UNBIASED - Iran Appointment to UN Social Forum Chair Sparks Controversy, Israel/Gaza Update, New U.S. Ambassador to Israel, House Passes Bill Providing $14.3B in Aid to Israel, and More.

Episode Date: November 3, 2023

1. Supreme Court Hears Oral Arguments in Vidal vs. Elster; Balancing Trademark Law with the First Amendment (1:43)2. Appointment of Iran to Chair for UN Human Rights Social Forum Sparks Controversy (Answering: What is the Social Forum? How Are Chairs Appointed? Why the Controversy?) (6:28)3. Israel/Gaza War Update: (Foreign Nationals and Injured Gazans Arrive in Egypt, What the Deal Negotiations Looked Like, Ceasefire Discussions and Where the Parties Stand, the New U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Jack Lew) (13:11)Notable Mentions:1. Resolution to Expel Rep. George Santos Fails (26:32)2. Resolution to Censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib Fails (27:32)3. Senate Announces Upcoming Hearing Re: Recent Close-Calls in Aviation (28:51)4. House Passes Bill Providing $14.3B in Aid to Israel; Cuts to IRS (30:04)If you enjoyed this episode, please leave me a review and share it with those you know that also appreciate unbiased news!Subscribe to Jordan's weekly free newsletter featuring hot topics in the news, trending lawsuits, and more.Follow Jordan on Instagram and TikTok.All sources for this episode can be found here.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Kick off an exciting football season with BetMGM, an official sportsbook partner of the National Football League. Yard after yard, down after down, the sportsbook born in Vegas gives you the chance to take action to the end zone and celebrate every highlight reel play. And as an official sportsbook partner of the NFL, BetMGM is the best place to fuel your football fandom on every game day. With a variety of exciting features,

BetMGM offers you plenty of seamless ways to jump straight onto the gridiron and to embrace peak sports action. Ready for another season of gridiron glory? What are you waiting for? Get off the bench, into the huddle, and head for the end zone all season long. Visit BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older. Ontario only.

Please gamble responsibly. Gambling problem? For free assistance, call the Connex Ontario Helpline at 1-866-531-2600. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. You are listening to the Jordan is my lawyer podcast, your favorite source of unbiased

news and legal analysis. Enjoy the show. Welcome back to the Jordan is my lawyer podcast. Happy Friday. We have three stories today and a few notable mentions. The first story is going to be about Vidal versus Elster. This is a Supreme Court case that was just heard on Wednesday, and it deals with the crossroads between trademark law and the First Amendment. Then I'm going to talk about the UN Social Rights Forum and the newly appointed chair from Iran, which is causing some controversy. I want to discuss what the Social Rights Forum is and what the appointment means, as well as why the controversy. And the third story will be an update as to what's going on between Israel

and Gaza. And then I will get into the notable mentions. So I'll be talking about the resolutions that both Representative George Santos and Representative Rashida Tlaib survived, the bill that just passed the House that provides $14.3 billion in aid to Israel, as well as an upcoming Senate hearing. Before we get into the stories, let me give you the episode reminder that if you love what you hear today, please go ahead and leave me a review on whatever platform you listen. If you have already, thank you so much. And as my disclaimer, yes, I am a lawyer. No, I am not your lawyer. Without further ado, let's get into today's stories. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments this week in a case called Vidal v. Elster. This is a case where a California attorney says that the denial of his trademark application

for the phrase Trump too small violates his right to free speech. The Supreme Court does seem inclined to rule that the denial does not violate his right to free speech, despite the federal appellate court finding that it did. But let's talk about sort of why the Supreme Court is kind of leaning the way that it is and also where this case, you know, like what's the background of this case? So perhaps you remember the presidential primary debate back in 2016 when Senator Marco Rubio said Donald Trump had small hands. Specifically, what he said is Trump is always calling me little Marco. And I'll admit the guy is taller than me. He's like 6'2", which is why I don't understand why his hands are the size of someone who's

5'2". And you know what they say about men with small hands. You can't trust them. And then Trump addressed the small hands comment saying, look at those hands. Are they small hands? And he referred to my hands. If they're small, something else must be small. I guarantee you there's no problem. I guarantee it. So then this lawyer in California, his name is Steve Elster, he decides he wants to trademark the phrase Trump too small, and he's going to put it on t-shirts. So the front of the t-shirts said Trump too small with this little hand gesture where the thumb is close in proximity to the pointer finger. I don't know if I'm illustrating

that right, but anyway, you get the gist. The back of the shirt said Trump's package is too small, small on the environment, small on civil rights, small on immigration rights, small on LGBTQ rights, and so on and so forth. So he submits this application for the trademark, and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office denies the application. The denial is based on this old law that says you can't trademark the name of a person, a living person, without their written consent, which of course Elster didn't have. But Elster says this is a violation of his right to free speech because we have the right under the First Amendment to criticize government officials, and therefore he should be allowed to trademark this phrase. So he sues. The Federal Appeals Court takes his side. They said that the interest of the government in protecting the privacy and publicity rights of officials does

not outweigh Elster's rights under the First Amendment. So then it goes to the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court, as I said, heard oral arguments on Wednesday. And what the USPTO argued is that this is not a violation of free speech. This is a condition on a government benefit. Nothing is preventing Elster from using the phrase, we're just preventing him from owning it. In fact, they said, if he you do about the government's argument that you're the one undermining First Amendment values? Because the whole point of a trademark, of course, is preventing other people from doing the same thing. If you win a trademark for the slogan Trump too small, other people can't use it, right? And then Justice Jackson added to that that a trademark is not about the First Amendment. It's about identifying and preventing consumer confusion. Adding on to that, Justice Sotomayor said, the question is, is this an infringement on speech? The answer is no. He can sell as many

shirts with the saying as he wants. Justice Thomas said the fact that Elster can still make and sell as many shirts as he wants with this phrase on it, even without a trademark, is a big point here. So he asked, what speech is precisely being burdened? To which Elster's lawyer responded that Elster is being denied important rights and benefits that are generally available to all trademark holders, and he's only being denied those benefits because his mark expresses a message about a public figure, which is protected by the First Amendment. Justice Gorsuch made the point that there have always been content restrictions on certain kinds of trademarks, to which Justice Kavanaugh agreed and noted that Congress clearly felt it was appropriate to put this restriction on people

who were trying to profit off of commercially appropriating someone else's name. So it does seem pretty clear as to how the justices will rule on this issue. It seems that they're all pretty much in agreement, but we won't know for sure until closer to the end of the term when they release their actual decision along with the accompanying rationale. So that's always interesting to see, but we will have to wait a few months at least. Now let's talk about this UN social forum chair appointment. News broke on Thursday that Iran will take the chair of a UN human rights social forum, and some people are not too happy about it. So let's talk through what this appointment means. Like, what even is the

human rights social forum, right? And what does the chairman do or the chairwoman do? And why aren't people happy? So the UN Human Rights Social Forum, otherwise known just as the Social Forum or the Forum, it's an annual two-day event that's hosted by the Human Rights Council. It typically takes place in October and November. Currently, it's going on right now, so it started on Thursday, ending on Friday. And according to the UN's website, one of the key goals of this forum is to, quote, promote social cohesion based on the principles of social justice, equity, and solidarity, as well as addressing the social dimension and challenges of the ongoing globalization process, end quote. And the outcome of each forum, so what they're trying to achieve, is this written report that

is then submitted to the Human Rights Council for consideration at its next session in March. The council then, based on that report, will encourage states and international organizations to consider those conclusions that are set forth in that report in encourage states and international organizations to consider those conclusions that are set forth in that report in their future strategies. So each year, the focus of the forum changes. In 2019, the focus was on the promotion and protection of the rights of children and youth through education. In 2020, the focus was on good practices, success stories, lessons learned, and current challenges in combating poverty and inequalities. In 2021, the focus was on good practices, success stories,

lessons learned, and current challenges in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, with a special focus on international cooperation and solidarity and from a human rights perspective. And most recently in 2022, the focus was on water for human rights and sustainable development. This year, the focus is on the contribution of science, technology, and innovation to the promotion of human rights. So at each forum, there's either one chairperson or two co-chairs. And the role of the chair is to lead the discussion and direct the debate, so to speak. The chairperson or the co-chairs are appointed by the president of the Human Rights Council, but that appointment is based on candidates that were nominated by regional groups. So just to give you some context, last year, the co-chairs were from Spain

and Bolivia. The year before that, the single chairperson was from Iraq. And the year before that, the two co-chairs were from Mongolia and Azerbaijan, and so on and so forth. So the controversy is that this year, the president of the Human Rights Council nominated Iran to chair the forum. According to reports, this man named Ali Bahraini was the only person nominated, which is why he was ultimately appointed. And actually, what a lot of people may not realize is that Iran was appointed back in May. So this is actually not new, but the reason it's kind of taking over headlines and making waves right now is because the forum is being held right now. So as I said, it started on Thursday. It goes through the end of day Friday. But anyway, why is it controversial?

I'm sure you are probably already aware, but Iran does not have the best practices when it comes to the treatment of its people, specifically when it comes to women. So just in the last year or so, there were two cases that really took the media by storm. Last year in 2022, 22-year-old Masa Amini died because she was assaulted by the Morality Police because she wasn't wearing her headdress, which the morality police justified by saying it's a violation of Iran's Islamic dress code. Then, just last month, very similar situation, 16-year-old Armida Garavand was getting on a subway in Tehran when she was assaulted by the morality police for not wearing her headdress, and she died as a result of her injuries. Then, this past September, almost exactly

to the one-year anniversary of Masa Amini's death, Iran's parliament passed new legislation that imposed even stricter penalties on women who breached dress code rules. But it's not just the mistreatment of women. Obviously, the mistreatment of women is terrible. However, Iran has an overall extremely low freedom score. So they have an exponentially high number of executions. And it's not, you know, not to say whether executions are justified here in the United States, but people are executed for far less crimes over in Iran than they are here in the United States. So their executions have been up. Obviously, you know, we know how they treat women for not, quote unquote, abiding by dress code.

And just overall, Iran does not treat their citizens well. So the people opposed to this appointment are asking the question, why would you choose this person? Why would you choose someone from Iran who notoriously treats their own citizens improperly and has no regard for human rights as the chair of this social forum that is meant to discuss human rights? As a show of opposition, some states boycotted the Thursday session. So it's not really clear how many or who specifically sat out. I do know the United States sat out, but we don't know specifically who boycotted. Reports said that the session was very poorly attended and that many seats were left empty. The United States ambassador to the UN Human Rights Council spoke out against the appointment, saying that the United States was

appalled at the appointment, calling it, quote, an affront to the collective conscience of the global community, adding, quote, any discussion led by representatives of a regime that continually and with impunity infringes upon its own citizens' human rights is not just fruitless, but an insult to our shared ideals. So that's a little bit about the appointment. I hope that gives you context as to what the social forum is, as well as the role of the chair and why people are not happy with the appointment. But with that, let's take a quick break. When we come back, we'll do an

update on Israel and Gaza, and then finish with our notable mentions. It's been a little over a week since I gave you an update on what's happening in Israel and Gaza, so I would like to go over that, but I do want to make note of the fact that as we know, this is a situation that is changing by the minute, by the hour. So just know that all of this information I'm about to give you is up to date as of Thursday, November 2nd at 5 p.m. when I am recording this episode. Specifically, the things I want to touch on include the deal brokered by Qatar and how that was done, how that was negotiated, specifics about these foreign nationals and injured Gazans that have been able to leave Gaza, the conversation surrounding a ceasefire and where

the parties stand, and the new U.S. ambassador to Israel, Jack Lew, a little bit about him and what his role looks like. First, let's start with the Qatari-brokered deal. And I know some people call it Qatar. I call it Qatar. Both are totally fine, however you say it is fine, but I say Qatar. Wednesday marked a pretty significant day in this war. It was the first time that foreign nationals and some critically injured Gazans were able to leave Gaza since the start of the war on October 7th. And it was all because of this deal that was brokered by Qatar between Israel, Hamas, and Egypt and coordinated by the United States. What this deal said is that there would be a limited number of injured Palestinians, really critically injured,

and foreign nationals that are allowed to leave Gaza and arrive in Egypt through the Rafah crossing. On Wednesday, there were around 364 foreign nationals and 45 injured that arrived in Egypt. And on Thursday, there was another 341 foreign nationals that arrived in Egypt and an unknown number of injured. So basically, how they were transporting the injured was an ambulance would go to the crossing, you know, that separates Gaza and Egypt. And then an ambulance on the Egypt side would meet the ambulance at the crossing. The person would be transported into an Egyptian ambulance and then taken to a nearby hospital. And then the foreign nationals were told to be at the crossing at about 7 a.m., and so long as they were on the list, they would be allowed in. Now, these foreign nationals were from the United States, Italy, France, Austria, Australia, the U.K., Jordan, Saudi Arabia, many, many countries. And once they got into Egypt, they would go to Cairo and then get on planes back to their home countries. On Wednesday,

the United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that there's approximately a thousand Palestinian Americans still in Gaza and about 5,000 other third country nationals. So that includes Indonesia, the Philippines, Jordan, Italy, all those countries that I just mentioned, plus more. And then on Thursday, the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement of their own that said it was working on facilitating this evacuation of roughly 7,000 foreign citizens from more than 60 countries. Now, it is important to note, and I may have made this clear already, but this deal only applies to foreign nationals and those that are critically injured. So the Gazan civilians who aren't injured, they don't

have a way out as Egypt has been very firm in their stance that they do not want refugees entering Egypt. So that's a little bit about how it's been working the last two days, but I do want to talk about how the deal was brokered. And as always, just take this with a grain of salt. But from what we know, the initial holdup, so you may remember when this war first started, there, and I reported on this, I believe in part two of my two-part series, there were these narratives floating around between Egypt, Hamas, and Israel, and everyone was kind of blaming each other as to why Gazans weren't allowed into Egypt. And so what we know now is that the initial holdup was Egypt. Egypt wanted an international

organization to serve as the sort of administrator at the border and vet people before they left Gaza and came into Egypt. Eventually, after a few days of negotiating, the UN agreed that, you know, they would serve in that role. So that was settled. Then the holdup was supposedly Hamas, specifically that Hamas wouldn't promise that they wouldn't interfere with UN officials or let UN officials operate on the Gaza side of the border like Egypt wanted them to. So Egypt wanted this third party to operate on the Gaza side of the border and vet the people there. Hamas apparently did not want that to happen. So more days go by of negotiating. Hamas was not budging. So the negotiators started to look for other ways out. And if you're familiar with the situation in

the geography, you know that the only other way out of Gaza is through Israel. So there's a crossing between Israel and Gaza and then a crossing between Gaza and Egypt. But that's it. So Israel then eventually agrees to let only foreign nationals out through this crossing. So they said, okay, we'll open our crossing, but foreign nationals will be allowed out, not Gazans. But Hamas still remained an issue. They would not guarantee that they would not interfere. Eventually, Egypt drops its demand for the third party administrator at the border, which then led to Hamas agreeing to allow its own border authority to operate at the gate on the Gaza side. From there, there was a list sent to Qatar, Egypt and Israel. Each country was able to vet the list, make deletions as to who was allowed out, who was not. And the story goes that originally Israel only

wanted wounded women and children to be allowed out, but the United States really had to push Israel to drop that condition, and eventually they agreed. So supposedly there are at least 6,000 people that are believed to be on the list of people allowed out through the Rafah crossing. One source with knowledge of the deal said that the nationals of Muslim countries are being given priority and the citizens of other countries are being ranked by alphabetical order. Now, let's discuss briefly the ceasefire discussions. I just want to talk about where the respective parties stand and what they have said. The general gist of what we're seeing is that the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is strongly dismissing any calls for a ceasefire. Arab countries are advocating for a ceasefire, and President Biden,

he's not calling for a ceasefire, but it does seem that he's slightly detaching from the idea of Israel continuing its expansion into Gaza and calling now for a pause. So we'll get into that. But first, let's talk about Prime Minister Netanyahu. He said on Monday, quote, calls for a ceasefire are calls for Israel to surrender to Hamas, to surrender to terrorism. That will not happen. The Bible says there is a time for peace and a time for war. This is a time for war, a war for our common future. And he added, quote, just as the United States would not agree to a ceasefire after the bombing of Pearl Harbor or after the terrorist attack of 9-11, Israel will not agree to a cessation of hostilities with Hamas after the horrific attacks of October 7th, end quote. Those on the other side of this who are calling for a ceasefire

include humanitarian groups like Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders. We've also seen many protesters around the world, both here in the United States and abroad, and some of the neighboring Arab countries are also calling for a ceasefire. The UN actually recently passed a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire. However, the resolution doesn't really have any binding effect. It's more of a symbolic move. The United States and Israel were two of the 14 countries to vote against the ceasefire. 120 countries voted in favor of a ceasefire, and that included Jordan, Egypt, Afghanistan, and Lebanon. And there were 45 countries that abstained from the vote, including Ukraine. So that gives you a little bit of an idea as to who wants a ceasefire.

Now, President Biden, he, as we know, is a supporter of Israel, as are most United States presidents. But he said on Wednesday that we need a pause. So not really calling for a ceasefire, but calling for a pause. He was at a fundraiser in Minneapolis on Wednesday. He responded to a protester in the crowd who yelled out something about a ceasefire, wanting President Biden to call for a ceasefire. And President Biden said, quote, I think we need a pause. A pause means give time to get the prisoners out, end quote. And then, of course, we have various lawmakers here in the United States that have expressed opinions on both

sides. Some call for a ceasefire, some oppose a ceasefire, and some fall in the middle. Now, let's talk about Jack Lew. Jack Lew was just named the new United States ambassador to Israel. Let's talk a little bit about who he is, what does his background look like, and what does the ambassador role entail? Jack Lew, whose legal name is actually Jacob Lew, he is 68 years old. He has spent the majority of his career in the government. He's held many positions for top politicians over the years. He was the leader of the majority of his career in the government. He's held many positions for top politicians over the years. He was the leader of the Office of Management and Budget, which oversees the president's budget requests. He served in that position under both President

Clinton and President Obama. He served for a year as Obama's White House Chief of Staff. He was appointed Treasury Secretary in 2013, and he served in that role until 2017. Jack Lew is Jewish, so he is very much pro-Israel, but he also has spoken out in support of a two-state solution. So we obviously know that that is at odds with how Prime Minister Netanyahu feels. Netanyahu does not agree with a two-state solution, but Lew does. In fact, at his nomination hearing, he did say that he was going to work to advance a two-state solution. When it came time for the Senate to vote on his nomination, he did lack support from Republican senators because of his involvement in the past in the Iran nuclear deal. And that was back when Obama was president. But basically, in 2016,

when he was serving in the Office of Management and Budget, Obama announced this $400 million cash transfer to Iran. And that was actually part of a much bigger $1.7 billion settlement. But because Liu was the lead in the Office of Management and Budget, he faced a lot of backlash for that. Then in 2018, there was a Senate report that found that Lou had granted a specific license that authorized a conversion of Iranian assets worth billions of US dollars. And so those things came up at his nomination hearing. In fact, when Lou was nominated by President Biden back in September, Republican Senator Tom Cotton called Lou a, quote, Iran sympathizer who has no business being our ambassador. And other GOP senators shared similar sentiments. Now, that also reminds me to touch on

the point that Lou was actually nominated by President Biden before the war in Israel and Gaza broke out. Biden announced Liu as the nominee on September 5th, which is almost exactly one month to the day of Hamas's attack. And the reason that he was nominated was because the previous ambassador had resigned from the role months prior. And there was this interim ambassador covering the position, but President Biden ultimately nominated Liu to fill that position. So the vote was held in the Senate on Tuesday. Liu was ultimately confirmed. It was a 53 to 43 vote. He only needed a simple majority. So he did get that. But there were only two

Republicans that voted in his favor, Senator Lindsey Graham and Senator Rand Paul. Following the vote, Senator Graham said that there are legitimate concerns about Lew and that, you know, this decision was not something he took lightly, but that he knows from his recent travel to Israel that it is imperative the United States immediately have an ambassador in place. He said, quote, Israel's back is against the wall and time is of the essence, end quote. When it comes to Lew's new position, basically what this role as ambassador means is that he is now the official representative of the president of the United States to Prime Minister Netanyahu in Israel. He becomes the voice for the United States in Israel.

So President Biden, being a supporter of Israel and very expressive about the importance of the bilateral relationship between the United States and Israel, it's Lou's job to articulate that. So Lou will be responsible for keeping the diplomatic relations in a good place, building on those relations, promoting foreign policy strategies, ensuring the safety of Americans that are living in Israel, and much, much more. But that gives you an idea of what his role entails. Now let's finish off with some notable mentions. The first notable mention is that Representative George Santos survived a resolution to expel him from the House. You may have heard me talk about Santos before, but he is currently facing a federal

indictment for misusing campaign funds, among other things. He has since pled not guilty, but some of his fellow Republicans in the New York delegation brought this resolution to have him expelled. It ultimately failed. It was a 179 to 213 vote, which is far below the two-thirds threshold that was needed for it to pass. There were 24 Republicans that voted in favor of expelling him, along with 155 Democrats.

19 members voted present, and 22 did not record a vote. One of the main concerns from those that voted against the resolution was that he hasn't been found guilty. So the charges are still pending and they just didn't feel comfortable punishing him for crimes that have not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. On a similar note, notable mention number two is that Representative Rashida Tlaib avoided a censure. So Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene introduced a resolution for comments that she made during a ceasefire protest a couple of weeks ago. One thing I do want to mention is that a censure is different

than expulsion. So what we just talked about with Representative George Santos, that was an expulsion. So expulsion is removing someone from their position in Congress, whereas a censure is just a formal statement of disapproval. Marjorie Taylor Greene's censure measure came after Tlaib spoke at a protest outside of the Capitol on October 18th that was calling for a ceasefire between Israel and Gaza. And then following that, Tlaib posted on X, quote, thank you to our Jewish allies from across the country who joined in solidarity to call for a hashtag cease fire now, end quote. So because demonstrations and protests or disturbances of any kind aren't allowed in congressional buildings, Representative Green's measure accused Tlaib of engaging in anti-Semitic behavior, supporting a terrorist

group, and leading an insurrection at the Capitol. Ultimately, this measure failed as well. It was a 222 to 186 vote, but that measure did need two-thirds of the House, and it did not get that. Notable mention number three. The Senate Commerce Committee announced it will be holding a hearing on November 9th with the head of the FAA air traffic organization, a chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board, the president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, and a few other higher-ups within the airline industry. And the purpose of the hearing is to address several close-call aviation safety incidents. Since January, the National Transportation Safety Board has opened seven investigations, and the Senate committee really just wants to hear why these incidents are happening in the first place and at

such a frequent rate. To give you a couple of examples, in August, there was a Southwest plane and a Cessna jet that came within 100 feet of one another on a runway in San Diego. In February, something similar, a FedEx cargo plane and a Southwest plane came within 115 feet of one another on a runway in Austin. And both of these incidents were caused by air traffic controllers clearing one plane to land while another plane was told to taxi and or depart on that same runway. So the Senate is really just trying to get down to the bottom of what is going on with air traffic control. And the fourth and final notable mention, the House passed a bill on Thursday to provide $14.3 billion in aid to Israel.

However, it likely won't make it past the Senate if it even gets there. This bill is separate from the $100 billion foreign aid package that was proposed by the president not too long ago, because this one only provides aid for Israel. And in order to offset the cost of the $14 billion aid, the bill also rescinds the same amount, so $14.3 billion in funding for the IRS. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the proposal to offset aid to Israel by cutting IRS funding would actually add to the deficit by about $12 billion over the next 12 years. So specifically what the CBO said is most of the amounts are available to the IRS through 2031 for enforcement and related activities. CBO anticipates that rescinding those funds would result in fewer enforcement actions over the next decade and in a reduction to revenue collections. In total, CBO estimates enacting this bill would decrease outlays by $14.3 billion and decrease revenues by $26.8 billion over the

2024 through 2033 period, resulting in a net increase in the deficit of $12.5 billion over that period. And if you do want to see the actual estimates, I do have the CBO estimates linked in the sources section at jordanismylawyer.com. But from here, the bill will now go to the Senate. However, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer did say the Senate won't take up the proposal. He called it deeply flawed. The issue and the controversy is that most Democrats don't agree with the fact that the bill does not also include aid for Ukraine and provides for these cuts to the IRS because they say that aid to Israel should not be conditional upon funding cuts. Schumer said, quote, the hypocrisy here is that by cutting funding to go after tax

cheats, it will actually explode the deficit by billions and billions of dollars. What a joke, end quote. And Schumer also said that the Senate will work on its own bipartisan emergency aid package that includes aid to Israel, Ukraine, competition with the Chinese government, and humanitarian aid to Gaza. So that is what I have for you today, and that concludes this episode. Thank you so much for being here. Please don't forget to leave me a review. Have a great weekend, and I will talk to you on Tuesday.