Biden maintains his domestic focus, even as Middle East crisis consumes his time

The vast majority of President Joe Biden's time at the White House this week has been spent confronting the crisis in Israel, including four phone calls with his Israeli counterpart and well north of a dozen briefings from his national security team.

But, in a sign of the political crosscurrents, Biden has also been keeping most of his regularly scheduled programming, including a Rose Garden speech about "junk fees" and an address to a national group of firefighters.

The balancing act continued Friday in Philadelphia, where Biden visited a port terminal to announce the locations of seven new regional hubs to manufacture hydrogen - an event the White House had been planning well before the horrors of last weekend's Hamas attack and gave no thought to canceling.

The dueling focuses - foreign and domestic - have at moments felt somewhat jarring. Biden's outrage and fury at the images emerging from Israel has translated into some of his most forceful public speaking as president, making it somewhat dissonant to hear him deliver more routine speeches about airline fees, firefighter pay and the manufacture of hydrogen.

They also reflect a governing reality for an incumbent president in the middle of a campaign: elections are rarely won on foreign policy, and keeping the world from spiraling into war is only one part of the job.

Appearing overly focused abroad could be politically perilous for Biden, who was already contending with waning public support for the war in Ukraine. He may be a foreign policy president, but Americans still view the economy poorly, and his advisers continue to believe an economic message can break through.

White House officials said they assessed Biden's schedule following last weekend's attacks and determined what events to maintain and which to cancel. They did scrap some of their plans and replaced them with remarks focused on Israel.