Biden has been noticeably irritable lately. Many have pointed to his failed mental state.
And now Joe Biden is furious after a Republican called him this one word.
House Speaker Mike Johnson called President Biden a “embarrassment” for appearing to apologize to Laken Riley’s accused killer rather than to the dead student’s family.
“The president is cowering to his base and showing deference to a man who deserves none. This man is an illegal immigrant who brutally murdered Laken Riley. President Biden should be apologizing to Laken’s family. What an embarrassment,” Johnson wrote on X on Sunday, responding to Biden’s interview with MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart that aired Saturday.
The president is cowering to his base and showing deference to a man who deserves none.
This man is an illegal immigrant who brutally murdered Laken Riley.
President Biden should be apologizing to Laken’s family.
What an embarrassment. pic.twitter.com/NhX0sxSbsM
— Speaker Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson) March 10, 2024
During an off-script moment in his State of the Union speech on Thursday, Biden, at the request of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., lamented Riley’s execution by “an illegal.”
During his interview with Capehart, the president later backtracked, saying he should have used the word “undocumented” to describe Jose Ibarra, a Venezuelan national accused of murdering Riley, an Augusta University nursing student who was out for a run on the University of Georgia campus last month.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement reported that Ibarra illegally crossed the border in El Paso, Texas, and was let into the country for further processing in September 2022.
A year later, he was arrested and freed in New York City on charges of endangering a kid.
The Athens-Clarke County Police Department confirmed that Ibarra and his brother were charged for theft in Georgia in October 2023, months before Riley was killed.
According to the affidavit filed on February 23, Ibarra is charged with the felonies of malice murder, murder, kidnapping, false imprisonment, aggravated assault, aggravated battery, and concealing the death of another, as well as the misdemeanor of physically impeding a 911 call. According to the criminal paperwork, Ibarra is accused of “disfiguring” Riley’s head.
“I shouldn’t have used illegal, I should’ve … it’s undocumented,” Biden told Capehart.
“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, what I won’t do. I’m not going to treat any, any, any of these people with disrespect. Look, they built the country.”
Notably, former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nomination front-runner, criticized Biden’s apologies during a rally.
Trump chastised Biden for confusing Riley’s first name with USC head football coach Lincoln Riley, claiming Biden “went on television and apologized for calling Laken’s murderer an illegal,” bringing boos from the audience.
Trump, who visited with Riley’s parents backstage at the rally, defended his use of language.
“They have a new name that’s even worse. You know what the new name is? Neighbor,” Trump said.
“A newcomer to our country … are we going crazy or what? Is this country going crazy? How about that one, ‘newcomer’ … no, he was an illegal. And I say he was an illegal alien. He was an illegal immigrant. He was an illegal migrant. And he shouldn’t have been in our country, and he never would have been under the Trump policy.”
During his State of the Union address, Biden addressed Riley’s parents and asked, “But how many thousands of people are being killed by legals?”
“To her parents, I say: My heart goes out to you. Having lost children myself, I understand,” he said.
Stay tuned to The Federalist Wire.
