It is widely believed that the White House anticipated that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) would provoke Joe Biden to acknowledge Laken Riley during his State of the Union address and prepared him for it. Sure enough, he had a "Say Her Name: Laken Riley" button up at the lectern to use just for that moment. In the past, Democrats had cited Biden's off-the-cuff remarks during his State of the Union address as "proof" he's still sharp and has what it takes to be president. But, his Laken Riley moment at the State of the Union proved to be the gaffe that keeps on haunting him.
You can bet they were wishing they'd just told him to ignore it and not say a word.
The first problem with the planned moment was that he got her name wrong.
“Lincoln — Lincoln Riley,” Biden said when Greene kept shouting for Biden to say her name. Many were horrified that after weeks of pretending the story didn't exist, he failed to pronounce her name correctly. If Biden had hoped that the moment would help him by showing he understood the issue, he ruined it by getting her name wrong.
But, the moment didn't just enrage Republicans who blame his open border policies for Laken Riley's killer being in the country when he shouldn't have been. After botching her name, he described her as as "innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal.”
Now that got Democrats angry. Democrats came out of the woodwork, blasting Biden's use of the word "illegal" to describe Laken's illegal immigrant killer. Let's face it, facts have never been their strongpoint, but everyone from his own campaign co-chair to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi chided him for not using the word "undocumented."
Biden naturally had to clean up his mess, and, in an interview with MSNBC, he essentially apologized for using the word "illegal."
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“And I shouldn't have used illegal, I should've… It's undocumented. And look, when I spoke about the difference between Trump and me, one of the things I talked about on the border was his – the way he talks about vermin, the way he talks about these people polluting the blood. I talked about what I'm not going to do, and what I won't do," Biden told host Jonathan Capehart. "I'm not going to treat any, any, 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."
“So, you regret using that word?” Capehart asked.
“Yes,” Biden asked.
Sure enough, Biden stepped in it again, and his Laken Riley moment at the State of the Union continues to haunt him. Since his appearance on MSNBC, he's been criticized for apologizing to Laken Riley's killer, and now the White House is trying to deny he apologized. During a press gaggle aboard Air Force One on Monday, Principal Deputy Press Secretary Olivia Dalton told reporters, "I want to be really clear about something the president absolutely did not apologize. There was no apology anywhere in that conversation."
"He did not apologize," she continued. "He used a different word. I think, what's-what's what we should be really clear about is the facts. So in addition to the fact that, uhh you know, the President did not apologize, uuh, I want to make another thing clear. The president spoke directly to this in the State of the Union address not four nights ago, when he spoke passionately about knowing what it means to lose a child and extended his deep grief and condolences to Laken Riley's family in front of the entire country, in the...in the House chamber."
She went on to accuse Republicans of "playing politics" with Laken's murder and then touted the administration line that Republicans are "standing in the way of bipartisan border security."
Now the Biden admin is trying to spin that the president didn't actually apologize for calling Laken Riley's murderer an "illegal."
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) March 11, 2024
We all saw Biden do it.
Townhall will never apologize for telling the truth or for using the term illegal: https://t.co/vvIpfwxUqh pic.twitter.com/N5geiYSjAC
It's been four days since Biden's State of the Union, and the White House is still desperately trying to clean up a mess that just keeps spreading. One can only wonder how they're going to make it worse tomorrow.
