List of elected officials skipping Netanyahu's address to joint session of Congress on Wednesday

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is addressing a joint session of Congress on Wednesday about Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza and some U.S. elected officials are skipping the event.

Vice President Kamala Harris is not attending due to a speech she is scheduled to deliver to a historically black sorority, Zeta Phi Beta, in Indiana. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., called her decision not to attend the speech "unconscionable." 

Harris is scheduled to meet with Netanyahu on Thursday. President Biden will meet with him separately, according to the White House.

Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., wrote on his X account that he won't be in the chamber for the speech, describing it as “political theater on behalf of the State Department” to help Netanyahu “bolster his political standing in Israel.”

Massie has been an outspoken critic of the amount of foreign aid the U.S. provides other countries each year.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., wrote on X that she is boycotting the speech, calling Netanyahu a “war criminal."

A spokesperson for Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. said the former House speaker is not attending the speech but “will join a Members meeting with Israeli citizens whose families have suffered in the wake of the October 7th Hamas terror attack and kidnappings.”

Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, and Dick Durbin, D-Ill., are not attending.

Durbin said that Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack was “unprovoked and cowardly” but “Israel’s execution of its war" is a "brutal strategy beyond any acceptable level of self-defense.”