Biden declares support for Israel, Ukraine 'vital' for U.S. security
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden declared it is “vital for America's national security” for Israel and Ukraine to succeed in their wars, making the case Thursday night for deepening U.S. involvement in two unpredictable foreign conflicts as he prepared to ask for billions of dollars in military assistance for both countries.
If international aggression is allowed to continue, Biden said in a rare Oval Office address, “conflict and chaos could spread in other parts of the world.”
“Hamas and Putin represent different threats," Biden said. "But they share this in common. They both want to completely annihilate a neighboring democracy.”
He said he would send an urgent funding request to Congress, which is expected to be roughly $100 billion over the next year. The proposal, which will be unveiled on Friday, includes money for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, humanitarian aid and border management, according to people familiar with the deliberations who declined to speak publicly ahead of the announcement.
“It’s a smart investment that’s going to pay dividends for American security for generations," Biden said.
Biden hopes that combining all of these issues into one piece of legislation will create the necessary political coalition for congressional approval. His speech comes the day after his high-stakes trip to Israel, where he showed solidarity with the country in its battle against Hamas and pushed for more humanitarian assistance to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Ahead of his address, Biden spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to stress that the U.S. remained committed to backing Kyiv, the White House said. And a senior White House official said Biden continued to develop his remarks on Thursday after working with close aides throughout the week, including on his flight home from Israel. The official declined to be identified ahead of the president's speech.
Conservative Republicans oppose sending more weapons to Ukraine as its battle against the Russian invasion approaches the two-year mark. Biden's previous request for funding, which included $24 billion to help with the next few months of fighting, was stripped out of budget legislation last month .
There will be resistance 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. Critics have accused Israel of indiscriminately killing civilians and committing war crimes by cutting off essential supplies like food, water and fuel.
Biden has delivered only one other such speech during his presidency, after Congress passed bipartisan budget legislation to avert a default on the country’s debt.
The Senate plans to move quickly on Biden’s proposal, hoping that it creates pressure on the Republican-controlled House to resolve its leadership drama and return to legislating.
However, there are disagreements within the Senate 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.
“These 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,” they wrote in a letter.
North Dakota Sen. Kevin Cramer said he was fine with the proposal as long as there is also a fresh effort to address border issues. But he said "it’s got to be designed to secure the border, not to facilitate travel through the border.”
Although there was a lull in migrant arrivals to the U.S. after the start of new asylum restrictions in May, illegal crossings topped a daily average of more than 8,000 last month.
“There’s a huge need to reimburse for the costs of processing,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat who leads a Senate panel that oversees funding for the Department of Homeland Security. “So it’s personnel costs, it’s soft-sided facilities, it’s transportation costs.”
He was wary, however, of any effort to overhaul border policy — a historically intractable issue — during a debate over spending.
"How are we going to settle our differences over immigration in the next two weeks?” Murphy said. “This is a supplemental funding bill. The minute you start loading it up with policies, that sounds like a plan to fail.”
Biden's decision to include funding for Taiwan in his proposal is a nod toward the potential for another international conflict. China wants to reunify the self-governing island with the mainland, a goal that could be carried out through force.
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.
The administration's national security strategy, released last year, describes China as “America’s most consequential geopolitical challenge.”
