Biden stepped onto this political garden rake involving the 22-year-old nursing student, Laken Riley, who was murdered last month at the University of Georgia and is being blasted by both sides of the aisle.
Rep. Greg Steube of Florida Monday ripped Biden and mainstream media over the controversy of Biden calling the murder suspect, Jose Antonio Ibarra, an ‘illegal’ during the State of the Union address on Thursday.
“Biden, the mainstream media, and the radical left are more concerned about the fact that Biden called a murderer an “illegal” than they care about the woman he killed, or the fact that Biden has created the worst immigration and crime crises in our Nation’s history,” Steube said on X. “The ‘illegal’ comment was actually a small moment of truth in Biden’s speech. Laken’s murderer is an illegal by definition, and he should be referred to in that manner.”
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In an interview with MSNBC on Saturday, Biden expressed regret for calling an illegal immigrant, who is accused of brutally murdering Georgia nursing student Laken Riley, an “illegal.”
“During your response to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s heckling of you, you used the word ‘illegal’ when talking about the man who allegedly killed Laken Riley,” MSNBC News’ “That Saturday Show” Jonathan Capehart said.
“An undocumented person. And I shouldn’t have used ‘illegal.’ It’s ‘undocumented,’” Biden replied.
“So you regret using that word?” Capehart asked.
“Yes,” Biden replied.
As the Tampa Free Press reported last week, Biden, during the speech, held up the pin and then clearly stated, “Lincoln (Laken), Lincoln Riley (Laken Riley), an innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal. That’s right. But how many thousands of people are being killed by illegals?”
Many Democrats criticized Biden for using the term “illegal,” with some left-wing Democrats accusing the president of echoing Trump.
“There was a lot of good in President Biden’s speech tonight, but his rhetoric about immigrants was incendiary and wrong,” Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro posted on X, adding in a second post, “My guest for this year’s State of the Union was the widow of a North Texas rancher who was murdered by a neighbor who didn’t want Latinos living next door. Across Texas, many families can tell similar stories of hate and harassment inspired by the rhetoric of Donald Trump.”
“The rhetoric President Biden used tonight was dangerously close to language from Donald Trump that puts a target on the backs of Latinos everywhere,” Castro continued in a third post. “Democrats shouldn’t be taking our cues from MAGA extremism.”
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Democratic Sen. Laphonza Butler of California said Friday that President Joe Biden’s description of the alleged killer of nursing student Laken Riley as an “illegal” was “unfortunate.”
“It was clear, being in the chamber last night, that there were those extreme in the Republican Party who were trying to bait the president into responding to whatever heckle they were offering,” Butler told “Inside Politics” host Dana- Bash. “It‘s unfortunate that the president used that language. I don‘t believe that is the language that he believes in his heart about immigrant people who find their way to this country to make a better life for themselves and their families.”
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