President Joe Biden is saying he regrets using the word “illegal” in his State of the Union address to describe the immigrant who killed the 22-year-old Georgia nursing student last month.
During an interview with MSNBC, Biden walked back his word usage of “illegal” after being hit with strong criticism from the Democratic Party saying that he should have said “Undocumented person” instead.
“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. 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,” Biden said.
When host Jonathan Capehart asked if he regrets using the word “illegal,” Biden said “yes.”
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) criticized Biden, saying that he “Should have said undocumented” as well.
The Biden re-election campaign’s national co-chair, Mitch Landrieu also slammed the president’s choice of word.
“He probably should’ve used a different word and I think he would know that. But what you should notice about that is not that he made a small mistake,” Landrieu told CNN. “The big thing that he didn’t write, and this is what this president always does, is express empathy to people, he expressed kindness to people. He understands because, as you know, he lost a number of children in his life.”
Rep. Chuy Garcia (D-Ill) said that he was “Disappointed to hear President Biden use the word ‘illegal.’”
Meanwhile, Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) complained that Biden’s choice was “incendiary” and “wrong.”