king and prime minister, and then to lithuania to discuss the war in ukraine and then he will conclude his trip in finland. over all of that i imagine you ll get questions about these munitions and next steps in the war in ukraine. thank you very much. you can see the entire interview with president biden tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. eastern. stay tuned for that, and that will be right here on cnn. let s continue the discussion now with texas democratic congresswoman veronica escobar, thanks for joining us. we know you sit on the armed services committee in the house of representatives but let me ask you flat out, do you agree with the white house decision, the president s decision to include cluster bombs in this package to ukraine? i can absolutely understand why the president said this was a tough decision. this was a decision that, i hope he did not have to make.
war continues it maintains a veto over nato s membership. so this means we are setting up russia continued to interfere, continue to wage war in ukraine in an effort to block a session. if the u.s. were able to provide an aggressive roadmap, if not by the next nato summit, that would pretty much kill ae wage war indefinitely. i think this would be a bold move with little risk, but i don t i fear that we are in a situation where the risks are too high right now. we are watching that issue right now. in the meantime, president biden approved sending cluster munitions to ukraine as a part of a new military aid package. as you know, and the president acknowledged this, it is a controversial decision.
i don t speak to all of my colleagues, but the majority members of colleague in congress want to make sure that we provide ukraine everything it needs to win this war. russia has been engaging in the most brutal of this war, and we have been able to rally our allies, and provide ukraine with the support that they need. but, the truth of the matter is, right now, we have a choice between a bad option and a worse option. the bad option is what the president faced with these cluster munitions, versus the possibility that there could be a gap in the artillery that ukraine needs. we want to be sure that ukraine wins. i am grateful to the president for having spoken to our allies, forgetting assurances from ukraine. i
the biden administration is talking about sending ukraine the same kinds of weapons so they can be used by ukrainians. what is your sense of that and what is your response to that? does it sound like, perhaps, the biden administration is reversing itself on whether or not this constitutes a war crime? i don t think they are. i think the fact is that the u.s. is not signatory to the prohibitions on the use of cluster munitions. we did that intentionally, because we forecast the need for the ability to use these kinds of weapons in a near peer fight for the united states but ukraine is also not a signatory. what jen was referring to is that cluster missions were used by population centers, that is by any kind of measure a war crime. this will be used against military targets. i would like to live in a world where we do not have to use cluster munitions.
question right now is will this current operation that the israeli military operation is saying is focused on the jenin military camp, will it spill over into something much broader. we re hearing calls from militant group hamas, calling on all their members to strike israel wherever they can. alex. an extraordinarily combustible situation. hadas gold, thank you. back in washington the biden white house says it s closely monitoring the situation. let s get straight to our white house current jeremy diamond. reporter: here at the white house and also the state department are closely monitoring this situation that is unfolding, the operation unfolding inside the west bank. they are not saying much more beyond that. all we ve heard from both the spokesperson from the national security council as well as the state department, the u.s. reiterating its support for the u.s. s right to defend itself while calling on israel to