WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden said Thursday that he plans to sign the stopgap spending bill to keep the government funded and avert a shutdown at the end of the week.
Biden met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and other leaders during The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in San Francisco.
“We are reassuming military-to-military contact — direct contacts,” Biden said during a speech Thursday about U.S.-China relations.
On the Israel-Hamas war, Biden said it was his view that “the first war crime” was committed by Hamas by having “their headquarters, their military hidden under a hospital” and he added that Hamas has already said publicly that they planned on attacking Israel again.
“They were cutting babies’ heads off to burn — burning women and children alive,” Biden said.
In Washington, the bill the House and the Senate passed funded the U.S. Department of Defense department through Feb. 2, but it did not include additional funds for the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas wars.
Biden also delivered a speech during the APEC CEO summit.
“The world is at an inflection point — this is not a hyperbole,” Biden said. “The decisions we make today are going to shape the direction of the world for decades to come.”
Ahead of the November election, lawmakers will need to get back together in 2024 to try to find common ground on a spending bill for the entire year.
