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Brian: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. We begin today with Call Your Senator, our monthly call in with my questions and yours for Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, New York's junior Senator, as the label goes, though not so junior anymore as she's been in the Senate since 2009. It's just that Chuck Schumer has been there since the last century.

There is some news this week that relates to Senator Gillibrand's longevity. Every year, since 2013, some of you know this, as a member of the Armed Services Committee, Senator Gillibrand has introduced a provision to the Pentagon budget bill to reform the military justice system so that cases of sexual assault are adjudicated outside the chain of command.

Why?

Because the commanding officers might have close ties to the accused, or might be the sexual assaulters themselves. Finally, enough Republican senators on the Armed Services Committee are agreeing to this and the provision is going to the full Senate, but perhaps strangely, the Democratic House of representatives, from what I read, has a weaker version that needs to be reconciled. We'll talk about that.

I'm also curious how much money might come out of the defense budget to help fund the Democrats' progressive priorities now that President Biden has ended the endless war in Afghanistan and to reverse Donald Trump's military spending buildup. Listeners, if you have a question for Senator Gillibrand, this is Call your Senator. Our lines are open at (646) 435 7280, or tweet a question @brianlehrer. Senator, always good to have you on. Welcome back to WNYC.

Senator Gillibrand: Thanks, Brian. I love being on your show.

Brian: You're calling these the biggest reforms to the military justice system in US history. Want to explain them to everyone?

Senator Gillibrand: Yes. You did a very good job yourself. Unfortunately, this scourge of sexual violence in the military is nothing new and it's been going on forever, really. When I started getting involved about a decade ago, there were approximately 20,000 sexual assaults, rapes, and unwanted sexual contact in the military every year. That was the DOD's estimate.

Last year, when they made a similar estimate, it was still about 20,000. We have tried over the last 10 years to do lots of reforms, change the evidentiary standards, give the survivors counsel. create a fair system, but nothing's worked. In fact, what survivors have told us from the beginning is that they don't often report these crimes because they don't believe their commander will have their back.

Oftentimes, their perpetrator is someone within the chain of command. Oftentimes, their perpetrator is more senior to them. The way the chain of command works is there's deference and for a lot of survivors, they just didn't think the military would have their back if they reported. That's not surprising, because when men and women do report these crimes, approximately 62% of them are retaliated against for reporting the crime, and so they're the ones blamed.

They're either retaliated peer to peer, or by administrative retaliation, or professional retaliation, and often wind up being kicked out of the military and given a dishonorable discharge or a discharge without benefits, based on diagnoses of personality disorders, which is again a form of retaliation. We've been trying to do this reform for about 10 years. We wanted to take the decision-making about whether a case goes to trial and give that decision to a trained military prosecutor because today, that decision is made by a commander who may have bias. They may prefer the accused, somebody more important for the unit, important for the mission.

They may just have bias against women or men in general. They might have different kinds of racial biases. We don't know, we just know they're not highly trained as lawyers, and they're not highly trained as prosecutors to do the one simple thing, weigh the evidence and make an unbiased decision about whether a case should go forward. We finally got 66 senators to agree that this reform was a good one.

We took that support to the Armed Services Committee when we wrote the National Defense Bill in the Senate, and we were able to keep those provisions in the full committee. It is in the version coming out of the Senate. Sadly, the House did not do the same work that we did. We did not have the same level of support within the committee. We just didn't have sustained advocacy for this proposal over the past 10 years in the way that we did in the Senate.

As a consequence, they didn't have the support they felt they needed to put it in the base bill. They didn't call a vote, which I would have loved them to call, and they didn't mark up the bill, which I would have loved them to do. Now our goal is to try to keep it in the Senate bill. The two bills go in conference and unfortunately because the chairman of the House and the chairman of the Senate are not supportive of this measure, it will likely be taken out in conference. The only recourse for survivors then is to ask for an up or down vote on the US Senate floor and then get an up or down vote on the House floor. We will ask for that vote and hopefully, we will be given it and can show that this is a measure whose time has come, and that these reforms are necessary to protect all survivors and to protect men and women in the military who deserve a justice system worthy of their sacrifice.

Brian: It sounds like despite it getting further this year, you think it's going to fail again, but if I heard you right, part of the reason will be the chairman of the relevant committee in the House is opposed to these reforms. I don't know who that is, but I assume in Nancy Pelosi's House with a democratic majority, that's a Democrat. Who's that?

Senator Gillibrand: Well, both the chairman in the House and Senate from the Democratic side and the Republican side do not support this, so both Jack Reed and Adam Smith have not publicly supported this measure. They support versions of it, half steps, taking out just sexual assault or sexual assault and sexual harassment, which is a great first step, but without a bright line at all serious crimes, you are preferencing one group of plaintiffs and one group of defendants over all else. You also run the risk of having special treatment for those who are survivors of sexual assault, who are more often than not, women.

Legal experts have said you run the risk of creating something that will appear as a pink court. Something that will appear to be special treatment and female service members and male service members don't want to be perceived as getting special treatment. They want one system of justice for everyone. We need more work. The good news is we have a president who supports this bill. Joe Biden has not only run on this reform, he wanted to take out all serious crimes. When asked about murder or rape or child abuse, he said, "Yes, yes, yes. Take them all out." He believes in the bright line at serious crimes, at felonies, which creates a justice system that's good for everybody, not just one set of crimes.

That's the work we have to do. We have to urge the president to weigh in with the chairman, maybe, but also urge the survivor community and people who want to see this reform to be heard with those in power. You just have to recognize, Brian, the DOD is very powerful and they don't want to change how they do this. President Biden has insisted through Secretary Austin, that this one reform has to take place, particularly the sexual assault being removed from the chain of command, but the DOD is trying to limit that change to just one crime.

I think that'd be a mistake. The perfect example of why it's a mistake is Vanessa Guillén. She is a woman who was murdered by her perpetrator. She had not reported to the DOD harassment or assault prior to that murder, but we know from her family that she was being harassed. Under this system, if you only take out sexual assault and harassment, she would not have had the proper review of her case and her perpetrator might have gone unpunished and that's a problem. We really want to bright-line serious crimes.

Brian: Question on this, Isaac in the Bronx, you're on WNYC with Senator Gillibrand. Hi, Isaac.

Isaac: Hello, hello. Hi, Senator Gillibrand. Generally, it's the culture of the country. When people get away from home, they decide to do what they couldn't do when they was home. It starts from the time they get into the military. When you say, as far as the generals, all that, they start at the bottom and it goes all over to the top is the same thing as the culture of the country. It's just like people wonder why in these countries where women are abused, they say, "Well, the women are the ones that raised their sons, so if the women are raising their sons and then their sons go off to abuse them, what's going on?" It's the culture. So you change the culture of the country, then you can change the culture of the military. Thank you.

Brian: Isaac, thank you very much. To his point, I mean the point about the culture of the country or mother's responsibility, I don't know if you're going to agree with that, but what about at least the culture of the military?

Senator Gillibrand: The scourge of sexual violence is present everywhere. I do a lot of work on college campuses, and in general, in terms of harassment in the workplace, changing how employers treat their employees on sexual harassment issues. The quickest way to change a culture, particularly in the military, is to convict and lock up rapists. Because once you lock up a criminal who commits sexual violence, you take out of the system a recidivist who's likely to commit those crimes over and over and over again.

We know that the DOD has a toxic culture in many places. We saw the DOD's report on Fort Hood that said the climate was so toxic that it was permissible for sexual harassment and sexual assault. That's an outrage, especially from a military that every Secretary of Defense since Dick Cheney has said, zero tolerance for sexual assault. We really mean that really just start locking up rapists and making sure there's real penalties for those crimes. That I think is the quickest way to change the culture. I disagree with the caller. You cannot blame sexual violence on mothers. I think that's a very far stretch. People need to be responsible for their own actions. I believe that the best way to change a culture is to make sure there's consequences for those actions.

Brian: Although even mothers live in a culture that, I imagine you would agree, is a patriarchy and get inculcated with certain values, not to say they're trying to raise rapists, but there's a--

Senator Gillibrand: You mean in the US in general?

Brian: Yes, sure, in the US, still a patriarchy, right?

Senator Gillibrand: Well, it's generally a patriarchy, but that doesn't mean you're going to have sexual violence. You're extending a metaphor to say if you have a male-dominated culture, that a male-dominated culture has to result in sexual violence. I disagree. It is why one of the solutions is empowering women. It's why I work on making sure we have more women elected to Congress. It's why I work on equal pay for equal work, affordable daycare, universal pre-K, all things that allow women to excel in the workplace and provide for their families.

It's why I made sure women could have access to roles in the military they're previously denied, combat roles because combat roles were required to be promoted. If you allow more women leadership positions, you allow more equality in society, you allow for more harmony, and more reasons why you can create a culture that is less toxic. There are studies though, that when you have women in leadership in developing countries around the world, and in other places around the world, that there is an increase in investment in things like healthcare and education and a decrease in violence in that society. Empowering women, putting women in leadership is a very, very good thing. It's one of the reasons why I'm on your show so I can tell people what women in leadership looks like and what I'm fighting for.

Brian: You do have me wondering, though, based on what you said, whether there can be such a thing as a patriarchy without male sexual violence at higher rates than if it was not a patriarchy. Maybe it's too theoretical a question, but you think.

Senator Gillibrand: No, I don't think you're wrong. I think your instincts are right. You would have to be a student of history and a sociologist to write some really good arguments about when you have matriarchy, what is the result? I read many, many pieces of literature and science on that topic, but it does flow that when you have more women in leadership, there is less violence in society.

I think historically that is true. It doesn't mean these are changes that we can make overnight. These are changes you need to make over time. I do think guaranteeing equality for all citizens is something that our constitution supports and our country's history supports, and it will bring us towards a better democracy and a more balanced and fair society that will have less violence.

Brian: Another question for you as a member of the Armed Services Committee, from Elliot in Manhattanville. Elliot, you're on WNYC with Senator Gillibrand.

Elliot: Thank you, Brian. Good morning, Senator. I just want to know and you can do this in any context you want. Can you just tell us who the joint-- I know the name of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. His name is Mark Milley. He's been in the news a lot. I don't care about the news story, really. What is the Joint Chiefs of Staff? What's the function? Where does he fit in in the whole DOD military, he or she? You know what I mean?

Brian: Elliot, thank you. Civics lesson time. What is the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and what is the role of the chairman at the moment, Mark Milley?

Senator Gillibrand: Mark Milley's role is to advise the president. He is the most senior military officer to advise the president on all policy and all issues related to national security. It's the reason why the Secretary of Defense is not supposed to be a military personnel. It's the reason why the SecDef is supposed to be a civilian, which is a fight we've had for the last 15 years. The Joint Chiefs of Staff are a collective body that's headed by the chairman, who sets the agenda and presides over all the Joint Chiefs of Staff meetings. They take a senior person from each of the services, and they are able to create a council to advise the president on military issues and national security issues.

Brian: Eliot was there something that grabbed you that you thought was wrong? I know Mark Milley has been in the news over some of the things he said about the last days of the Trump administration when he was afraid of a coup and things like that. Is that where you are going with this?

Elliot: I just really wanted to find out is he in the chain of command at all? Separately, I'm curious about if the president gives an order. Is there really somehow the Joint Chiefs are supposed to intercept it? That's not a question I wanted her to get into. I just needed [unintelligible 00:16:54]

Brian: Elliot, thank you very much. It is in theory, Senator, if we were just looking at it from 30,000 feet, and not knowing who the individuals were, a question of civilian control of the military. If the civilian elected president, let's say, thought a military attack on China was warranted, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was working to undermine that. We also know in the individual actual case that's been reported, if Trump was considering that after he lost the election as a way to start to declare a state of emergency and prevent the change of power to Biden, then he was on the verge of committing a crime.

Senator Gillibrand: The Armed Services Committee will have a hearing with Chairman Milley about this issue. We will delve into what actually happened and what was said and for what reasons. In general, the chain of command, the senior-most military leader in the chain of command reporting to the president is the Secretary of Defense. That is why that person is supposed to be civilian. It's why I didn't support people who did not have civilian experience. It's why I did not support President Trump's choice for SecDef because he wanted a senior military leader.

That job's supposed to go to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Your military advice is supposed to come from there. Whereas your civilian leader who's in charge of the DOD is at the top of the chain of command. There's reasons for that, because, for example, let's just say your SecDef is a military leader from one of the branches of government, you're going to create an appearance that he's going to prefer that branch of government over others.

You're also going to create an appearance that our military is led by the military. There isn't civilian control, which is a message to foreign countries all over the world that we don't believe in our principles of civilian control. There's a lot of reasons why we stick to that. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is supposed to be the senior-most military person who gives policy advice, but is not the head of the chain of command,

Brian: By the way that reporting about what Trump may have been planning to do is in the new book by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa. We have Costa scheduled for the show coming up in a couple of weeks. We'll keep you posted on that, those of you who are interested in that particular story. My guest is New York's junior senator, Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand who comes on once a month and takes your calls and answers my questions too.

I want to ask you about the Human Infrastructure Bill that we keep hearing referred to as the $3.5 trillion spending bill. I think that number is misleadingly high based on what I've read because at least half of it gets paid for within the bill itself and 3.5 trillion is also the cost over 10 years, not one year, but I've been asking guests to talk about the content of the plan, not just the price tag, which I think bogs us down in numbers rather than is it worth it? I know you're a supporter. Can you make your case for what people would get for their money on this that you think is important and worth it?

Senator Gillibrand: Absolutely. We saw how society was really harmed because of COVID. People had to stay home from work. People had to watch their kids learn remotely. People lost their jobs because many industries collapsed. People did not have resources and we really saw the fraying of the social safety net in a way we've never seen before. We saw where it was really lacking.

What this bill does is rebuild our infrastructure from the ground up, the human infrastructure as you mentioned, in the ways that would protect us going forward, but also in the ways that address things like income inequality. For example, one of the most important pieces of legislation in this bill is a paid family leave policy. We are the only industrialized country in the world that doesn't have a national paid leave policy. What paid leave would have done is if you were sick, you could have stayed home for up to three months and been paid, not lost your job, but getting a certain percentage of your wages with about a $4,000 a month cap.

It would've been so much easier just to fund paid leave than to have to create all these different new programs for unemployment insurance, for checks per child, all the things we put in place because we had no other way to protect people from falling through the cracks. You'd get paid leave if you were sick, you'd get paid leave if your child was sick, you'd get paid leave if your child was stuck at home because he was remote learning. You'd get paid leave if you were with a parent who was dying and needed to care for them.

That's what paid leave is for, up to three months paid, you don't lose your spot in your company and your company then can use your salary to pay for a replacement worker if it's still open and in business. Second thing it would have is affordable daycare. Again, daycare in our country is unaffordable for most people and unavailable because there's not enough of it.

Before the pandemic, there was one slot for every four kids that needed it. Post pandemic, there was one spot for every eight kids that needed it. That's a problem because if you're a young parent and you have a child who is before they get to kindergarten, there's no place for your child except for daycare at home. That might be four years where you have no income and can't provide for your child. If you're a low-income or a single parent, that's not possible. You're going to need care.

Third, universal pre-K, that would be a whole year where children would get access to good high quality, early learning to set them on the right path for success. Every dollar you put into early education, you get something like $11, $12, $13 out in economic benefit for what that child will accomplish over their lifetime. It's one of the best investments in money. It would also have things that we're really lacking, like funding for public housing.

We've seen all those horrible stories about the conditions of public housing throughout New York. That's true all across the country and just the lack of affordable housing. There'd be money for things like debt forgiveness for our farmers. There'd be money for 9/11 health bills. There'd be money for places where our education system and our job training system aren't working. The version we have in now is two years free of community college for all Americans so that you can get a basic college education, debt-free, and something that is publicly available.

Also increasing Pell grants to make sure that when we invest in minority-serving institutions, including HBCU, that they have the resources for every kid who wants to get an education. Then last, there's going to be a big investment in the environment. I think we clearly see with the unbelievable flooding New York has continued to see and the loss of life and the loss of the businesses and homes that we have to do something about global climate change.

It does a couple of things. It will create incentives for clean energy and transportation. It creates incentives for clean electricity, incentives for conservation in agriculture, create the Climate Corps to do job training for people who want to go into these industries and I think it also will put a price on carbon. There'll be a carbon fee structure that I think we're working on as well. Those are big changes. I agree with what you said, Brian. I don't know what the final amount of money is going to be that we invest in this.

3.5 is not a magic number. It can be less, but what's necessary is that these are the programs that are created. My view is that this should be funded for as long as it possibly can be, making as many of these programs permanent as we can afford, and explaining to the American people why we are building this human infrastructure, why we are building a better, a fairer, more just society so that everyone can thrive and recover from COVID. I think we have a big, strong case to make, and these are all things that I've been fighting for about a decade. They're not new, they're not unnecessary spending. They're actually the things that would make the economy and families and communities stronger.

Brian: Thank you for going into so much detail about the content. I wanted to tie together our two major topics so far today, the human infrastructure plan and the defense authorization act, but I see that Beryl in Manhattan wants to do that too. I'm going to let her start it. Beryl, you're on WNYC with Senator Gillibrand. Hello?

Beryl: Hi. Well, I am continuously shocked by the huge percentage of our budgets committed to the military. I'm just wondering if there's any possibility of discussion of changing those expenditures because it sounds, as my impression is, it's just out of sight of how much money we spend on this hardware that half of it never even is completed, I think. Anyway, that money could certainly go to helping people and changing our priorities.

Brian: Beryl, thank you very much. I'm going to pile on, Senator, before you respond, because I was going to ask you too, as a member of the armed services committee, how much you would propose to remove from the military budget now that we've ended the US role in the war in Afghanistan and we're looking for ways to find human infrastructure. I looked up some numbers this morning and it looks like the current year military budget is around $730 billion, correct me if I'm wrong.

In 2016, just before Trump's buildup, it was around 630 billion. In 2001, just before we launched the Afghanistan war, it was around 330 billion, at least based on the websites that I saw. Now we're done with what Biden and Trump both called endless wars, at least the Afghanistan one. My question to you is before we discuss raising taxes to pay for things, how many hundreds of billions of dollars of a peace dividend do you propose removing from the military?

Senator Gillibrand: I think you make a great point that we have been funding forever wars for 20 years, and that has been a significant commitment of resources of time, of treasure, and of lives. I think we can repurpose some of those resources. I think we can look at how we should be investing from a national security perspective aside from the other domestic goals that I just laid out.

That's one of the things that I hope I can do because I've joined the intelligence committee and I think we should not be funding yesterday's wars. We don't need a large permanent basing around the globe to meet our national security needs. We have one of the most nimble effective ability to project power when needed through special operations, through intelligence services, through technology. We should be re-imagining what national security looks for America.

One of the things that I want to work on is cyber specifically. We know that America is attacked daily through cyberattacks from places like China and Russia and Iran. They are sometimes debilitating attacks. I don't know how many business owners you've met, Brian, who have had to pay ransomware in the last year, but I can tell you it's an extraordinarily high number.

We've had Russia try to interfere with our democracy and hacking our election systems trying to spread and create misinformation and division in the country. We are being attacked readily, and I want to see us invest in areas where we've traditionally under-invested. We should be investing in DARPA. We should be investing in cyber. We should have a cyber academy so that kids who are good at languages and good at science and technology and engineering, math, who'd like a free education and want to do public service. We should have that available so they can join a civilian cyber workplace.

Brian: Are those things in the military budget or in other agencies lines?

Senator Gillibrand: Right now, they're in the military budget. The Intel budget goes through the military, DARPA goes through the military, technology investments generally go through the military. We also do a lot of healthcare investment in the military. We've been putting in money for things like breast cancer research for 20 years because it was an easy way to get something funded as long as you create a national security pitch for it.

The other thing I would just be spending money on, instead of traditional large investments in large deployments of troops, is just our warfighters and their families and our veterans. The fact that we've had 20 years of a war on terror, and we still don't guarantee healthcare funding for service members who were exposed to burn pits, that is the same outrage as the 9/11 first responders.

These men and women who served in places like Afghanistan and all abroad, Pakistan, they created burn pits to burn everything on these bases, from clothing to electronics, and they lit it on fire with jet fuel and the toxins that were emitted are very similar to the toxins emitted in 9/11. Now, these young men and women who are coming back in their 30s, 40s, 50s, have horrific cancers and so I'm trying to pass a bill that they can have funding. We typically don't-- [crosstalk] Sorry.

Brian: Let me jump in just because our time is short. I know that John Stewart is on the burn pits issue just as he was on the funding, the 9/11 survivor's issue, just as a side note, but do you have a number? I understand that you're saying things that the military budget should now be spent on instead of old-line weapon systems, but if the human infrastructure plan costs 3.5 trillion over 10 years, and it's a subject of hot debate whether that's too much, the military budget, by my back of the envelope calculation, is around 3.5 trillion over just four years. Shouldn't this be as hotly controversial as universal pre-K and home health aides and the other things you mentioned with human infrastructure? Do you have a number in answer to the caller's direct question, by which you would like to see the military budget go down?

Senator Gillibrand: I do not have a number, but I do agree that specifically the funding that we've set aside every year, which I think is between $30 billion and $60 billion every year for Afghanistan, for Iraq, for these military operations abroad, should be entirely repurposed for some of the things that I've talked about. It is hard to cut the military budget as a percentage or just a straight-up number because it's just not how we run our government. It's not how we run our national security operations.

What you would need to change is you would need a vision from a president about how he or she wants to reformulate national security. It would be a much broader vision and it would be a much more purposeful conversation because you're going to change everything. That is a conversation I think we should have with President Biden and his administration over the next three years because it's important.

I think there's no better time, given that we have finally ended our forever wars. We have to change how we go to war. We need to literally remove these laws that were created in 2001 and 2002 to give the military the authority to deploy troops for any reason that's related to terrorism, and I have a specific bill about war powers and the War Powers Act and how we should have permission from Congress to engage in any war and have that permission have to be renewed every two years and have it be specific for which conflict and what is our exit strategy. Because we clearly didn't think that through when President Bush was president with regard to Afghanistan and with regard to Iraq.

I don't have a number and I know your caller would love that simple direct answer, but I don't think it's that simple. We fund our national security in a way that we think protects us and the government's number one job is to protect us. We are not in a safe era. There's nothing safe about where we are today and being on intel has only confirmed that our safety is not secure, so we would have to create a new version, a new view of how we guarantee safety than the current one, as a way to change how we fund things.

Brian: Interesting. One more from a caller on something completely different, Ricky in Brooklyn. You're on WNYC with Senator Gilland. Hi, Ricky.

Ricky: Hi, thank you very much for taking my call. I just wanted to first say, Senator Gillibrand, thank you very much for doing what you're doing in the Senate, for being a fighter. You could use more people like you. My call is regarding the COVID EIDL, the Economic Injury Disaster Loan increase that a lot of us-- I own a restaurant in the lower east side of Manhattan, and a lot of the small business owners have gotten the EIDL loan.

However, the increase has been like a bureaucratic nightmare. For example, I have been waiting about seven months just for the SBA to confirm with the IRS regarding my tax transcripts and a lot of us really need this increase right now, for example, my restaurant actually donated thousands of meals during the pandemic for the elderly and those in need. I think right now, we could honestly just use your help to maybe give more of a voice to this sort of thing. In fact, actually, I've reached out to your team a couple times over the past few months and haven't really gotten a response. I know we're all busy and stuff, but we really could use this right now.

Brian: Ricky, thank you. Senator. We have a minute left.

Senator Gillibrand: Hi, Ricky. Please email me at casework@gillibrand.senate.gov and we will help you. I'm sorry you have not gotten an immediate response to your needs. One of the reasons why we fought so hard for the restaurants' provisions in the relief was because obviously restaurants are not only essential for our economy, but are essential for our communities, and I'm really grateful that you used your resources to help the elderly and to help those in need during the pandemic and that courage and that selflessness is important. I not only am extremely grateful, but I would love to help you make sure you get the resources you need to get back up and running, so please do reach out and I'm happy to help you.

Brian: That's casework@gillibrand.senate.gov? Do I have that right?

Senator Gillibrand: Correct, and please give your name and number to the producer and they'll contact us and I'll make sure Caitlin from my office calls you back.

Brian: All right. I know our listeners always appreciate these conversations. Senator, we went places today I never expected we would go. The nature of patriarchy in society, what the joint chiefs of staff are for, as well as specific policy items, so thank you for all of that. We'll talk next month, if not before.

Senator Gillibrand: Thanks, Brian. That's why your program's so great.

Brian: Very kind. Brian Lehrer on WNYC. More to come.

 

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