US Senate committee chair Ben Cardin to preside over Netanyahu speech

23/7/2024 7:11

        The leader of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee will preside over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech to Congress on Wednesday, Senate aides said, with Vice President Kamala Harris scheduled to be traveling outside Washington.
        
        The vice president, who serves as president of the Senate, was scheduled to be in Indiana on Wednesday.
        
        Senator Ben Cardin, the committee's Democratic chairperson, will be presiding, an aide said on Monday. An aide to Democratic Senator Patty Murray, who as president pro tempore normally would preside in the absence of Harris, said she was not attending. Aides to Murray did not immediately respond when
        asked why she wasn’t attending.
        
        Some members of Congress are expected to skip the address. Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, said Netanyahu should not be welcomed into Congress and in a statement harshly criticized his "war machine."