On Saturday night, Joe Biden and Donald Trump held competing rallies in Georgia. The current president spoke in the Atlanta area while the former and potentially future president spoke in Rome, where Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's district is located. Athens came up in a way too, though, where 22-year-old nursing student Laken Riley was murdered. An illegal immigrant, Jose Antonio Ibarra, has been charged with her murder, and has also been arrested for other crimes.
At Trump's rally, attendees held signs that showed Riley's face and said "Say Her Name!" Trump also met with members of Laken Riley's family. Her parents had been invited by Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA) to Thursday's State of the Union address, but decided to grieve at home during such an event.
Trump also brought up Riley quite forcefully during his speech. Not only did he call Biden out for his failure at the southern border, but he related it to Riley's death when it comes to how "Biden has no intention of stopping the deadly invasion that stole precious Laken’s beautiful American life." He then mentioned the young woman's family, saying "we are profoundly honored to be joined today by the family and loved ones of Laken," emphasizing "the whole group" of her friends and family members "is incredible," as he mentioned many of them individually by name. He also assured her loved ones that "we share your grief."
Stephen Miller, who was an adviser to the 45th president, also shared several excerpts from the speech as they related not just to the crisis at the southern border under Biden, but also Riley.
While Trump has always been regarded as strong and tough on illegal immigration, such excerpts as well as the overall feel of his speech and his response to the young woman's death seem to have invigorated him further on such a top issue.
Immigration is not merely a priority for Trump, but is a top issue or often the top issue along with the economy. Immigration also happens to be Biden's worst issue, according to RealClearPolling, as he has an approval rating of just 30.6, while 66 percent disapprove of his handling of immigration.
Greene, who spoke at the rally as well, also discussed Riley's murder. Footage from on the ground at the rally shows people booing at the mention of Biden getting her name wrong, when he referred to her as "Lincoln Riley" on Thursday night. Several people are also shown holding signs calling attention to the murdered young woman.
While Biden may have been praised by fellow partisan Democrats for Thursday's State of the Union address, gone was his sense of energy for subsequent campaign events, including in Pennsylvania and in Georgia.
Biden's made further news over Riley's murder when it comes with the release of his interview with MSNBC's Jonathan Capehart.
When Biden was confronted by Greene during Thursday's address--which is the only reason we heard Riley's name mentioned at all, given that her name did not appear in the remarks prepared for delivery--he dared to acknowledge that she "an innocent young woman who was killed, by an illegal, that's right!"
As we've been covering, Democrats and immigration activists reacted with outrage, not because a young woman had been murdered, but because Biden dared to use the term "illegal."
When it comes to how he addressed the matter in the interview from Saturday, the president didn't even let Capehart finish his question to do with Biden acknowledging on Thursday night that Riley's accused murderer is "an illegal" before he corrected him to say "undocumented person."
"And I shouldn't have used 'illegal,' I should have--it's undocumented," he continued.
Biden also took the opportunity to rant and rave about Trump. "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," he also said.
It's worth emphasizing that Biden was talking about the word choice used to described an alleged murder, with the victim having suffered a disfigured skull, but the president wanted to talk about not "disrespect[ing] anyone. "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," he claimed.
When Capehart went on to confirm "so you regret using that word" for daring to acknowledge Ibarra was here as "an illegal," Biden was clear in his "yes."
Biden's response beforehand, which came on Friday afternoon as he boarded Air Force One, was much less clear. Comments from White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre not long after and from campaign co-chair Mitch Landrieu earlier in the day also proved to be less than helpful.
During his Saturday night rally, to strong reaction from the crowd, Trump called Biden out for such an interview. To still more boos, Trump also pointed out the Biden administration wants to go with terms like "neighbor" and "newcomer" as he asked "are we going crazy, or what?! Is this country going crazy or what?!"
"And I say he was an illegal alien, he was an illegal immigrant, he was an illegal migrant, and he should never have been in our country and he never would have been under the Trump policy," Trump said to cheers. "And Biden should be apologizing for apologizing to this killer!"
President Trump BLASTS Biden and the left for being apologists for illegals, affirms that Laken Riley’s killer never would’ve been in the US if he was still president pic.twitter.com/TZKYs6zQTG
— RSBN 🇺🇸 (@RSBNetwork) March 9, 2024
On Saturday night, X was buzzing with all sorts of trends to do with the rally as well as Biden's poor handling of the immigration issue. Some of these trends have certainly been less than kind to the current president, including "What a POS," and "Biden is a POS."
The GOP X account has already shared a post of clips of Biden's interview with Capehart side by side with Trump's remarks from Saturday night's rally blasting the current president and sharing concern for Riley's family and loved ones.