges. The problem is, is that childcare in New York is very expensive. It might be $10,000 to $15,000, depending on how old your child is per year. Most low-income workers cannot afford that at all. Most middle-income workers are on very difficult time affording it. Then for all workers, finding enough slots is the challenge. There's not enough providers for the number of people who need affordable, high-quality daycare for their kids.

The other thing we know, Brian, is that having good, high-quality daycare is one of the greatest indicators of success of your economy. For every dollar you put into early childhood education, you get between $11 and $15 out in productivity for that person as they grow and as they become adults. It's a win-win if you invest in child care. Our working group got together and figured out all the challenges.

You mentioned one of the first challenges of affordability. Well, it's not just affordability because we get charged maybe $10,000 or $15,000. It actually costs the childcare center closer to $25,000 to $35,000 to provide that care. These centers are constantly working without getting fully remunerated for the work that they do. Society needs daycares because if you don't have good, high-quality daycares, people can't go to work, and so your economy doesn't grow, and people aren't earning at their highest potential.

We should be investing in child care as a society. It should be fully subsidized by the state, by the federal government, by local governments. We should be incentivizing employers to provide on-site daycare. We should be incentivizing and helping large organizations like unions to be able to apply, to be able to provide daycare for all their workers. These are the ideas that we were generating in our working group. There's a very significant bill right now in the Senate, but it's not bipartisan yet.

It would create about $4.5 billion a year for daycare, for investing in this infrastructure, which is exactly the kind of investment we would need to tackle this problem in a way that actually would work. What I need to do as everyone's senator is I need to keep working across the party lines to find Republicans who understand how important early childhood education is and how important daycare is so that maybe we could create a national revolving fund.

We also came up with some innovation ideas like ideas to let daycare providers share best practices and training, let daycare providers share replacement workers and part-time workers when someone has to call out sick, let them have an insurance pool together. Again, they can lower the overhead and create these economies of scale between daycares. These are just some of the ideas we came up with. I'm very committed to solving this problem and making sure that all families have access to affordable quality daycare for their kids and for themselves so that they can, again, be in the workplace.

Brian Lehrer: It sounds like what you're saying is you're going ahead with the Providing Child Care for Police Officers Act because that's what you can get bipartisan buy-in in for. Do you think that's because Republicans will do anything to-- not anything, but will do a lot to glorify or romanticize police work? They like to see themselves more as a law-and-order party. If it comes to the same needs of home healthcare workers or sanitation workers who work overnight or whatever that they just don't have that level of sympathy?

Senator Gillibrand: Well, I'm hoping to build on this bipartisan agreement by making the case, showing how it is so essential for the workforce to have daycare so they can meet the workforce needs. I think probably the reason why this issue got traction first is because there's a lot of concern about public safety. If we can't keep law enforcement officers wanting to do the job, we won't have the level of public safety that I think communities expect and want. I think there was that trade-off, that desire to increase people who are willing to do these jobs by having this one challenge addressed specifically.

I'm optimistic. I have a bipartisan working group right now on paid leave with Senator Bill Cassidy. He has come to the table. He believes that time has come and that we need a national paid leave plan. We are focusing specifically on paid leave for the lowest-income workers for all life events, for gender-neutral. He is very open to really reaching a very thoughtful investment in paid leave. I think we can build on each of these successes. Regardless of how small they are, I think it's important to build it and to support all of our workers.

Brian Lehrer: People are calling in about a variety of things. Maxine in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. Hello, Maxine.

Maxine: Hi, there. Thanks for taking my call. Senator Gillibrand, I'm calling because I went to my radiologist as I do every year to get a breast ultrasound because I have dense breasts. I'm on Medicare. I had the usual prescription. Everything was fine, but I got a call from him beforehand telling me that Medicare was no longer accepting those diagnoses and that they were refusing up to 95% of women. These are women on Medicare who had good prescriptions for breast ultrasound.

The prescription, it says that you have dense breasts, which means that mammograms do not work. This included his receptionist who has had cancer and for whom ultrasounds are the preferred subsequent radiology exam. What can be done about this? What are you going to do about this? You're on the committee on aging. I would say one other thing. My radiologist is an amazing man. He only charged what Medicare would pay even though he couldn't get the money from Medicare. I've heard of women who have been charged $1,000 for this.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Maxine. I know, Senator, we've heard from at least one other woman with the same issue. Is this new to you?

Senator Gillibrand: Well, not the challenge of dense breasts and the need for ultrasound. I'm quite aware of that, but I am very concerned of what Maxine said that Medicare is not covering this. I think that's an outrage and I will look into it immediately. I will find colleagues who also want to concern themselves with women's health and I will try to get a letter put down on a bipartisan basis right away. Thank you, Maxine, for letting me know that because I find that older people are discriminated against in many contexts.

As women live longer than men, we are doubly discriminated against because we live longer. I think in women's health particularly, we have not spent enough time or effort understanding women post-menopause and how to care for their bodies and care for their well-being. I'm going to be forming a working group on health for older women, for women pre- and post-menopause. I will add this to the issues of grave concern. Thank you for sharing your story, Maxine.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Maxine, for putting that on the senator's plate and on her radar. Solange in Port Washington, you're on WNYC. Hello, Solange.

Solange: Good morning, Brian. Thank you for taking my call again. I'm pleading to Ms. Gillibrand if she can help us. We spoke last year about my husband's case. He has Alzheimer's and it's getting worse by the day. We are applying for a motion 601 with immigration. It's going to take two years for us to get an answer for his visa so we can go back to our country and get his visa so he can come back. I sponsor him. I'm an American citizen right now. The only thing I'm asking Ms. Gillibrand is, please, if she can try to expedite his case so we can have an answer sooner than two years because we don't have two years. Thus, I am pleading with her if she can help me.

Brian Lehrer: Senator?

Senator Gillibrand: Well, thank you, Solange. We have a very, very effective and terrific team in our New York City office that deals with all these immigration challenges. We will help you and we will advocate for you. If you could just email us after the show at casework@gillibrand.senate.gov and make sure you give Brian's people your phone number. My staff will call you to help you file the right forms for humanitarian waiver so that your dad can get the treatments and the health care that he needs. I think the rise in Alzheimer's and the need for 24/7 care is something a lot of families in New York are facing with their parents. I would love to help you as much as I can.

Brian Lehrer: Good. Solange, hang on. We'll take your contact information off the air. Tristan in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC with Senator Gillibrand. Hello, Tristan.

Tristan: Hi.

Brian Lehrer: Hello.

Tristan: I'm calling because I was curious how the senator feels about the amendments to the RISA Act for reenabling or reauthorizing FISA. There's three points from the Brennan Center that say that some amendments would force you as businesses to serve as surrogate spies, forcing them to act on the FBI's interest in gathering intelligence. Another one that would expand surveillance of immigrants in the United States. Then the third is an expanded definition of foreign intelligence, which would make it just a broader sweeping law and more things getting swept up into surveillance.

Brian Lehrer: I'll just add politically that it's interesting that objection to FISA has previously been usually coming from the left. Now, former president Trump also objects to renewing FISA and I guess with these amendments because they see it in some way as a threat to people on the right. Senator, what about all of that?

Senator Gillibrand: I'm not familiar with the amendments that our caller just mentioned, but I will look into all of them to find out what they are, what they do. The way he described them, I would have serious concerns about those descriptions, about if we were doing that to our US citizens. FISA is the law that is intended to allow our CIA, NSA, our DOD to make sure that we can protect the United States from foreign adversaries. It's supposed to be used only in the context of getting information and intelligence from foreigners.

The questions that inevitably rise are because sometimes someone from another country, let's say China, is talking to someone in the United States who might be a citizen. The concern is always around who gets sucked up into those reviews, whose information or emails or conversations are being reviewed that might be a US citizen. We are very protective of US citizens. We make sure that we have a FISA court that reviews anything that touches a US citizen so that we have transparency and accountability and oversight. I will look into all the things that our caller just raised because those do sound concerning. I'll let you know as these measures come to the floor later this week hopefully.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you for your call, Tristan. Next topic, the Middle East. We saw the Israel attack on the Iran embassy compound in Syria to assassinate an Iranian official. We saw Iran firing all those drones and missiles at Israel. The US participated in defending Israel against that first-ever direct attack by Iran. Now, multiple news organizations report that President Biden told Prime Minister Netanyahu that the US will not participate in an Israeli counter-strike. Is that your understanding, Senator, of the President's position and do you support that kind of a stance?

Senator Gillibrand: My understanding is that the President is hopeful that this attack by Iran does not result in further escalation into a larger regional conflict. We'll see how Israel decides to respond. There are responses of perhaps an attack against a military installation or some other non-escalatory response that I would imagine the US would support or encourage.

The one thing the United States has worked very hard on is not having this conflict rise into a huge regional conflict and a world war. That is going to continue to be President Biden's position. I agree with that position. We do not want this escalated, but we stand with Israel, especially when they are attacked with over 120 ballistic missiles and 30 cruise missiles coming from Iran as well as about 170 drones. We do stand with them and we support them in fighting against these assaults by Iran.

Brian Lehrer: When you said you would support them attacking a military installation, do you mean inside Iran?

Senator Gillibrand: I think that what would be proposed or encouraged is perhaps one in Syria or one in Iraq or other bases where we are protecting our troops, for example, in Iraq. Again, those are decisions that Israel will make. I know that our military leaders are in constant communication with them and will always be trying to assist them in de-escalating the conflict as opposed to escalating it.

Brian Lehrer: Republican Senator and, of course, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says Biden is wrongly tying the hands of Israel, an ally that's been attacked, with the kind of encouragement that you were just re-articulating. Your response to Leader McConnell?

Senator Gillibrand: Well, I don't think we're tying Israel's hands in any way. We are a friend and an ally, so we try to guide them. We've been through a very significant war on terror. We were in Iraq for 20 years. We were in Afghanistan for 20 years. Those were brutal deployments that was a lot of time, treasure, and lives lost. We did succeed in degrading terrorism, degrading ISIS, degrading Al-Qaeda, but we destroyed neither.

They moved to other places around the globe and continue to conduct terrorist operations. Fighting terrorism is hard. For Israel to fight Iran and its proxies is difficult. We are going to keep giving them our guidance about what works, what doesn't work, and ways to constantly try to degrade the capabilities of terror groups such as the Quds Force as well as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis.

Brian Lehrer: In the Middle East, as I'm sure you know, they're always arguing about who started it and it depends where you start the clock. In this case, as The Jerusalem Post reports, Iran is saying Israel escalated the conflict in violation of international law, citing the 1961 Vienna Convention on diplomatic and consular relations, which provides immunity to embassies and consulates.

Senator, if embassies are considered sovereign territory, "inviolable" is the word that's often used for an embassy as if attacking inside a country. By that standard, Israel attacked Iran directly, so Iran politically thought it had to attack Israel directly. This isn't like going after Hamas. After October 7th, critics say it's an embassy. Do you support or understand Israel attacking an embassy compound?

Senator Gillibrand: I think the proper frame of the debate is Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis are all Iranian proxies. Iran is spending the money training the fighters, sending in the missiles. All the missiles that have a hit from Lebanon are funded by Iran. There was a missile fired from Lebanon by a Quds Force proxy literally the day before they struck back. I would imagine that Israel feels it is at war with Iran. I would imagine that they feel taking out Quds Force leaders is essential to ending the terrorism against Israel. Again, I would have to be able to be briefed not only by our own military but also get much more understanding of what this operation was. Without that, I certainly can't give you more context.

Brian Lehrer: All right. Here's a call from a listener on, I guess, a somewhat Mideast-adjacent local question. Rebecca in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC with Senator Gillibrand. Hello.

Rebecca: Hi, Brian. Thank you so much for having me on. Hi, Senator Gillibrand. I'm curious what you think about the NY-16 race between Congressman Bowman and George Latimer. I don't live there, but my parents still do. It's a race that we've all been following really closely.

Brian Lehrer: Rebecca, for you, does this have to do with their different stances on the war in Gaza or primarily other things?

Rebecca: I think it's a combination of things. I think Congressman Bowman's stance on Gaza doesn't help. I think even more so, it's been a lot of the really inflammatory language he's used about Israel that some people included saying because it has been quite anti-Semitic. This is in addition to his voting record like voting against the infrastructure bill and things that are maybe just out of line with the Democrats in his district.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Rebecca. Senator, are you endorsing in that primary?

Senator Gillibrand: I know both candidates very well. I've worked with George Latimer for years. He was a county executive. He's somebody I know well. I trust him. He does excellent work. He is somebody who has continued to serve Westchester well. I also know Congressman Bowman well. We've worked together on education reform issues. We worked together on a lot of important issues for his district and the state. I think it's an important race for Westchester and the constituents that they represent or want to represent to be very engaged in. I think it's very important for New York that we have robust primaries. I think it's important for both Westchester and the Bronx to be heard and to vote for the candidate that they prefer.

Brian Lehrer: That means no endorsement, right?

Senator Gillibrand: I think it's a really important primary and I think it's important that people vote.

Brian Lehrer: Last Middle East-related thing, it was your fellow senator from New York, of course, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who gave that impassioned speech on the Senate floor as an American Jew no less, as he cited in his case, special to him. He said, Prime Minister Netanyahu "has been too willing to tolerate the civilian toll in Gaza, which is pushing support for Israel worldwide to historic lows. Israel cannot survive if it becomes a pariah," from Senator Schumer. As you know, he called for new elections in Israel. Should our listeners assume that you stand with Senator Schumer on the content of that speech or do you want to differentiate yourself in any way?

Senator Gillibrand: I think it was very important that Senator Schumer gave that speech. It was clearly heartfelt. I think as the most senior Jewish-elected leader in the United States, I think he felt compelled to share his views and his beliefs and his concerns about Israel, a country that he loves, that he wants to support, and he wants to make sure survives this moment of enormous assault on all sides.

He was giving his best assessment of what he hopes the Israeli people will do because he disagrees with Prime Minister Netanyahu on how he's conducting the war. He disagrees with Prime Minister Netanyahu on a number of policy issues. I share the disagreement with Senator Schumer on some of the policy issues that Netanyahu's government has put forward over the course of their administration. Deeply disagree on their views of the judiciary, deeply disagree on a number of the positions that members of his cabinet have taken.

I think it was appropriate for Senator Schumer to speak his mind and speak so eloquently from his heart, but I can only speak for myself. I tend to look at these issues from the perspective of armed services and intelligence and how we create regional security. I have been very focused personally on the importance of the Abraham Accords and why we need to have a normalization agreement with other Arab allies such as Saudi Arabia to deepen and widen those accords.

I think the only hope that Israel has long-term for peace is to create a Palestinian state and to create the investment by these Arab countries to rebuild a Palestinian state in the context of a shared economic alignment and a mutual defense alignment. I think these Arab countries, along with Israel and the United States, could have a NATO-type commitment to fight against Iran and its proxies.

It's not surprising that after Iran attacked Israel or while Iran was attacking Israel that Israel had the support of Saudi Arabia, UAE, and even Jordan to stop the attack and to destroy the missiles and to share intelligence. We need a regional defense agreement and we need to pass the peace now. I think it is the greatest hope. This is something that Prime Minister Netanyahu was for a year ago before October 7th. It was his outward-end strategy.

He believed that if the Arab countries would make this commitment and have this regional defense alliance that he could defeat Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis as well as Iran long-term. That would give the chance of Israel to have a peaceful future. I think that is still the most important issue that I can focus on as a legislator, as somebody who sees Israel as one of our strongest allies, and certainly the only democracy in the Middle East. For its future and for the hope of its people, I think this alignment and this long-term peace agreement would be the best solution.

When I was in Israel as well as Saudi Arabia and Jordan about two and a half months ago, I made the direct plea to the Israeli government, the Jordanian government, and the Saudi government. For the Jordanians and the Saudis, they agreed. They were still at the table wanting to sign this long-term peace agreement, wanting to sign this regional defense alliance. I made the case directly to Prime Minister Netanyahu that I thought he should be also for this and do this now.

Brian Lehrer: Do you agree with Senator Schumer that it's time for new elections there because, in your case, you think that would help create the conditions for that regional security that you were just laying out?

Senator Gillibrand: The Israeli people will have their elections in their appropriate time. They will make their own decisions about who they elect. I believe that we can use our friendship and our close relationship with Israel to encourage this long-term regional alignment and the building of the Palestinian state. I would like very much to be part of that effort to encourage them to see this path to the future, to see this path to peace, and spend the next 10 years working with Arab allies such as UAE and Saudi Arabia and Egypt and Jordan to rebuild this region as well and rebuild a Palestinian state and create a peace plan that could be lasting against Iran and its proxies.

Brian Lehrer: Senator Gillibrand, we always appreciate you coming on once a month and answering listener questions, answering my questions. Thank you very much for today.

Senator Gillibrand: Thanks so much, Brian.

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