VANITY FAIR
President Joe Biden walked back his use of the term “illegal” to describe an undocumented immigrant on Saturday, telling MSNBC host Jonathan Capehart, “I shouldn’t have used illegal. It’s undocumented.”
Biden’s use of the label came in a testy back-and-forth with Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene during his State of the Union address. Greene arrived at the speech donning a t-shirt that read “Say Her Name,” a phrase that stems from protests over the police killings of Black women. Greene had repurposed the slogan to protest the recent murder of Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student in Greene’s home state who was found dead in February.
An undocumented Venezuelan man has been charged in the murder, which has turned into a rallying point for hard-right conservatives, including former President Donald Trump, who is making unfounded claims of a “migrant crime” wave central to his 2024 bid.
Midway through Biden’s SOTU speech, Greene began to heckle, shouting, “What about Laken Riley? Say her name!” Biden then held up one of the buttons Greene had been handing out bearing Riley’s name. “Lincoln Riley, an innocent young woman who was killed,” he said, mispronouncing her first name. “By an illegal!” Green responded. Biden replied: “By an illegal, that’s right.”
