Biden seeking Congress approval for Ukraine, Israel aid

President Biden made an Oval Office address Thursday night speaking to the country to solidify support for Ukraine and Israel in their respective wars. In his address, Biden foreshadowed a spending package totaling $106 billion dollars that was confirmed Friday morning by the White House.

The administration must first seek approval from Congress for its aid proposal, further complicated by the House of Representatives' inability to successfully decide the next Speaker of the House. Yahoo Finance Senior Columnist Rick Newman joins the Live show to break down Biden's spending package, the ongoing chaos in the House, and what it means for the aid requested for U.S. allies.

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Video transcript

RACHELLE AKUFFO: Well, President Biden is calling on Congress to deliver aid to Israel and Ukraine. Today, that proposal was sent to temporary House Speaker Patrick McHenry, seeking over $100 billion in aid with $61.4 billion going to Ukraine, $14.3 billion to Israel, $9.15 billion in humanitarian aid for Ukraine, Israel, and Gaza.

Now, he also asked for $6.4 billion for border operations. But with the House still leaderless, where does it go from here? We have senior-- we have Yahoo Finance senior columnist, Rick Newman, making sense of this for us. Always good to see you, Rick. What's the latest?

RICK NEWMAN: Hey. Right. So notable in that huge budget request, Biden is asking for four times as much money for Ukraine as he is asking for Israel. So Biden clearly trying to link the necessity to continue aiding Ukraine with the necessity to keep helping Israel here and throwing some other stuff in there. There's also some humanitarian aid in there for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and elsewhere.

So this is going to go to Congress. The Senate could pass this, I think, because there is basically bipartisan support for all of the above-- for Israel, for Ukraine, for border funding, and there's also some money in there for Asia, namely Taiwan. The obvious question with all legislation at this point is what happens when it gets to the train wreck known as the House of Representatives and the majority, or so-called majority Republicans, who can't get anything done.

Nobody knows at this point where this is all headed. If they do end up going this route where the speaker pro-tem Patrick McHenry becomes more of a formal speaker pro-tem instead of an interim one, possibly they could get it through that way, which even though it would leave unresolved who is the House Speaker.

And Rachelle, meanwhile this weekend, we're going to see-- we're going to see Jim Jordan like continue to spin in circles in a dead end as he tries to get elected speaker. He says he is going to be calling for one vote after another as if maybe if he can just wear everybody down, he'll finally get elected. But there aren't very many analysts following this who think that he has any chance at all really of getting the speakership. So maybe by Monday, we'll be talking about somebody else as a plausible candidate for Speaker of the House.

RACHELLE AKUFFO: So Rick, what do we know then about the appetite, though, in Congress for funding both for Ukraine and for Israel, especially since the criticism from, you know, perhaps people who are watching President Biden traveling and saying, what about the US economy? What about the funding we need here? And then on top of that, still waiting for some of those powers that Patrick McHenry is going to need to be able to push some of this forward.

RICK NEWMAN: Yeah. So the Senate-- there's pretty good bipartisan support for this in the Senate. There is probably majority support for this $100 billion in funding for Israel, Ukraine, and other foreign national security priorities in the House, but it's even if you had a functional House, the question would be pulling this coalition together.

So depending on who the Speaker is, if there were a Speaker, I mean, you could have a Speaker-- let's say Jim Jordan did become the Speaker. I mean, Jim Jordan is not a fan of a lot of continued aid for Ukraine. So even if you had some Republicans and most Democrats who support it, in other words, the votes are there, you could have leadership that just doesn't bring this to the floor the way the Biden administration has presented it.

They could, for example, cut the amount of aid for Ukraine to something a lot lower than $61 billion. And by the way, I would point out that a month ago, the Biden administration's request for Ukraine was $24 billion. So they are clearly thinking they see an opportunity here to ask for a lot more.

And I think they might also be saying to themselves, this might be the last opportunity we have to get a big funding bill for Ukraine, so let's go all in and get enough to get through 2024 and maybe even get to the election, which is, you know, barely a year away at this point. But as with everything, I mean, we just don't know at this point until Republicans can get organized somehow or just give up and let Democrats run the House of Representatives.

RACHELLE AKUFFO: I mean, it is the year of unprecedented things. So I guess anything can happen. I appreciate you tracking all of that for us. Our very own, Rick Newman.

RICK NEWMAN: See you.