Biden requests billions in aid for Ukraine, Israel
US President Joe Biden urgently requested on Friday military aid for Ukraine and Israel in a massive US$106 billion national security package, but Republican paralysis in Congress means it will hit an immediate wall. Biden's demand came a day after he drew a direct link between the Hamas attack on Israel and Russian President Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine to convince Americans that the United States must show global leadership. The 80-year-old Democrat argued in an impassioned Oval Office speech that the huge sums involved – a total of US$105.85 billion, including US$61 billion in military aid for Ukraine and US$14 billion for Israel – would secure US interests for generations to come. But Biden's request comes as the US House of Representatives remains in chaos, with Republicans, who hold a narrow majority, in their worst meltdown for decades and unable to elect a speaker. "The world is watching and the American people rightly expect their leaders to come together and deliver on these priorities," White House Office of Management and Budget director Shalanda Young said in a letter to Congress. "I urge Congress to address them as part of a comprehensive, bipartisan agreement in the weeks ahead." Biden's mega aid package yokes a host of disparate crises together in the hope that an appeal to US national unity will help shake House Republicans out of their dysfunction. And it throws an olive branch to Republicans in the form of US$6.4 billion in funding for the migration crisis at the southern border with Mexico – a central concern for the right-wing party. Biden was due to welcome European Union leaders Charles Michel and Ursula von der Leyen to the White House later on Friday, at a summit set to deliver a message of unity on the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine. (AFP)