House Democrat on foreign affairs calls ban on UN funding to Gaza ‘unconscionable’

so have you noticed House Republicans are struggling to govern and after barely avoiding a government shutdown speaker Mike Johnson now faces a fight to keep his job after Marjorie Taylor green oh we know her introduced a motion to vacate yet again according to Axel Republicans are livid that all this chaos is threatening to cannibalize their house majority H former speaker Nancy Pelosi told Politico the chaos is quote so unfortunate adding that there's no respect for the Integrity of the house

but it's a logical consequence of what Kevin McCarthy had to do to get elected speaker joining us now democratic congresswoman Sarah Jacobs of California she's a member of the House Foreign Affairs committee welcome congresswoman to the table thank you Congressman so good to see you I want to ask you to pick up where Nancy Pelosi left off because this isn't just bad news for the Republican caucus as it relates to their politics it's bad news for the American people their actual Stakes here wheth

er you're talking about um International Aid whether you're talking about the domestic affordability crisis the fact that they can't get their ducks in order that doesn't matter just for them it matters for their constituents well that's exactly right and I think everything that we've seen from the house of Republicans this past year uh plus has been bad for the institution of Congress and has been bad for the country I mean every single time we've had to take a consequential vote to help the Am

erican people it's been Democrats who have had to put up the votes to get it across the Finish Line because Republicans have shown time and again that they cannot govern and this chaos is not good for our country it's not addressing the things that Americans need like the cost of living like making sure we're helping our allies and partners around the world uh and frankly we're starting to be a laughing stock uh to other countries as well you know congresswoman um Senator Patty Murray uh as righ

t before the bill uh the $1.2 trillion Appropriations Bill finally made its way through the Senate she asked after all of that delay how different ultimately was the outcome and I thought that was such an interesting question and Politico Playbook yesterday teased out even more and basically said how different is it like how different is it from Kevin McCarthy to now it seems like the same things continue to happen it no matter who is in charge of the Republican caucus in the house the inability

to govern without working with Democrats is is is is just a stark Stark Stark situation for them well yeah look they are down now to a one person majority uh they have many members of their caucus that are not going to go along with what the majority of their caucus wants no matter who's in charge and so yes they have to rely on us to get things done not to mention that the Senate is in Democratic hands the White House is in Democratic hands this is divided government and that means you can't g

et everything that you want um but there are many many in the house Republican conference who refuse to accept that reality and therefore leaves it to whoever is in charge of them to have to work with us to get anything across the Finish Line con you you your work on the um Foreign Affairs committee has you looking not just a lot of our domestic uh issues but more globally as well in light of the the recent terrorist attack in in Moscow um what what is the latest that you've been hearing uh have

has there been some level of updating or briefing uh to members of the committee uh how is that you know situation right now uh being viewed by members of the house yeah we we haven't yet gotten a full briefing uh on that attack uh in a large part because uh we were focused on on uh getting the Mini Bus passed and then we're not uh here anymore in session for two weeks um I think that one of the things we were very were told very quickly was that we do not assess that this is the ukrainians um

and then as we saw Isis coron came out and took credit for it uh and I think that's largely in line with what the United States uh believes to be what happened um but I don't think it changes anything in regards to the fact that we need to pass assistance to Ukraine immediately um you know this was a terrible tragic event in in Moscow and the Russians are doing terrible things in Ukraine and it is up to us to make sure that we are helping our Partners there uh and standing up for democracy Aroun

d the World Congress there I'm sorry there's there was a detail in in the recent package that you all were able to pass this is from NBC News although the $1.2 trillion thousand page package does not explicitly mention barring Pride flags from flying at US embassies its text Embraces a republican-led effort to prohibit the display of the lgbtq pride flag at government buildings you have the White House spokesperson telling NBC that the administration fought against the inclusion of this policy I

ask about it because it's not just Flags right it is about values of respect of inclusion and a desire to chip away from that not just here at home we've watched it play out here at home um but also for America as a leader on the world stage I believe you were a member of the lgbtq plus caucus in the House of Representatives I understand that there are you know things like this that get slipped into what are essentially mini omnibuses um but it I I just want to underscore it's not just about th

e flag right is about everything that that Flag represents that's absolutely right look I think you know Lisa my youngest sibling is trans and my middle sibling is gender non-conforming so these are things that are deeply personal to me and when I'm traveling around the world it's so important when we're talking to young people when we're talking to the lgbtq plus community and all these other countries that when they look to the United States they see freedom and that includes freedom to be who

you are regardless of who you love or how you identify and frankly I think it's shameful that Republicans put this in and and used uh the fact that we had to avoid a government shutdown to get this uh thing through that is going to harm so many people around the world and erode our standing as a defender of Human Rights congresswoman yesterday we had uh the ranking member of your committee Congressman Meeks on and and uh Michael really got into the details with him on what is happening in Haiti

and the United States government's response because you know it is a heroing situation and uh the ranking member talked about the fact that well the Kenyans could be coming in but there needs to be Appropriations money from Congress to do that you talked about um the war in Ukraine Russia's war in Ukraine where do we stand on on on funds for Haiti for Ukraine for Taiwan frankly um for Israel but also humanitarian Aid in in Gaza because in that minius that Alisa just talked about um unra funding

which is the organization that primarily does the humanitarian Aid support in the Gaza Strip that funding was restricted like basically defunded yeah look the unref unding um uh the fact that Republicans insisted on us not being allowed to give them funding as part of this package is to me unconscionable we have people start starving and dying now we will still be able to give assistance to world food program to UNICEF to other organizations so this is not a a total cut off of all us funding to

people in Gaza um but there's nothing that can replace the kind of scale and and and infrastructure that unra has in Gaza and who um you know who have been able to work in really difficult circumstances like this before now I think we need to pass the full comprehensive supplement Security Supplemental that passed the Senate the Senate is not known for acting quickly so the idea of doing anything besides what they've already passed to me doesn't make any sense and I also believe that keeping it

all together is the only way we're going to get more humanitarian assistance through can I before we let you go Congress just follow up on the point you just made about unra um could you identify or was there any communication from Republicans why they wanted to gut that funding that humanitarian funding was it just because it's the UN or was there something more substantive which I'm curious so look I think we all saw the allegations by uh the Israeli government that there were unra employees

who were involved in the October 7th attack um the US has suspended assistance to unra as a result of that the UN is doing an investigation we are all waiting to see the results of that internal investigation I think you know if it's true which it looks likely then those employees should be you know should be terminated and there should be increased feding as needed for UNR employees um but that doesn't mean we should punish the entire Palestinian population in Gaza because a few people who work

at an organization were part of something really horrible and I think that's a key part of international humanitarian law right we don't punish whole populations of civilians because of what some actors do um and and frankly that has been something that I think we have to keep emphasizing when it comes to to this conflict congresswoman Sarah Jacobs thank you so much for being with us today and coming in good to see you