Resident Joe Biden pitched a massive $100 billion foreign aid package that includes $60 billion in assistance for Ukraine and $10 billion for Israel in a rare Oval Office address on Thursday. Biden compared the conflict in Ukraine to the American Revolution and urged Americans to support the war with the same zeal as the Second World War.
The president warned that failure to pass the package would create a scenario where “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.”
The president stated that he would be urging Congress to pass the aid package immediately, which includes roughly $100 billion in military and humanitarian assistance over the next year. Ukraine and Israel will be the primary beneficiaries of the package if it were to pass, though it also includes aid for Taiwan.
“It’s a smart investment that’s going to pay dividends for American security for generations,” Biden said.
He also took time to condemn Hamas and acts of Islamic extremism that have occurred in the wake of the terrorist attacks in southern Israel that have left more than 1,400 dead, but also urged Americans not to engage in “islamophobia” while invoking the years following the September 11 attacks.
“And I know many of you in the Muslim American community, Arab American community, the Palestinian American community, and so many others are outraged and hearty, saying to yourselves, ‘here we go again with Islamophobia and distrust we saw after 9-11.’” He then referenced a horrific murder of a child in Illinois that is believed to have been carried out in response to the attacks.