Schumer Signs Invite for Netanyahu to Address Congress as House Speaker Confirms

Senate Majority Chuck Schumer (D-NY) “relented” and signed onto a letter inviting Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) announced on Tuesday.

During an interview on a Louisiana radio talk show, Johnson said Schumer had been “dithering” around since mid-March — when the speaker first raised the prospect of asking Netanyahu to deliver a speech to U.S. lawmakers. And so Johnson gave Schumer an ultimatum.

“I called his bluff last week,” Johnson said on Tuesday, “and said I would invite Netanyahu myself and just skip over him and send individual invitations to senators to join us if they wished. And all of them would, I’m sure, except for a handful. And so finally he relented.”

Schumer faced “public pressure and agreed to co-sign a letter so that invitation is going out,” Johnson added. The speaker also predicted Netanyahu will “come soon” and noted that he was scheduled to speak with the Israeli prime minister again later in the day.

In March, Johnson said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that he wanted to invite Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress in a show of support for Israel as its forces fought against Hamas in the Gaza Strip following a deadly terrorist attack on Israeli soil in October.

At the time, Schumer had just delivered a speech in which he called for Israel to hold new elections and claimed that Netanyahu was one of the “obstacles to peace.” Republican lawmakers, including Johnson and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-LA), rebuked Schumer over the remarks.

During his appearance on “Mike & McCarty” on 710 KEEL in Shreveport, Johnson said he thinks it is “important and historic” for Netanyahu to give Congress a “bird’s eye view” of what is going on in Israel and to “address” some of the criticism regarding the war.

“I’m a big supporter of Israel, as everybody knows, because I think we have many reasons and obligations to do that. But Chuck Schumer has been trying to play both sides,” Johnson said.

“I mean, the Biden administration not only has projected weakness on the world stage and gotten us into all these hot wars, but they’ve also been trying to appease Iran and criticize Israel,” he continued. “Schumer was trying to play politics with it.”

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