Biden Lays Out Stakes for U.S. as He Seeks Aid for Israel and Ukraine

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Thursday ramped up his efforts to explain to Americans what is at stake as wars rage in Ukraine and the Middle East, and why the United States should send tens of billions of dollars in additional military aid to its embattled allies half a world away.

After returning to Washington from a one-day visit to Israel following the Hamas terror attacks on Oct. 7, Biden is set to ask Congress for $10 billion in emergency assistance for Israel and $60 billion for Ukraine’s war with Russia, according to people familiar with the administration’s plans.

Aides said Biden had decided to make the case for the spending requests in a rare Oval Office speech to the nation Thursday night, even as polls suggest support among Americans for financial involvement in the two conflicts is far from universal.

A majority of people in recent surveys said the United States should help Israel in its fight with Hamas, but nearly a third of those in the president’s own party do not want to send weapons and military equipment. Support for continuing to arm Ukraine has dropped significantly since the war began nearly 20 months ago.

And in Congress, Biden’s request for what he called “unprecedented” foreign aid faces skepticism among some members of both parties: progressive Democrats who oppose sending arms to Israel and conservative Republicans who have questioned the need to add to the $133 billion in military and economic aid already sent to Ukraine.

Biden’s advisers say the president is seeking to build broader support for what he sees as a critical American response to the two grave struggles that he has said threaten democratic stability across the globe.

“We are going to make sure we have — you have what you need to protect your people, to defend your nation,” Biden told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Wednesday, referencing the country’s air defense system. “We are going to keep Iron Dome fully supplied so it can continue standing sentinel over Israeli skies, saving Israeli lives.”

For Biden, the challenge is to convince Americans that the United States must engage with the world beyond its borders even as they remain focused on concerns closer to home. The president’s approval numbers remain stubbornly low as he ramps up his bid for a second term.

The White House has struggled to find ways for Biden to connect with voters about his achievements. He has delivered numerous speeches in recent months about the improving economy and his legislative victories, but polls suggest they have had little impact on voters or the mood of the nation.

The explosion of violence in the Middle East has added urgency to Biden’s belief in the need to build alliances in an increasingly dangerous world, advisers said.

A senior White House official said Biden was determined to present the American people a broadly framed explanation for why it is in the national security interests of the United States to be involved in the two ongoing wars. The official, who asked not to be identified in order to discuss the president’s thinking, said Biden’s views are shaped by the attacks in Israel and the 600 days that Ukraine has been fighting since Russia’s invasion.

That argument for engagement on the world stage comes despite the president’s earlier push to withdraw the U.S. military from its two-decade war in Afghanistan.

In the summer of 2021, Biden announced the official end of the war in Afghanistan, saying the United States “no longer had a clear purpose in an open-ended mission” there and adding that he “refused to send another generation of America’s sons and daughters to fight a war that should have ended long ago.”

In the case of Ukraine, Biden has made clear he will not send U.S. troops to fight. But the president has vowed to help Ukraine resist Russia in what he has called a “horrific war” for as long as it takes. In a speech in Lithuania this year, Biden described the goal in the broadest possible terms.

“We must never forget how much this matters and never, never give up on a better tomorrow,” he said. “The defense of freedom is not the work of a day or a year. It’s the calling of our lifetime, of all time.”

Jake Sullivan, the president’s national security adviser, said this week that the request for aid to Israel would be made alongside a request for more military equipment for Ukraine, which has been struggling to take back territory that Russia seized in the 20 months since the war began.

“The president has made clear that he is going to go to Congress with a package of funding for Ukraine as well as continued support for Israel,” Sullivan said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation” program.

The White House has provided few details about the scope of the aid that it will request for Israel and Ukraine. But multiple people familiar with the plan say Biden is expected to ask Congress in the coming days to approve about $100 billion in emergency funds to arm Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan and fortify the U.S.-Mexico border.

Support for Israel and Ukraine has traditionally been robust in both political parties. Biden’s initial speech condemning Hamas following its attacks drew widespread praise from members of both parties in the United States.

But that bipartisanship may be tested when the president formally asks Congress for money to help finance the fighting, which could come as soon as Friday. Some Republicans had already begun to question the need for continuing U.S. aid to Ukraine.

The president will have to navigate a series of ideological differences if he seeks all of the aid in a single congressional vote. And as of Thursday afternoon, House Republicans had still not chosen a speaker, leaving that chamber, and the entire Congress, in legislative limbo and without the power to act on any request Biden makes.

Biden has used the Oval Office to speak to the nation only once before. In June, he delivered a speech from behind the Resolute Desk about a bipartisan agreement to avoid defaulting on the nation’s debt, an agreement that Republicans in the House later abandoned.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/19/us/politics/biden-speech-israel-ukraine.html">The New York Times</a>.