Biden says he regrets using term 'illegal' to describe suspected killer of Laken Riley

ATLANTA (AP) — President Joe Biden said Saturday that he regrets using the term “illegal” during his State of the Union address to describe the suspected killer of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley.

In an interview with MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart on Saturday, Biden said, “I shouldn’t have used illegal, it’s undocumented.” The term was once common but is far less so today, particularly among Democrats who more fully embraced immigrant rights’ issues during Trump’s presidency.

The moment occurred Thursday night during an exchange in which Biden pressed Republicans in his address to pass a bipartisan border security deal that fell apart after Trump opposed it. U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a stalwart Trump ally, then shouted at the president to say the name of Laken Riley, the Georgia woman killed last month, adding she was killed “by an illegal.”