WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Joe Biden will address the nation on Thursday to discuss the U.S. response to the Israeli-Gaza conflict and the war in Ukraine, less than 24 hours after returning from Tel Aviv to offer Israelis support and aid for Palestinians in a trip upended by a hospital blast in Gaza.
His remarks, scheduled to be delivered from the Oval Office at 8 p.m. ET on Thursday (midnight GMT on Friday), come as Congress remains stalled without a leader in the U.S. House of Representatives needed to pass legislation, including funding requests.
Biden will offer a message of solidarity to the people of Ukraine and Israel, but moreover address the nation, including U.S. lawmakers, about the two conflicts’ impact, U.S. deputy national security adviser Jon Finer said in television interviews.
“This will also be very much a message to the American people: how those conflicts connect to our lives back here, how support from the American people and the Congress, frankly, is essential,” Finer told MSNBC.
The president returned overnight from his brief Israel trip aimed at offering U.S. support following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israeli villages and military bases. Biden’s planned meetings in Jordan with the Egyptian and Palestinian leaders were canceled after a deadly explosion at a hospital in Gaza.
In Tel Aviv, Biden pledged $100 million in new funding for humanitarian aid in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, and said he would ask Congress for unprecedented aid to boost Israel in its fight with Hamas.
The White House has said Biden would lay out his additional funding request this week. The administration is considering $60 billion for Ukraine and $10 billion for Israel, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Any funding measure must pass both the Senate, where additional aid has bipartisan support, and the House, which has not had a leader for 17 days, with Republican lawmakers who control the chamber split over whether to back conservative Jim Jordan, an ally of former President Donald Trump.
Republicans in the House, which is expected to hold another speaker vote later on Thursday, are also divided over whether to back more aid, with some far-right conservatives particularly opposed to money for Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Finer said current humanitarian aid was expected to be delivered to Gaza within the next day or so and echoed Biden’s warning that it is not to be misappropriated for use by Hamas.
(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
