President Joe Biden heads into Thanksgiving having notched a foreign policy win after Israel agreed to a temporary ceasefire, yet that victory could be short-lived as the president returns to Washington after the holiday.
Biden and his top negotiators succeeded in securing the release of 50 hostages and a temporary pause in fighting in Gaza, a blip of good news for the White House given the recent slate of negative polls showing the public leaning toward former President Donald Trump in a hypothetical 2024 general election rematch.
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The president is spending Thanksgiving in Nantucket, Massachusetts, with his family, but when he returns to the White House, he’ll be forced to navigate a series of headaches that have implications for his domestic and foreign policy agenda.
Despite the humanitarian pause, Biden faces continued pressure from his left flank to end the war in Gaza, and he will also return to fights over aid for Ukraine, government funding, and a possible impeachment vote by House Republicans.
The Biden administration announced on Monday $100 million in new security assistance for Ukraine, representing the 51st disbursement of U.S. aid to Ukraine since August 2021 that all but exhausts the funding previously appropriated by Congress to assist Ukraine in its efforts to fight off a Russian invasion.
The Senate hopes to bring a supplemental funding measure to a vote sometime after the Thanksgiving holiday that would fund Ukraine but also Israel, Taiwan, and the Department of Homeland Security. However, Republicans in both chambers have voiced opposition to further Ukraine assistance unless tied to substantive policy changes at the southern border.
Beyond the president’s supplemental request, Congress will also look to tackle funding the government for the rest of the year after passing two short-term measures. Newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) successfully ushered a “laddered” continuing resolution to Biden’s desk earlier in November. The first tranche of funding is set to run out in late January, with the remainder expiring in early February.
Despite Biden’s four-decade-long Senate career, the president has virtually no past relationship with Johnson, who entered the House in 2017.
White House aides have privately expressed concerns that their unfamiliarity with Johnson could complicate passage of both a supplemental funding request and the full appropriations legislation, especially after many Republican lawmakers came out against the stopgap measure Johnson backed that kept federal spending at current levels.
Furthermore, Johnson appears more supportive than his predecessor, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), of House Republicans’ attempts to impeach Biden.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) issued subpoenas of Biden’s son, Hunter, and brother, James, earlier this month. The committee could conclude depositions in December, setting up a vote on impeachment articles for early January.
None of this takes into account a growing divide in the Democratic Party over Biden’s handling of the war in Israel and consistently poor polling.
The RealClearPolitics polling aggregate showed Biden’s economic approval rating hovering just above 38% on Wednesday, and the New York Times, CNN, YouGov, NPR, and others have released polls in recent weeks showing the president trailing Trump in six of seven battleground states.
Meanwhile, Democrats both in and outside the government are calling on Biden to do more to promote a permanent ceasefire in Gaza despite the recently brokered deal to free 50 hostages and temporarily pause fighting.
Those efforts have been led by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), the sole Palestinian American member of Congress.
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“A temporary pause in the violence is not enough. We must move with urgency to save as many lives as possible and achieve a permanent cease-fire agreement,” Tlaib wrote in a statement Tuesday evening. “When this short-term agreement expires, the bombing of innocent civilians will continue. We need a permanent cease-fire that saves lives, brings all the hostages and those arbitrarily detained home, and puts an end to this horrific violence.”
“We must demand an immediate end to Israel’s indiscriminate bombing,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), another top progressive voice, wrote in a Wednesday op-ed for the New York Times. “There must also be a significant, extended humanitarian pause so that badly needed aid — food, water, medicine and fuel — can get into Gaza and save lives.”
