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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. Now, our monthly Call Your Senator segment, my questions and yours for New York Senator, Kirsten Gillibrand. New Yorkers, call your senator at 212-433-WNYC. Anyone not from New York may also call if you've got a question relevant for the Democratic senator who serves on the Intelligence and Armed Services Committees, also the Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee, and the Special Committee on Aging.

Aging is part of what we'll talk about with Senator Gillibrand. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Call in or you can text the question to that number. Senator, we always appreciate that you do this. Welcome back to WNYC.

Kirsten Gillibrand: Hi, Brian. How are you?

Brian Lehrer: Good, thank you. I see that you had met with the family of four-year-old American and Israeli citizen, Abigail Idan, who has gotten so much press attention as a hostage in Gaza, and now freed. Her parents were murdered in front of her, on October 7th. In fact, her father, while she was still in his arms, according to what I've read in the media, so horrible and cruel. Have you been in touch with the family since the release or know what happens now to a child who's been through something like that?

Kirsten Gillibrand: No, I haven't been able to talk to her family, but I can tell you this hostage nightmare continues. We still have probably over 100 and maybe 60 or 70 hostages still unaccounted for. The joy with which the family received Abigail is extraordinary and so important, but there are still many families that are divided and do not have their family and loved ones with them. This will be an ongoing effort by President Biden to do the kind of diplomacy that's necessary to get hostages returned. I'm very focused on how I can support that effort.

Brian Lehrer: You were quoted in an article in the Daily Mail that you sent us saying you made a promise to the hostage families as a group, "We will go to the ends of the Earth to bring their loved ones home." Can you say how the US government is doing that now with so many hostages still being held?

Kirsten Gillibrand: Right now the Biden Administration is in constant communication with Israelis and with the Qataris over the issue of return of hostages. Qatar has decided to be the go-between between Hamas and Israel on this issue of hostages. Our diplomatic teams are working 24/7 on trying to keep the hostages of front of mind, and to continue to negotiate. Our CIA Director, Burns, is engaging personally in this discussion. Hopefully, we can continue to move all parties towards hostage release.

Brian Lehrer: Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has said he would only agree to this extended pause for 10 hostages each day for 10 days. That would leave at least 100 hostages still in captivity when Israel goes back to waging war, even if Hamas agrees to a full 10 days. Does that represent too little concern for the hostages in your opinion?

Kirsten Gillibrand: I think I can't speak for the government of Israel, so I don't know what their biggest concern is, but this is how the United States can help. We can continue to push hostage release more sooner. Constant, constant, constant push so that we don't give them up and don't let Hamas off the hook. I think this is showing progress. As long as hostages are being released, different type of pauses can be considered, can be implemented, and more negotiations can take place.

Brian Lehrer: The US media, as you know, has many stories of the individual hostages, Abigail Idan and others, very heart-wrenching, very humanizing, very well deserved with how these families are going through inflicted heartlessly by Hamas. There's been much less humanization of individual Palestinian families with thousands of civilians reported killed according to independent estimates. That's real suffering of innocent families too, even though it's not terrorism as such. Have you met with any Palestinian Americans who have connections to the killings in Gaza, and have any of their stories to tell?

Kirsten Gillibrand: I've not had any Palestinian Americans reach out to me to ask to be heard about what's happening in ways that I can protect innocent Palestinians. The biggest challenge, I think, Israel has right now is that Hamas continues to use innocent Palestinians as human shields. We've seen the video footage of the hospitals being used, daycares being used, schools being used as cover for military operations, and for the storage of guns, and bombs, and rockets. That is a ongoing challenge because if Israel wants to defeat Hamas and take out their ability to conduct the kind of carnage and horrific violence they conducted on October 7th, they need to find them and be able to take them down.

It's really horrific. I just saw this morning this video footage of the October 7th attack from body cameras of Hamas fighters, as well as from home cameras, as well as personal cell phones that were stolen from Israelis and recovered. I can't describe how evil, and horrific, and brutal, and barbaric this attack was. I've witnessed people being beheaded with garden hose, with knives. It is unconscionable what happened. I think the challenge we have in this situation is Israel cannot allow such a terrorist group to continue to run Gaza to deny the Palestinian people, the food, the fuel, the medical capabilities and medical support that they need, and that's what we're up against.

Defeating terrorism is hard. I don't think you can do it easily. It's why the United States, I think, is working so hard to try to work on these pauses to get hostages returned and to talk about how we get more trucks in for humanitarian release. We've been getting in over 100 a day in some instances, and that's a very, very good start. It's what the humanitarian organizations asked for. It's hard, it's not going to be easy.

Brian Lehrer: We're going to talk about other things too in this segment, but as you might imagine, a number of the calls and texts that we're getting have to do with the situation in the Middle East, and the US relationship to it. Let's take one right now. Cooper in Bushwick, you're on WNYC with Senator Gillibrand. Hello, Cooper.

Cooper: Hi, Brian. Can you hear me?

Brian Lehrer: I can hear you.

Cooper: Hello. Thank you, Senator, for taking my call. Very simple question, maybe it's not so simple, but I was wondering if you would join other senators like Jeff Merkley in Oregon in calling for a ceasefire in the fighting between Israel and Hamas? As you know, the majority of the casualties have been civilians, and yes, just general opinion.

Kirsten Gillibrand: I think a humanitarian pause that we're doing right now to allow for hostage release is very, very important, and something I support fully. I will continue to support these humanitarian pauses as long as hostages continually be released. What a ceasefire means from a military perspective is that you can't go after terrorists, you can't actually root them out, get them out of the hospitals, and out of the schools, and out of the civilian communities. I think it's a term of art that people are using very broadly to say, "Please stop killing young innocent people period."

I, of course, want this killing of young innocent people to stop as well, but if you call for a ceasefire, it means you can't stop Hamas. What they did on October 7th, they will do again. They have said, "We will do it over, and over, and over again." Rape, beheadings, murder, it's barbaric, and you cannot accept it. That's just not what a ceasefire is calling for. It's not calling for pauses, and hostage releases, and an end to conflicts, it's calling for the inability to stop Hamas.

Brian Lehrer: When you were here on October 17th, your last appearance, you said, "We do want people to evacuate and to make it possible for at some point Israeli troops to go in to try to defeat Hamas. That is why they have asked citizens to go south, to get to safer areas." That's what you said here last month about evacuating to the south for safety. Now, I want to play you a snippet from an NPR story that just aired this morning on Morning Edition about the fate of civilians in those evacuation areas in south Gaza. This is NPR's Ruth Sherlock.

Ruth Sherlock: The United Nations Relief Agency, UNRWA says 67 of its facilities like warehouses and schools, both used as shelters have been directly hit or damaged, and that more than half of these are located in the parts of Gaza Israel told civilians to shelter in. Satellite data analyzed by experts for NPR shows how up to 15,000 buildings in the central and southern areas of the Gaza Strip have been damaged or destroyed since the start of this war, and that 94% of the damage happened after Israel ordered Palestinians to move south on October 13. The civilian harm watchdog Airwars told NPR the number of civilians reported hurt in these areas increased in the week after Israel gave its evacuation order.

Brian Lehrer: NPR's Ruth Sherlock reporting today. Senator, yes, Hamas's military needs to be taken care of, but is Israel breaking its promise to those civilians that you articulated here last month?

Kirsten Gillibrand: I don't know. I don't know what is being bombed and what's the intention of the military actions that are being made. I can tell you that this is Hamas's goal. Their goal is to make sure the Palestinians suffer. They want to see as many innocent people die as possible because they want the world community to turn against Israel, and they want to defeat the Abraham Accords, and having a long-term process for peace. Their intention of creating the brutality of October 7th was so that Israel would conduct a war. This is what happens during wars, innocent people die, and it is horrific.

I don't know what's happening specifically, but I also know that the Arab world isn't helping. We do not have Egypt accepting refugees, we do not have Jordan accepting refugees right now. Both countries will tell you that they've already accepted millions of refugees in the decades before now, but that is the humane thing to do, is let people leave Gaza so that they can actually be protected outside of the war zone. We don't have the Arab world stepping up to support security in a Palestinian state and support a government that's not led by a terrorist organization.

One of the things that I know President Biden is working so hard on is engaging Saudi Arabia, engaging other Arab leaders to try to be part of a peace plan for this region that allows for a two-state solution, that allows for two countries to be side by side living in peace, which is exactly the state on October 6th. We do need to engage the world on how we can create a plan for peace and a plan for protecting the innocent lives that are caught between a fight between Hamas and Israel right now.

Brian Lehrer: Jim, in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC with Senator Gillibrand. Hi, Jim.

Jim: Hey, how are you? Thanks for taking my call. I'll be quick. I just want to ask the senator if the fact that Israel has been detaining children for years, 500 to 700 per year apparently, and thousands are sitting in Israeli prisons without due process, without charges, or being charged for 20 years with things like throwing stones. Hamas has just over 200 hostages, some children, and by all accounts being treated much better than Israel treats their prisoners or hostages. Why are the Israelis hostages and not the Palestinians being held in Israeli prisons, first of all?

Then secondly, I just want to say that your constituents overwhelmingly wants a ceasefire, and not to listen to them is not democratic. Your constituents are overwhelmingly Democrats. 80% of Democrats want a ceasefire, and everyone wants you to call for this, and that you're not doing it is extremely disappointing. I think you're going to be judged very harshly.

Brian Lehrer: Jim, thank you. Senator, specifically on the indefinite detentions of, I think this has been well documented in the press, indefinite detentions without charges of many Palestinians, including many Palestinian teenagers. Many of them since October 7th, many more have been taken than have been released by Israel in these prisoner exchanges just in this last month and a half. Is that okay?

Kirsten Gillibrand: I don't think anybody should be detained without due process, period. I don't think we should do it Encanto Guantánamo Bay, I don't think we should do it in Israel, I don't think we should do it anywhere in the globe. I don't know under what their administrative holds are. All I've heard publicly issued by Israel is that these people are criminals and terrorists who have either tried to stab or shoot at Israelis and they are awaiting their adjudication.

I believe they should be given due process immediately. I can't speak to an issue I don't know why they're not being given due process, but they deserve due process, regardless of what accusation is and regardless if you are in a war on terror. I think many countries have made those mistakes in the past, and they should learn from those mistakes.

Brian Lehrer: One more thing on this in the role of the US and the US Senate in particular, and you as an Armed Services Committee member are very relevant, then we'll move on to some other things. Here's a clip of your colleague, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, of Connecticut on CNN State of the Union on Sunday on the idea of the US placing conditions on Israel for any new military aid.

Chris Murphy: We regularly condition our aid to allies based upon compliance with US law and international law. I think it's very consistent with the ways in which we have dispensed aid, especially during wartime to allies for us to talk about making sure that the aid we give Ukraine or the aid we give Israel is used in accordance with human rights laws. That'll be a conversation we will all be engaged in when we get back to Washington on Monday.

Brian Lehrer: Of course, Monday was yesterday. Has Senator Murphy engaged you in any such conversation yet, after you all got back from Thanksgiving break? After what you said about not supporting detention without charges, will you support his notion of conditions on aid to Israel based on future compliance with US and international law?

Kirsten Gillibrand: We have conditions on all military aid already. We have Arms Export Control Act that prohibits any gross violation of the laws of war and of humanitarian issues. You also have the conventional arms transfer process, which also prohibits any international military law violations. We do have it, and we enforce it, and it is part of any military aid we give any other country.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call on another topic. Here is Simon in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hello, Simon.

Simon: Hello. Thank you for taking my call. Senator Gillibrand, I wanted to shift the topic to health care insurance, particularly ACA. What I am finding is that those who actually pay for their own ACA insurance, that is I'm not on Medicaid but I work for myself, that no one is actually regulating the insurance companies. My current insurance plan has been, let's say, extremely untruthful, and neither CMS nor other regulators are holding them accountable. The plans shift every single year. No one seems to consider the number one factor in positive outcomes, which is continuity of care. Every year I have to switch doctors and I lose that continuity of care.

Brian Lehrer: Simon, I'm going to leave it there. Somebody else is calling about the New York state marketplace under the Affordable Care Act. Let me get her question in here too, and you can respond to both. Simon, thank you. Mary in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Mary.

Mary: Hello. Thank you for taking my call. I appreciate it. What I'm calling about is coverage under the Affordable Care Act. I have a lot of experiences with this. We've been covered for six years, 2024 will be the seventh year. What I've discovered from year to year even with the same insurance company, they modify the plan slightly, they change the network, they have different networks. This year for 2024, they're eliminating one of the hospitals and all the doctors, and they're still claiming the plan is the same.

When we track this down, it seems as though nobody, including the New York State Department of Financial Services is really focusing on any aspect of this. In fact, the plan I'm talking about, they're raising their rates from $950 to $1,185 per person for an individual for 2024. That's a 25% increase. There's reducing the coverage in the plan in terms of network, so you'd have to change all your doctors.

Brian Lehrer: Mary, I'm going to leave it there. You're hearing those complaints. I know we've heard similar things from other people. Senator, is the Affordable Care Act not working?

Kirsten Gillibrand: In a lot of ways, it's not working well. I think the stories from these callers are just the tip of the iceberg. I've heard from many constituents across the state how their insurers are raising rates. We've been focused on the cost of prescription drug prices for the last few years about how drug companies exponentially raise the cost of their medicines every year because they can and aren't prohibited from doing so, where if they are prohibited, there's insufficient enforcement. I think we need to and not only engage DFAS on this to see what we can do in New York to fix our exchanges, but we can also look at more holistic changes that we can maybe do in the next Congress when we have the House back. I don't think the Republican House members are willing to do anything to invest in healthcare as a human right and not a privilege. They don't believe that. They want it entirely to be if you can afford it, you can have it, and that's certainly not what I believe.

I do think we have to get back to supporting Medicare for all so that we can have at least a not-for-profit public option that people can buy into when their providers keep raising rates as the callers just suggested and prohibit access to the specialists they need, or the hospitals they need, or the care centers that are what they're used to. I will continue to work on that. Hopefully, we can flip the House so we can have the majority we need to actually do healthcare reform. For the individuals that called, we can actually call on your behalf if you would like our office to do so.

If you just email casework, C-A-S-E-W-O-R-K@gillibrand.senate.gov, one of our specialists on healthcare can call you and you can sign a release, and then we can call your provider on your behalf and try to get them to pay attention to your concerns and try to rectify problems. One of the only positives about healthcare from the last year is that we are continuing to implement our healthcare bill that Democrats passed last year that lowers the prescription drug prices for the 10 most often used drugs under Medicare.

That is continuing, and we will continue to add more and more drugs to that list. At least for our seniors, they're seeing some small measure of relief on the cost of healthcare. I appreciate your caller's calls. Please, do follow up with an email to my team and they can try to get things fixed for you individually. I do understand the depth of the problem because you're not the first to share your story with me.

Brian Lehrer: Since you made that offer, Simon or Mary if you want to hold on and have us take your contact information off the air, we can pass it on to the senator's office. Abel in Fort Greene, you're on WNYC. Hello, Abel.

Abel: Good morning, Brian. Thank you. Thank you for hosting this. Senator Gillibrand, I live in Fort Greene. I live down the street from the whole street shelter that the city set up for single migrant men this past summer. I would like to invite you to come down here and meet with the migrants, meet with the residents of the shelter, meet with the people from Clinton Hill Fort Greene Mutual Aid and Gowanus Mutual Aid, who have been organizing for over the past few months to help get them resources, get them food, get them clothes, get them connected to city and other government services because there is a great need for help for these migrant men.

They want to work, they desperately want to work. They're trying to survive in very difficult conditions that the city has created for them. I've been very disappointed to see the levels of neglect that have been going on from the city, the state, and the federal level, or every single level of government. We really need some attention and we need some help. You can take my information off there air. I can help connect you to some of the organizations that have been working with these migrant men and trying to get them the services they may need to survive.

Brian Lehrer: Abel, thank you very much. Senator.

Kirsten Gillibrand: Thank you, Abel, for sharing their stories with all the listeners. I think the migration crisis has been incredibly intense for New Yorkers. I think there is people on both sides who feel that it's not working to help them, and that there's too many here, and that we don't have the resources to help them. It's a divisive issue that people are very angry about. I can tell you a couple of things I'm working on. The not-for-profits that are doing such a good job, not-for-profits like Catholic services, Catholic Charities.

A lot of the food banks are on overdrive trying to meet the needs of these individuals that have come to America because their homes are either being destroyed by gang violence, or have no viable governments, or have had natural disasters. We're doing a couple of things, but to really help them, we have to change the law. I'd like to just spend a minute on the ways we have to change the law. First of all, most of the people in the United States, particularly most of the people in New York right now are here legally under the asylum claim law. Asylum is allowed to be claimed upon entrance to the United States if you feel you have a fear of your life in your home country.

One of the problems we have is they're not filing the paperwork for asylum on the first day. One of the things that I've asked a lot of our leading organizations to do is to get lawyers and law firms to give pro bono hours, so that they can go to these shelters and sign every asylum seeker up for asylum on day one, not day 10, not day 40, not day 75. That's a problem because the clock starts ticking on the day you file. They're legally allowed to work if they're from certain countries, countries that we've created temporary protective status for. We just got that designation for Venezuela.

They're allowed to work within 30 days of filing. That's a good number. They should be able to work right away so that they can actually pay their bills, pay for food, pay for housing, pay their taxes, pay social security, pay into the system that they're benefiting from. It's very important that they pay their way. That makes people feel like they're part of their community. It makes them feel like they're on the path to citizenship. It's very important. Work is very important. If you do not have a temporary protective status, you have to wait 180 days. That's six months. That's too long. I want to change the date.

I have a bill called the ASPIRE Act to change it from 180 days to 30 days for all asylum claims, regardless if the country you're coming from has temporary protective status. Temporary protective status is hard to get. You have to show that this country is imploding and has terrible natural disasters and terrible things are happening. Not every country qualifies for that, so there's very few that have temporary protective status. Haiti had it because of the earthquakes. That's law change one. The second thing we need is a lot more lawyers and a lot more judges. You know how long it takes to get your asylum claim heard, even if you do file on day one?

It's taking two or three years. It should take within, I think the law we have is it has to be done within 60 days or 90 days, something much more quickly so that people can be adjudicated. For a lot of the people here, they're not going to be found to have an asylum status. Some estimates of some not-for-profits were about two-thirds would actually go home because they don't qualify for asylum. Then the question is how do we fix our immigration system overall? In New York State, we have 200,000 open jobs right now. We have 100,000 migrants. Our governor would love to match those asylum seekers and those migrants with jobs that are open.

The jobs are in all fields, in healthcare, in tourism, in hotels and restaurants, in agriculture, it's every industry. I talked to people across the state all summer long and asked, "Do you need more workers?" Every single one said yes, every single one. These workers could be hired if we had a process. Our governor is not allowed to get them hired unless she has a legal way to do that. We have to change the laws. The House of Republicans right now, and there's a bunch of them in our delegation, have been unwilling to do anything to change these laws. They won't co-sponsor any of the bills I just described, and they're not doing anything.

They're not pushing their caucus to do it. It's not being done. We need comprehensive immigration reform. We need a lot of these laws changed. In the meantime, we need all the great lawyers of New York City, which we have so many to work with organizations like Catholic Charities, to work with other not-for-profits, legal services, in particular, to offer free pro bono legal services to get those claims filed on day one.

The governor is working on this now, the mayor is working on this now, but we are far from being where we need to be. They need claims filed on day one, so we can get them working sooner. I share your empathy and I share your stress that these families are suffering. We have jobs for them, and we have the flexibility and the the depth to help people. We should be. We just need to do it under laws that actually make sense, and the ones we have right now are not making sense.

Brian Lehrer: Abel, thank you for your call. We have two minutes left. Let me invite you to touch on two things you're working on. One for younger New Yorkers or younger Americans and one for older ones. What you call the Cyber Academy, I see you're encouraging students to apply for an expanded program. The other you've got an age discrimination bill for the older adults. You want to do very brief takes on both of those.

Kirsten Gillibrand: Yes. The Cyber Academy, it's free college for public service, something that we've been fighting for a long long time. We're starting the program out with 200 schools, community colleges, and universities. They've already been approved by the NSA as having a certain excellence in cybersecurity. 19 institutions in New York are eligible in New York City. Fordham, NYIT, NYU, Pace, and St. John's. You can go to college free there if you get in if you're willing to serve for five years in a cyber defensive role for the United States. These are non-military jobs in many different fields. This year, we're trying to expand it to more fields. We want to make sure you can go into the CIA or the NSA, you can go into Space Force and all the civilian roles within the DoD. It's wonderful. It'll get us more diverse kids serving in this capacity in the US military and in the federal government. We'll have more foreign language speakers, we'll have more women. It'll make a huge difference on our national security. If you want to apply and you have a kid who's ready to go to college, gillibrand.senate.gov/cyberacademy. The list of schools are there, the link to applying is there.

Then on the new law, I'm working on with Senator Lindsey Graham, very conservative Republican, is to change how we deal with age discrimination. That you shouldn't be forced into arbitration or nondisclosure agreements by your employment contract. That if you are being discriminated against because of your age, you should be able to sue in a court of law and you should be able to name who you're suing. You shouldn't be silenced.

That piece of legislation we're hoping to get voted on soon. We just passed one similarly on sexual harassment and sexual assault for all employees. It changed 60 million employment contracts overnight, and that is law of the land now. I think we could do it the same for age discrimination.

Brian Lehrer: Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, she's here every month for our monthly Call Your Senator program. Callers, thank you for calling in. Senator, we always appreciate that you do this. Belated Happy Thanksgiving. I guess we will probably talk one more time before Christmas. Thanks for coming on today.

Kirsten Gillibrand: Thanks, Brian. I always appreciate you. Thank you to all the callers. I really appreciate their participation.

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