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Biden faces Irish backlash over Israel-Hamas war ahead of St. Patrick’s Day event with Ireland’s leader

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This St. Patrick’s Day will see all of the customary White House traditions: Green ties will be worn, grip-and-grin photo opportunities between diplomats will be had, and a bowl of shamrocks will be presented to President Biden by Ireland’s leader, Leo Varadkar, as he visits the White House before a traditional lunch with congressional leaders Friday. 

But amid the pomp and pageantry to mark St. Patrick’s Day, which is on Sunday, the diplomatic discussions at this year’s festivities may have a certain edge to them, as public fury rises in Ireland over President Biden’s stance on the Israel-Hamas war. There will be pressure on the Irish delegation from their constituents and elected officials back at home to call out what they see as American complicity in the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians.

Varadkar, Ireland’s prime minister, or Taoiseach, as he’s called in the Irish language, has spent the week in the U.S. and, while he’s been quick to compliment Mr. Biden ahead of the two men’s first bilateral meeting on Friday, Varadkar has also been assertive in pushing Ireland’s position when it comes to the war in Gaza.

“The situation in Gaza is catastrophic and of great concern, and I have to say I believe President Biden’s heart is in the right place here,” Varadkar said, speaking to reporters at a dinner in Washington on Wednesday. “I know he’s working with Egypt, with Qatar, Saudi and other countries in the region like the Jordanians to try and get Israel and Hamas to agree to a ceasefire.”

“But I also want to put across the very strong view of the Irish people that there should be an immediate cease-fire,” the Irish leader added.

Earlier in the week, Varadkar said in Boston that “when thousands of children are being killed, no one can avert their eyes.”

US President Joe Biden Ireland Visit
President Biden meets Taoiseach Leo Varadkar on April 13, 2023 in Dublin, Ireland.

Niall Carson/Getty


His remarks, while hardly a condemnation of the Biden administration’s Middle East policy, may sting an American president who considers himself the most Irish of recent U.S. leaders. It was less than a year ago that Mr. Biden — who’s known to regularly cite the poetry of Seamus Heaney and make reference to his Irish ancestors arriving in America on “coffin” ships — visited the country, to great diplomatic success.

The president was greeted with adulation by elected Irish officials and members of the public as thousands of people turned up to watch him address a large crowd in his great-great-great grandfather’s hometown of Ballina in County Mayo last April.

Much of that enthusiasm appears to have evaporated on Irish soil as the war in Gaza rages.

“It’s amazing how much things can change in a year,” said Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, a center-left Irish lawmaker who warmly welcomed Mr. Biden to Dublin last year, when the U.S. leader addressed both chambers of Ireland’s parliament

“That visit would be impossible today,” said Ó Ríordáin. “If that happened today, there would be nobody in the chamber.”


Biden concludes Ireland trip

04:04

Ó Ríordáin said while the average Irish person would have warmly welcomed Mr. Biden a year ago, owing largely to his heritage, he would receive no such homecoming this year, after more than five months of imagery showing mass destruction in the embattled Palestinian enclave.

“What we see from the Irish vantage point is the elimination of 30,000 lives, disproportionately women and children,” he told CBS News. “What we see is a very well equipped, well armed, powerful nation exact revenge on a very beleaguered people.”

Ireland has long been considered one of the biggest proponents of the Palestinian people’s call for an end to Israeli occupation and statehood — partly due to what the Irish public see as parallels in the two peoples’ histories. The history of British occupation still leaves an indelible mark on the collective Irish psyche.

“I think that’s very clear from Irish history. I think that’s part of it,” said Ó Ríordáin. “We have muscle memory of instances such as Bloody Sunday or British atrocities in Ireland… there is a clear delineation between the acts of a terrorist organization and the retribution of a state.”


What was the Good Friday Agreement that ended The Troubles in Northern Ireland?

02:28

Fatin Al Tamimi, an Irish-Palestinian national who emigrated to the Emerald Isle in 1988, told CBS News that public outrage over the conflict has led to thousands of Irish people showing up at weekly demonstrations she’s helped to organize across the country. The protesters, including some 100,000 people who took to the streets for one demonstration in Dublin last month, are also demanding an immediate cease-fire.

“The Irish are human,” Al Tamimi told CBS News. “They feel with others and they refuse oppression.”

Al Tamimi said that, like many in the Irish public, she didn’t believe Varadkar and his delegation should even have visited the White House for St. Patrick’s Day this year.

Members of political parties from both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland traditionally visit the White House for St. Patrick’s Day, but this year, the leader of one of Northern Ireland’s smaller Irish nationalist parties decided to boycott the event.

“I’m not going to the White House, which is basically a kind of party and not much more,” said Colum Eastwood, the leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party. “I just think it would be kind of gross to be drinking pints of Guinness and eating canapes when Biden is facilitating what’s happening in Gaza.” 

“All we’ve really seen from the White House has been briefings that he [Biden] is a bit annoyed with Netanyahu. It’s a bit pathetic, really, when America is providing Israel with weapons and when bombs are being dropped on children.”

The disconnect between Irish political leadership and the White House can be seen in clear terms when it comes to funding of UNRWA, the United Nations humanitarian agency for Palestinians — a controversial agency that is nonetheless considered a vital lifeline for desperate civilians in Gaza.


Explaining UNRWA and its controversies

02:34

Israel alleged in January that at least a dozen UNRWA staff members took part in Hamas’ bloody Oct. 7 terror attack, prompting the U.S. and a number of other Western nations to suspend further funding for the agency pending a full investigation.

Ireland has not only continued funding UNRWA, it committed about $22 million in new funding for the agency in February, citing the “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza.

Ireland’s President Michael Higgins, whose role is largely ceremonial, roundly condemned the pause in funding by other countries this week, calling it, “a propaganda campaign against the United Nations” and a “scandalous travesty.”

“Those countries, and they include some of the strongest economies in the world, who have removed over $450m from the UNRWA budget must take account of what is now being shown on the television screens of the world for all to see — infant children dying from lack of oxygen,” Higgins said in a statement.



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Transcript: House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Mike Turner on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,” Oct. 6, 2024

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The following is a transcript of an interview with House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Mike Turner, Republican of Ohio, on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” that aired on Oct. 6, 2024.


MARGARET BRENNAN: We turn now to the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Ohio Republican, Mike Turner. Good to have you back with us. 

REP. MIKE TURNER: Thank you for having me on, Margaret.  

MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to get to the Middle East, but first on this issue of concern regarding political violence. Would you agree that language like what we just heard there is unhelpful? 

REP. TURNER: Well, I think it certainly characterizes the reality that Donald Trump has had two attempts on his life. And I do think that there is work that needs to be done, both by the administration and by Vice President Harris. The administration has come out and publicly stated- Matt Olsen from the Department of Justice on CBS News acknowledged that there is an active, ongoing threat from Iran to kill, actively plotting, to kill Donald Trump. You’ve had no statements from the administration towards Iran as to what that would be, which would be an act of war, and you don’t have any statement from Vice President Harris condemning this or even recognizing that there’s an active plot from a foreign nation to kill her opponent. I think there’s certainly a role for her to play and for the President to play in this, in both identifying that there are threats against Donald Trump that need to be acknowledged and responded to, to deter. I think all the candidates need to de-escalate, certainly in their language. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: But it is the Biden-Harris Justice Department, Matt Olsen works for them, who laid out those charges about the Iranian state. You don’t mean to imply here anything that would suggest Eric Trump’s allegations that Democrats are trying to kill him?

REP. TURNER: No, of course not. But I do think that Vice President Harris needs to actively state and acknowledge that her administration is saying a foreign power, which would be an act of war, is actively trying to kill her opponent. They have- this administration has made stronger statements– 

MARGARET BRENNAN: — okay, that’s different– 

REP. TURNER:– about Iran’s hacking activities than they have about the active plot to kill Donald Trump, which the administration acknowledges ongoing.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, because of the concern in regard to anti-government violence in this country and domestic violent extremists, the language specific to who is carrying this out, I think you would agree is important. 

REP. TURNER: I absolutely agree that there needs to be a toning down of rhetoric on both sides, but there has to be an acknowledgement, which has not happened, from Vice President Harris that there’s active plots from a foreign nation to kill her opponent. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: Do you want the FBI to release the results of its investigations prior to November 5, as Senator Rubio on Senate Intelligence has called for? 

REP. TURNER: Its investigations into the assassination attempt?

MARGARET BRENNAN: The two assassination attempts at this point, which are not substantiated to have any ties to the state of Iran or to political actors at this time. 

REP. TURNER: Well actually, it really can’t be said that they’re- saying that there have been no substantiated ties doesn’t mean that the investigation has concluded that there are no ties. And I want those investigations to- to come to a conclusion and determine whether or not either of these plots have any nexus or connection to the active plot the administration is saying that Iran is- is plotting in attempting to kill Donald Trump. Which, again, this administration needs to make clear to Iran that would be an act of war, and needs to have a very strong response from the administration 

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, before the investigation is concluded, because it may not wind up before November the fifth, would you like the FBI to make public some of its findings, to rule out some of the conspiracy theories like we just heard from that stage that the political opposition is responsible? 

REP. TURNER: I don’t think they’d be able to do that. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: You don’t think they would be able to? 

REP. TURNER: I think they need to conclude and they need to get to truth. I don’t think they would be able to get to a point to release information that would conclusively indicate that either of those individuals acted completely alone. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to turn to the Middle East. You’ve already taken us there and talking about Iran specifically, but where we are right now is nearly exactly a year from that terrorist attack on October the seventh. You called that a huge intelligence failure from the Israelis when it happened. Given all that has happened in recent weeks, I wonder what you assess about Israeli intelligence now. 

REP. TURNER: Well, the United States is working cooperatively with- with Israel in ways that we were not necessarily working prior to October 7 and- and I do think that- that Israel has changed its focus in its intelligence collecting and its assessments of its- of its intelligence. I mean, they certainly have risen to the occasion to understand that they’re in an active conflict and looking to ways- and to diminish the capabilities of their adversaries.

MARGARET BRENNAN: That nearest adversary at the moment appears to be the government of Iran. What should the 40,000 US troops that President Biden has deployed to the region be bracing for? Are you concerned that the United States will get drawn into this conflict if Israel carries out strikes on Iran. 

REP. TURNER: Right, so this is another area where the administration has not risen to the occasion. President Biden said that the nuclear program of Iran is off the table. It should not be a valid military target by Israel and, or, the United States– 

MARGARET BRENNAN:– Do you think it should be?– 

REP. TURNER: — Absolutely. In fact, the President himself, President Biden, has previously said that the United States would not allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon, and that he would use military action if necessary. His own Secretary of State has said, more than two weeks ago that Iran’s breakout time to become a nuclear state was two weeks. So you have Iran now actively– 

MARGARET BRENNAN: But it’s still not weaponizing. US intelligence has not said Iran has made the decision– 

REP. TURNER: — They have not publicly stated the- the current status of the program, other than what Blinken has said that the breakout time was- was two weeks. The- looking to proportionality, where Biden says that Israel can only respond in proportion, is as if this administration says Iran can send 200 missiles into Israel, and as long as we have missile defense that takes them out, we won’t look at Iran’s provocation there trying to kill and destroy individuals and towns in Israel. That should be the response. The understanding should be that Iran has moved beyond their proxies, Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthis to have direct attacks to Israel, and Israel needs to be able to defend itself, and Iran needs to pay a price. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, the CENTCOM commander is currently in Israel, helping to advise some of the Israeli military. But just to be clear, the United States really only has the equipment that could take out the kind of underground facilities that are essential to the Iranian nuclear program. Are you advocating for the United States to be involved in offensive action? 

REP. TURNER: I believe it’s completely irresponsible for the President to say that it is off the table when he’s previously said it’s on the table. For him to give Iran the comfort that their actions of attacking directly, Iran, will not have any consequences for their nuclear weapons program is irresponsible.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So not a yes or a no. But- but I want to ask you about something that’s happening in your district, because you have a vested interest in what’s happening in Springfield, Ohio. This is the town that’s gotten so much attention in the past few weeks because the Haitian migrant population there. Going all the way back to February, you’ve been sending letters asking for federal help. You’ve brought some of the local officials here to Washington to advocate how to deal with the strain of the population growth. Have you gotten the federal help you’ve asked for- for Springfield, Ohio?

REP. TURNER: No. You know, Mayor Rue has done an excellent job in Springfield, both in advocating and in trying to pull the community together. He’s come here. We’ve taken him to the federal agencies that have the type of funding that should be released for what is a federally created problem. The Biden administration, through expanding the parole program, I believe illegally, brought 500,000 people here from Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti and others. And 15,000 to 20,000 people settled in Springfield, Ohio. But then the administration did something even more shocking last week. They indicated that they were not going to extend, but the temporary protected status that these individuals have, which could result in their going into an illegal status, and Springfield would have, these individuals would not have, in any direct federal support, and the community would get no additional assistance as to how to handle this almost 10% of the population of the of the city that now would fall into an illegal status as a result of the administration terminating their protected status. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: Which may happen in the coming year, so this could be an issue for the next president, whoever that President is. Congressman, thank you for explaining. Face the Nation will be back in a minute. Stay with us.



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Christopher Ciccone, artist and Madonna’s younger brother, dies at 63

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Christopher Ciccone, an artist and former dancer who was also singer Madonna’s younger brother, has died, his rep Brad Taylor confirmed to CBS News. He was 63.

He died from cancer on Oct. 4, surrounded by his husband, Ray Thacker, Taylor said in a statement.

Born on Nov. 22, 1960, in Pontiac, Michigan, Ciccone was an artist, interior decorator and designer, who began his career as a dancer. He joined the Le Group de La Palace Royale in Ottawa in 1980 before moving to New York two years later to support his older sister’s music career as a backup dancer.

LS.GlobeParty.3.0119.GF.b Madonna, winner of Golden Globe for Best Actress in Motion Picture Musical
Madonna, winner of the Golden Globe for Best Actress in Motion Picture Musical or Comedy with her brother Christopher Ciccone at the Disney party following the awards ceremony.

Gary Friedman/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images


As Madonna’s career grew, Ciccone became more involved — serving as the art director on his sister’s Blond Ambition World Tour in 1990 and as the tour director for her The Girlie Show in 1993. He also directed music videos for megastars Dolly Parton and Tony Bennett in the 1990s.

His role expanded away from music when Ciccone took on the role of interior designer within the homes his sister owned and occupied in New York, Miami, and Los Angeles.

In 2012, Ciccone released his own shoe line, The Ciccone Collection, at London Fashion Week.

He told CBS News at the time that his goal is to make the brand “accessible to everybody” and not too pricey.

“The great thing about doing shoes is that potentially everyone could have a pair. When you’re doing art, there’s only one,” Ciccone said

Ciccone, who was openly gay, claimed that his sister outed him during her 1991 interview with The Advocate.

gettyimages-157177546.jpg
Christopher Ciccone attends OUT Magazine and Buick’s celebration of The OUT100 on November 29, 2012, in New York City.

Mike Coppola/Getty Images for OUT Magazine


Ciccone released a tell-all autobiography called “Life With My Sister Madonna,” leading to reports that the two had been estranged, but Ciccone told CBS News in 2012 that he was glad he wrote the book. 

“I don’t regret any of that,” he said. “I think because of that it sort of led me to this. It gave people an opportunity to think of me as a creative person, as an artist and not just as Madonna’s brother, which is a tag I’m going to wear forever,” Ciccone said in 2012. “But I’m hopeful that at some point it will be Christopher Ciccone first. It’s cool…I’m perfectly happy being what I am.”

The two eventually made up.

“Our relationship is fine as far as I’m concerned,” he told CBS News.

Ciccone and Thacker — a British-born actor — married in 2016.

Ciccone’s death comes fewer than two weeks after the death of his and Madonna’s stepmother, Joan Clare Ciccone, from cancer. His eldest brother Anthony died in 2023.



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One year after Oct. 7 attack, the toll on civilians remains high

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One year after Oct. 7 attack, the toll on civilians remains high – CBS News


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Since the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, Israel has been waging a war on multiple fronts, and Gaza is now in near-total ruins with nearly 41,000 Palestinians dead, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry. Imtiaz Tyab reports.

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