President Biden has been criticised over his support for Israel by a podcaster who is married to the US leader’s Irish cousin, Laurita Blewitt.
In a video posted to X, formerly Twitter, yesterday to promote his Free State Podcast, Joe Brolly described Israel as ‘a rogue state, completely out of control’ before hitting out at the president.
Biden, who has often boasted of his Irish heritage, sent Brolly and his wife Laurita a wedding gift earlier this year and the couple have previously visited The White House as guests of the President.
But in his clip, Brolly criticised Biden over his support for Israel and his failure to meet with the families of Palestinians killed in the ongoing conflict when he visited the region last week.
Biden officially asked Congress on Friday for $105.85 billion in fresh funding to aid the war efforts in Israel and Ukraine, provide humanitarian aid, bolster border security and give Indo-Pacific nations financing options beyond China.
President Biden (pictured right) has been criticised over his support for Israel by a podcaster (pictured far left) who is married to the US leader’s Irish cousin, Laurita Blewitt
The biggest chunk of change will go to Ukraine – $61.4 billion – while Israel will receive $14.3 billion if the president’s plan gets approved.
In total, $10 billion will go toward humanitarian aid – with most going to help those in Gaza, Israel and Ukraine, and with a small sliver going to refugees in the United States.
GAA pundit Brolly said in his clip: ‘President Biden has pledged 14 billion in state of the art weapons of war for Israel to continue to pummel this defenceless population.
‘And 20 trucks of humanitarian aid for Gaza. I cannot think of anything sicker or more obscene bombing churches, hospitals, indiscriminate slaughter.
‘Israel is a rogue state, completely out of control, as described by many leading Jewish academics and thinkers, acting beyond all norms of morality and anything that we could conceive of as decency and humanity.
‘And when Joe Biden goes to Israel and hugs, quite rightly, the parents of those slaughtered children and human beings who lost their lives on 7th October, he doesn’t f****** go to Palestine and do it and hug the children there and hug the mothers and fathers and tell them that he loves them.
‘That alone would bring about a ceasefire. I stand with humanity he should be saying.’
Brolly and his wife were invited to The White House to celebrate St Patrick’s Day in 2022, with pictures showing the President chatting to the podcaster.
In a video (pictured left) posted to X, formerly Twitter , yesterday to promote his Free State Podcast, Joe Brolly described Israel as ‘a rogue state, completely out of control’ before hitting out at the president (pictured with Brolly, right)
Biden, who has often boasted of his Irish heritage, sent Brolly and his wife Laurita (pictured with Biden) a wedding gift earlier this year and the couple have previously visited The White House as guests of the President
‘[Laurita] has a very special place in his affection, so I’m part of that inner circle,” Brolly told The Irish News.
‘The most interesting thing for me about being in the White House pretty regularly and on first-name terms with the President, and very conversational… it was striking that (the Stormont leaders attending), they’re all perfectly at home in America.’
Meanwhile, Biden’s third cousin has previously praised him for overcoming ‘such adversity’ in his life, and called criticism of his age ‘cheap and nasty’.
Laurita, from County Mayo, has met the President several times, and also visited him in The White House during his vice-presidency under Barack Obama.
She appeared on This Morning in January 2021 where she told of the 80-year-old’s ‘strong Irish values’, and said suggestions he’s too old to be President are ‘utter nonsense’ after spending ‘practically all his life’ as a politician.
Blewitt spoke of Biden overcoming a stammer as a child, revealing that he still struggles with speaking publicly and has to work hard not to ‘reintroduce’ his stutter.
When asked about criticism of the then President-elect, she said: ‘I think it’s utter nonsense. American politicians are a lot older than we have in Ireland and the UK.
‘Joe has been a politician practically all his life, he was a senator since he was 29, he’s served two terms as Vice President, he is very competent and a natural-born politician.’
US President Joe Biden (L) embraces his cousin Laurita Blewitt (C) outside Mayo Roscommon Hospice and Palliative Care Centre, in the West of Ireland, on April 14, 2023
‘Don’t forget Joe Biden has overcome such adversity in his life. Firstly as a child being bullied for having a stammer and it has formed him,’ she added.
She recalled a 2017 visit to Ireland where Biden opened the Mayo Roscommon Hospice, revealing that he has to make sure to ‘space out’ his sentences so he doesn’t stammer while speaking publicly.
‘I sat with him in the Jeep on the way to the speech and he was putting lines through all his sentences’, said Laurita.
‘I said “What are you doing?”. He said “Because I have a stammer, I have to space out my sentences to make sure my stutter doesn’t get reintroduced again”.
‘When he stalls or stops people say he forgets what he’s going to say, it’s just cheap talk and its nasty.’
She added: ‘The adversity he has had to overcome with his wife and daughter dying in a horrific car accident, his two boys in hospital for almost a year and then his son Beau dying of cancer in 2015.
‘He has overcome such adversity in his life and its utter nonsense to say he’s not up to the job.’
Laurita called Biden ‘sincere and kind’ both in private and in public, and recalled a trip she took with her brother to the White House in 2017.
‘It was amazing, she said, ‘Going to the Rose Garden, to be there in real-time was extra special.’
Laurita praised Biden’s ‘strong Irish values’, insisting that his heritage is ‘so important to him’ and not just a result of his election campaign.
She told: ‘It’s so important to him and not something that has just arisen because of the election.
‘He talks so strongly about his Irish routes continuously and how his grandmother spoke in Irish to him, how his mother brought him up with such strong Irish values.
‘He’s just very, very proud of them and you see that when he speaks in public there’s always a little Irish reference.’
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