WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Declaring that U.S. leadership \u201cholds the world together,\u201d President Joe Biden told Americans on Thursday night the country must deepen its\u00a0support of Ukraine\u00a0and\u00a0Israel\u00a0in the middle of two vastly different, unpredictable and bloody wars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Acknowledging that \u201cthese conflicts can seem far away,\u201d Biden insisted in a rare Oval Office address that they remain \u201cvital for America\u2019s national security\u201d as he prepared to ask Congress for billions of dollars in military assistance for both countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHistory has taught us when terrorists don\u2019t pay a price for their terror, when dictators don\u2019t pay a price for their aggression, they cause more chaos and death and more destruction,\u201d Biden said. \u201cThey keep going. And the cost and the threat to America and the world keep rising.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Biden\u2019s speech reflected an expansive view of U.S. obligations overseas at a time when he faces political resistance at home to additional funding. He\u2019s expected to ask for $105 billion on Friday, including $60 billion for Ukraine, much of which would replenish U.S. weapons stockpiles provided earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s also $14 billion for Israel, $10 billion for unspecified humanitarian efforts, $14 billion for managing the U.S.-Mexico border and fighting fentanyl trafficking and $7 billion for the Indo-Pacific region, which includes Taiwan. The proposal was described by three people familiar with the details who insisted on anonymity before the official announcement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a smart investment that\u2019s going to pay dividends for American security for generations,\u201d Biden said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He hopes that combining all of these issues into one piece of legislation will create the necessary coalition for congressional approval. His speech came the day after\u00a0his high-stakes trip to Israel, where he showed solidarity with the country after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas and pushed for more humanitarian assistance to Palestinians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With Israel continuing to bombard the Gaza Strip and preparing a ground invasion, Biden placed an increased emphasis on the deadly toll that the conflict has had on civilians there, saying he\u2019s \u201cheartbroken by the tragic loss of Palestinian life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIsrael and Palestinians equally deserve to live in safety, dignity and peace,\u201d Biden said. He also warned about a rising tide of antisemitism and Islamophobia in the U.S., noting\u00a0the killing of Wadea Alfayoumi, a 6-year-old Palestinian-American boy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTo all you hurting, I want you to know I see you. You belong,\u201d Biden said. \u201cAnd I want to say this to you. You\u2019re all Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The White House said that after his speech, the president and first lady Jill Biden spoke over the phone with Wadea\u2019s father and uncle to express their \u201cdeepest condolences\u201d and share their prayers for the recovery of the boy\u2019s mother, who was also stabbed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Biden included in his remarks a warning to Iran\u2019s leaders, who have supported Hamas in Gaza and Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine, and said the U.S. \u201cwill continue to hold them accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As Biden seeks a second term in a campaign that will likely hinge on\u00a0voters\u2019 feeling about the economy, he was careful to emphasize that the spending will create jobs for U.S. workers, referencing the construction of missiles in Arizona and artillery shells in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Texas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And he worked in a nod to one of his political heroes, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, by saying that \u201cjust as in World War II,\u201d the country is \u201cbuilding the arsenal of democracy and serving the cause of freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Biden faces an array of steep challenges as he tries to secure the money. The House remains in chaos because the Republican majority has been\u00a0unable to select a speaker\u00a0to replace Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who was ousted more than two weeks ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In addition, conservative Republicans oppose money for sending more weapons to Ukraine as its battle against the Russian invasion approaches the two-year mark. Biden\u2019s previous request for funding, which included $24 billion to help with the next few months of fighting, was stripped out of\u00a0budget legislation last month\u00a0despite\u00a0a personal plea\u00a0from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There will be resistance from some on the other side of the political spectrum when it comes to military assistance for Israel, which has been bombarding the Gaza Strip in response to the Hamas attack on Oct. 7.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Critics have accused Israel of indiscriminately killing civilians and committing war crimes by cutting off essential supplies including food, water and fuel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bipartisan support for Israel has already eroded in recent years as progressive Democrats have become more outspoken in their opposition to the country\u2019s decades-long occupation of Palestinian territory, which is widely viewed as illegal by the international community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are rumbles of disagreement within Biden\u2019s administration as well. Josh Paul, a State Department official who oversaw the congressional liaison office dealing with foreign arms sales, resigned over U.S. policy on weapons transfers to Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI cannot work in support of a set of major policy decisions, including rushing more arms to one side of the conflict, that I believe to be short-sighted, destructive, unjust and contradictory to the very values that we publicly espouse,\u201d he wrote in a statement posted to his LinkedIn account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A speech from the Oval Office is one of the most prestigious platforms that a president can command, an opportunity to try to seize the country\u2019s attention at a moment of crisis. The major television networks broke into regular programming to carry the address live.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Biden has delivered\u00a0only one other such speech\u00a0during his presidency, after Congress passed bipartisan budget legislation to avert a default on the country\u2019s debt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The White House and other senior administration officials, including Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young, have quietly briefed key lawmakers in recent days about the contours of the planned supplemental funding request.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Democratic Senate plans to move quickly on Biden\u2019s proposal, hoping that it creates pressure on the Republican-controlled House to resolve its leadership drama and return to legislating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, there are disagreements within the Senate, too, on how to move forward. Eight Republicans, led by Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall, said they did not want to combine assistance for Ukraine and Israel in the same legislation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThese are two separate and unrelated conflicts and it would be wrong to leverage support of aid to Israel in an attempt to get additional aid for Ukraine across the finish line,\u201d they wrote in a letter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
North Dakota Sen. Kevin Cramer said he was fine with the proposal as long as there was also a fresh effort to address border issues. But he said \u201cit\u2019s got to be designed to secure the border, not to facilitate travel through the border.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although there was a lull in migrant arrivals to the U.S. after the start of\u00a0new asylum restrictions in May, illegal crossings topped a daily average of more than 8,000 last month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat who leads a Senate panel that oversees funding for the Department of Homeland Security, was wary of any effort to overhaul border policy during a debate over spending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHow are we going to settle our differences over immigration in the next two weeks?\u201d Murphy said. \u201cThis is a supplemental funding bill. The minute you start loading it up with policies, that sounds like a plan to fail.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Biden\u2019s decision to include funding for the Indo-Pacific in his proposal is a nod toward the potential for another international conflict. China wants to reunify the self-governing island of Taiwan with its mainland, a goal that could be carried out through force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although wars in Europe and the Middle East have been the most immediate concerns for U.S. foreign policy, Biden views Asia as the key arena in the struggle for global influence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The administration\u2019s national security strategy, released last year, describes China as \u201cAmerica\u2019s most consequential geopolitical challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Declaring that U.S. leadership \u201cholds […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2891,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2890"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2890\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2892,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2890\/revisions\/2892"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}