As Trump meets with Laken Riley's parents, Biden says he regrets calling her alleged killer 'illegal'
“I shouldn't have used 'illegal' as undocumented,” the president said during an interview with MSNBC.
(AFP)
President Joe Biden, during a conversation with host Jonathan Capehart, said that he regretted having used the term "illegal" to refer to the alleged murderer of the young Laken Riley, who died, according to prosecutors, at the hands of an undocumented Venezuelan immigrant in Georgia last February.
Capehart, in one part of the interview, questioned Biden for referring to the accused immigrant as an "illegal" during his State of the Union address. This criticism was sustained in various media outlets with a progressive editorial line in recent days.
"I noticed the look of surprise on your face when you walked into the chamber. You saw Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. It was priceless. You feigned shock at seeing her. But during your response to her heckling of you, you used the word illegal when talking about the man who allegedly killed Lakin Riley," Capehart said.
"I shouldn't have used 'illegal' as undocumented," Biden immediately responded.
"I'm not going to treat (…) any of these people with disrespect. Look, they built the country. The reason our economy is growing, we have to control the border and more orderly flow, but I don't share his view at all," Biden continued, referring to migrants and former President Donald Trump's rhetoric on illegal migration.
While Biden said he felt sorry for having called Riley's alleged murderer "illegal" on television, Trump himself, in Georgia, was meeting with the parents of the murdered young woman.
The situation generated numerous attacks against President Biden, who was harshly criticized on Friday by Laken Riley's mother, who questioned the president for mispronouncing her daughter's name during the State of the Union address.
"Laken Riley would be alive today if Joe Biden had not willfully and maliciously eviscerated the borders of the United States and set loose thousands and thousands of dangerous criminals into our country," stoked the former president during the event, where thousands of people showed a poster with a photo of Riley with the message "Say her name."
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