Biden jokes he’s ‘really not Irish’ as a result of he’s sober, doesn’t have kin ‘in jail’

WASHINGTON — President Biden suggested a sequence of cringe-worthy jokes about his Irish ancestry to mark St. Patrick’s Day, cracking that he’s shocked his distant Irish kin aren’t “in jail” and that he’s “really not Irish” as a result of he doesn’t drink alcohol.

The 80-year-old president, who’s roughly five-eighths Irish, made the seemingly stereotype-laden makes an try at humor as House Republicans look at his family’s worldwide enterprise presents amid a federal felony investigation of first son Hunter Biden.

“I’ve been to Ireland many times, but not to actually look up, to find my actual family members. And there are so many — and they actually weren’t in jail,” Biden said to scattered laughs as he recalled a six-day go to by which he met his kin.

“There’s still a place called Finnegan’s pub… that’s related to my family,” the president went on.

“I’m the only Irishman you ever met though that’s never had a drink, so I’m OK. I’m really not Irish.”

The president spoke after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on the annual Friends of Ireland luncheon on the Capitol. McCarthy, who moreover has Irish ancestry, expressed an curiosity in working together with Biden — recounting how Republican President Ronald Reagan and Democratic House Speaker Tip O’Neill managed to take motion.

“I agree with the speaker, there’s no reason why we can’t find common ground. There’s no reason why we can’t hope to change this direction of the extremes in both parties are pushing,” Biden said.

“I think it’s important. I think it’s really important. And that’s the power of friendship. I think it’s the power of — it’s the strength of our partnership, if we work at it, and simply put, I think it’s the Irish of it.”

Biden’s meandering remarks didn’t instantly contact on rising stress from GOP investigators who say they should determine the president’s perform in a sequence of enterprise ventures relationship to his vice presidency and even earlier involving his son Hunter and brother James Biden in worldwide places along with China, Mexico, Russia and Ukraine.

Biden declined to host a joint press conference Friday with visiting Irish chief Leo Varadkar after moreover declining to do all through totally different present visits by world leaders, along with the go to of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on March 3 go to and Brazilian President  Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Feb. 10.

At one stage in his remarks Friday, Biden recounted meeting a corrupt Scranton political chief named “Paddy” as a toddler — noting humorously that the crooked pol always did what he said he would do.

Paddy was like “a late [Chicago] Mayor Daley, you know, brother-in-law on the payroll kind of thing,” Biden recalled — solely a day after House Republicans launched bank-record information on Biden family earnings from China to Hunter and James Biden, presidential daughter-in-lawn Hallie Biden and as well as an unnamed Biden.

Biden said he couldn’t understand how his grandfather — “Mr. Rectitude” — would invite such a shady character to hitch the family for lunch.

“You’re wondering why I like Paddy?” Biden’s grandfather supposedly said.

“He said…. let me tell you something, ‘He’d looked at you say, ‘Ambrose. I’m going to cut your heart out.’ And you know he’d mean it,” the president recalled.

“Or, ‘Ambrose, I’m going to jump off the bridge for you.’ Whatever he said, he’d do — just remember, do what you say. Do what you say.”