President Joe Biden invited the widow of late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny to attend Thursday’s State of the Union address, but she was unable to attend, the White House said.
Russia will be a prominent theme in an annual prime-time congressional address, with Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson hosting the parents of detained U.S. journalist Evan Gershkovich.
The White House said on Tuesday that Biden, who will deliver his final State of the Union address before the U.S. election in November, personally invited Yulia Navalnaya when he met just days after Navalny died in an Arctic prison on February 16. Lea Navalnaya.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters: “I can confirm that she was indeed invited to the State of the Union. She can no longer attend.”
“I have to ask you to ask her people for specific reasons,” she said, confirming that Biden himself invited her when they met.
House Speaker Johnson, who blocked U.S. military aid to Ukraine in Congress, separately said he was “honored” to host Ella Millman and Mikhail Gershkovich for a speech.
He said the invitation would draw “attention to the unjust detention” of their son, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was jailed nearly a year ago on espionage charges. Russian arrest.
The U.S. government announced that Gershkovich, who categorically denies espionage charges, was wrongfully detained and was negotiating a prisoner exchange.
Johnson said on X that the Biden administration “has to bring Evan home.”
Every year, the White House invites a handful of citizens and celebrities who embody in some way the priorities of the president’s prime-time address to sit with the first lady.
One of this year’s invitees was Kate Cox, a Texas woman who had to leave the state to get an abortion after learning her fetus wouldn’t survive.
Biden has made it a key theme of his reelection campaign after his likely Republican rival Donald Trump boasted that his Supreme Court picks had overturned federal abortion rights.