President Joe Biden will try to rally support for his approach to conflicts in Israel and Ukraine in a prime-time address, a day after his Middle East trip was upended by the hospital blast in Gaza.
His televised remarks, scheduled for 8 p.m. ET on Thursday (0000 GMT on Friday), come as Congress remains stalled without a leader in the U.S. House of Representatives needed to pass legislation, including Biden's expected funding requests for the wars.
Biden will offer a message of solidarity to the people of Ukraine and Israel in a speech also aimed at galvanizing public opinion to pressure lawmakers wary of sending billions of dollars more overseas to support two foreign conflicts with no end in sight.
The White House has said Biden would unveil 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. The package is also expected to include tens of billions in funding for priorities from Asia to U.S. border security.
In Tel Aviv, the president 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's fight with Hamas.
"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," U.S. deputy national security adviser Jon Finer told MSNBC.
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.
Conservative Jim Jordan, an ally of former President Donald Trump, told his colleagues on Thursday that he will suspend his bid to serve as speaker and back Republican Patrick McHenry filling the role on a temporary basis.
Republicans in the House are also divided over whether to back more aid, with some far-right conservatives particularly opposed to money for Ukraine. But the potential elevation of McHenry could allow Congress to get back to work and ease a path for some of Biden's spending plans.
About four in 10 respondents in a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted last week said the U.S. should support Israel's position when given a range of options. In a separate Reuters/Ipsos poll earlier this month, roughly the same proportion agreed with a statement that Washington "should provide weapons to Ukraine."
Biden 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 the Gaza hospital explosion.
Finer, the U.S. official, said humanitarian aid was expected to enter Gaza within the next day or so, and echoed Biden's warning that it is not to be misappropriated for use by Hamas.
Meanwhile, the Mount Whitney, a sophisticated command, control, communication, and intelligence ship, is heading to the eastern Mediterranean to join a host of U.S. warships already there, the U.S. Navy said.
A U.S. official and a congressional aide told Reuters that the Department of Defense told members of Congress at a briefing on Wednesday that it intends to send its two Iron Dome missile defense systems back to Israel as part of a leaseback deal, having experimented with the systems for several years. The transfer could come within days, the aide said.
