WASHINGTON (NewsNation) — President Joe Biden in his fourth prime-time address to the nation Thursday night pitched the American public on the need to continue funding the wars in Israel and Ukraine.
Israel continues to pound the Gaza Strip with airstrikes, including in the south where Palestinians were told to take refuge. The long-expected ground invasion has not yet happened, but the country’s defense minister has told troops to “be ready” to invade.
Palestinian militants fired rockets into Israel on Thursday from Gaza and Lebanon, and tensions flared in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Biden’s funding request is likely to be around $100 billion over the next year, according to people directly familiar with the proposal who insisted on anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
A senior White House official told The Associated Press that 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.
The Gaza Health Ministry said 3,785 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, the majority of them women, children and older adults. Nearly 12,500 others were injured, and another 1,300 people were believed buried under the rubble, health authorities said.
More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, mostly civilians slain during Hamas’ deadly incursion on Oct. 7. Roughly 200 others were abducted. The Israeli military said Thursday it had notified the families of 203 captives.
With regards to the war further east, the White House has warned that time is running out to prevent Ukraine, which recently struggled to make progress in a grueling counteroffensive, from losing ground to Russia because of dwindling supplies of weapons.
A Russian missile attack killed two civilians in an apartment building in southern Ukraine on Wednesday, local authorities said, as President Vladimir Putin dismissed the importance of a new U.S.-supplied weapon that Kyiv used to execute one of the most damaging attacks on the Kremlin’s air assets since the start of the war.
Putin told reporters that Russia “will be able to repel” further attacks by the U.S.-made Army Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS.
Biden hopes that combining both of these issues into one piece of legislation will create the necessary political coalition for congressional approval.
But it won’t be easy.
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 unable to select a speaker to replace Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who was ousted more than two weeks ago.
Discussions on giving interim House Speaker Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., the authority to manage legislative affairs and conduct floor votes — an unprecedented move — have intensified as the House is without a permanent leader at a critical time for Congress.
Biden’s speech will be delivered from the Oval Office at 8:00 pm ET.
Biden’s previous prime-time addresses to the nation included when the U.S. narrowly avoided a national debt default and on the anniversary of coronavirus lockdowns. His first was to address the conviction of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who was found guilty of murdering George Floyd.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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