House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said he expects Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to sign on to a letter inviting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress “as quickly as possible,” suggesting an agreement could be reached as early as this week.
“I’ve not spoken to [Schumer] personally, but our staffs are communicating,” Johnson told reporters. “It seems as though he wants to sign on, so I welcome that.”
Johnson’s comments come one day after he gave his Senate counterpart an ultimatum to join the invitation or else risk Republicans closing the event to just House lawmakers.
Schumer, who called for new elections in Israel over Netanyahu’s casualty-heavy war in Gaza, has not indicated when he would sign on to such an invite, telling reporters on Tuesday he supports the prime minister coming to the Capitol and that he is in talks with the speaker.
The invite comes as Netanyahu faces an arrest warrant application from the International Criminal Court over allegations of committing war crimes. The Biden administration and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have decried the warrant.
House Republican leaders have even gone so far as to propose a bill that would sanction any foreign person engaged in an effort by the ICC to investigate or arrest a U.S. citizen or an official from an allied U.S. country.
“America should punish the ICC,” Johnson said. “Congress is reviewing all of our options. Right now, we have some very aggressive legislation that we’re going to push as quickly as possible. It will impose sanctions … if the ICC moves forward with its absurd warrant request.”
Johnson said he spoke with Netanyahu about the proposal last week and expects to talk with him again on Wednesday.
“We’re getting down to the fine points of [the bill], and hopefully, it will be a bipartisan bill and that everybody will be able to stand together on that,” Johnson said. “I think we need to send a strong message to the world that this is completely and wildly inappropriate.”
It’s not clear when Netanyahu would be slated to speak to Congress once the invitation is sent, although Johnson said it would be “as soon as we can schedule it.”
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Netanyahu has long been a polarizing figure for Democrats. Last year, he attempted to implement judicial reforms they regarded as democratic backsliding, while the war in Gaza has only deepened that divide.
The last time Netanyahu addressed Congress was in 2015 at the invitation of then-Speaker John Boehner, a Republican, to excoriate the Iran nuclear deal the Obama administration had forged. Boehner kept then-President Barack Obama in the dark about the invite, prompting several Democrats to boycott the address. Schumer, however, wasn’t among the protesters, saying the relationship between the United States and Israel transcends the rift with the speaker.