On Thursday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “The Beat,” White House National Security Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby stated that President Joe Biden will continue to talk about the conflict in the Middle East and supporting Israel and will work to free those held hostage by Hamas and stand with their families, but he’ll also continue to “talk about economic issues, the junk fees.”
Kirby stated that the White House is with the families of hostages “for the long haul” and will keep working to free them. At the end of the interview, which discussed the Hamas attacks on Israel, host Ari Melber asked, “[I]n the days ahead, there’s a communications aspect to all this where the President, who has been quite forceful across the week, can sort of pull back and go back to governing, we’re busy with trying to find out who the new speaker is going to be and deal with a lot of other priorities at home, or sort of double down or extend this with the communications approach. And so, I’m curious, can you tell us anything about whether there will be any other formal address to the nation, formal address to Congress, evening address to the nation. As you know, in other past terror attacks, including on allies, over time, there either is a kind of an ebb, where people say, oh, well, that was last week’s news and it’s that country’s problem over there, and sometimes there’s more of a priority of summoning the U.S.’s sustained attention. Again, I know you guys aren’t going to break any secret news tonight so to speak, but can you speak to any of that in the days ahead and what’s on the mind of the communicators in the White House?”
Kirby responded, “Sadly, we don’t think this is going to end any time very soon, certainly in [the] coming weeks for sure, if not longer. So, I think you can count on hearing from President Biden in the future about this particular conflict and what we’re doing to support Israel. I have no doubt that you’ll continue to hear from him. But I also think you’re going to continue to hear from him on a range of other issues that are important to governing in other places around the world such as Ukraine, such as the Indo-Pacific, I’m sure he’ll continue to — as he did this week — talk about economic issues, the junk fees. So, you’re going to continue to hear him talk about issues that also matter on a domestic scale as well. That’s what being President is, that’s what being commander-in-chief is. You’ve got to handle it all, and he’s more than equipped and more than ready to do that.”
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