Joe Biden’s arrival in Ireland featured prominently on some US media websites on Thursday but was downplayed by others with The New York Times categorising the visit as mainly a “personal trip” for the president rather than a policy one.
Mr Biden’s visit was the lead item on the USA Today website, focusing on his message to “keep the peace” in Northern Ireland.
The article speculated that because Mr Biden will spend less than one day in Northern Ireland before spending the bulk of his trip in the Republic, the president may have been trying to avoid “chances to ruffle feathers” or “taking sides”.
“That’s probably not by accident given the politically sensitive time in Northern Ireland. Biden has drawn past criticism from British unionists”, the article read.
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CNN reporter Donie O’Sullivan, who is from Cahersiveen, Co Kerry, reported on Mr Biden’s visit for the show CNN This Morning.
Live from Belfast, O’Sullivan reported that Ireland had some “unusual ways” of welcoming US presidents, including the rest stop on an Irish motorway named after Barack Obama.
It was reported that Biden’s distant relatives were “pulling out all the stops” for his visit. Mr Biden’s distant cousin, Laurita Blewitt, told O’Sullivan they had “struck up a great friendship”.
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The New York Times carried the story with the headline: “Biden to Celebrate Diplomacy, and His Own Irish Roots, in Belfast”. It reported that Mr Biden was there to mark the 25th anniversary of the Belfast Agreement in Northern Ireland “before paying homage to his own Irish ancestry”.
The president would “explore his own roots and celebrate America’s deep connection with the Irish people” during “three days of presidential ancestry” after a “brief stop to Belfast”, the article read.
“Once he leaves Belfast on Wednesday afternoon, Mr Biden will spend far less time on policy, though he will address the Irish parliament and host discussions with the country’s president and prime minister”, the article said.
The New York Times reported that White House officials “made little effort to describe Mr Biden’s trip as a policy one. It is personal for the president, they said, and most of his time will be spent in the countryside”.
Fox News focused on Biden’s son Hunter, who is accompanying the president on the visit to Ireland.
“Prior to taking off from Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, Biden declined to provide names of family members who were accompanying him on the trip, though it was clear that his troubled son Hunter, who is currently under investigation, was going along,” the article read.
Hunter Biden has been under investigation since 2018 for possible tax and foreign lobbying violations, false statements and more.
“The president’s decision to bring Hunter to his ancestral country was a staunch signal to Republicans conducting the investigations, though it left some scratching their heads on why he was going on a diplomatic trip,” Fox reporters wrote.
In a separate interview on Fox News, former president Donald Trump criticised Biden for visiting Ireland when “the world is exploding.”
The comment was made during his first interview since facing criminal charges in the US, which aired on Fox News on Tuesday night.
Trump did not mention the 25th anniversary of the Belfast Agreement, instead saying: “He’s now in Ireland, he’s not going to have a news conference, when the world is exploding”.
“I own property in Ireland. I’m not going to Ireland, the world is exploding around us,” he said.
He used term “nuclear warming”, claiming it was the world’s biggest challenge. However, he did not explain the term or give any evidence to support the claim.
“When I listen to people talk about global warming that the ocean will rise in the next 300 years by 1/8th of an inch and they talk about how this is our problem… Our big problem is nuclear warming but nobody even talks about it,” he said.
